Technical SEO Repair, Rebrand QA, Content Refinement, Local SEO for WordPress/WP Engine Website

ABOUT NORTHMARK SIGN NorthMark Sign is an established architectural signage company created through the consolidation and rebranding of Bailey Sign and Welch Sign. NorthMarkSign.com is already live on WordPress and WP Engine. BaileySign.com and WelchSign.com have already been transitioned, and 301 redirects are already in place. We are not looking to rebuild the migration, create new pages, expand the website’s content, or begin an ongoing monthly SEO program. We need an experienced technical SEO and WordPress implementation specialist to complete the highest-priority corrections on the existing website. FIXED PRICE Total fixed price: $1,500 This is a tightly defined first phase. Payment will be based on implementation and proof of completion, not on delivery of a general audit. The selected contractor may be considered for later phases involving analytics, accessibility, local SEO, Google Business Profiles, citations, and additional technical work. Those items are not included in this phase. PRIMARY OBJECTIVE Correct the highest-impact problems already present on the website by: 1. Cleaning up NorthMark’s search-facing titles, metadata, and branding. 2. Repairing crawlability and navigation problems involving the News, Portfolio, homepage, and other important existing pages. 3. Completing the titles, images, navigation, formatting, and technical SEO of the three existing buying guides. 4. Performing a limited quality-control review of the existing Bailey and Welch redirects, canonicals, sitemap, and indexing settings. This is an implementation project. We do not want an audit that leaves NorthMark responsible for making the corrections. SCOPE OF WORK 1. BASELINE CRAWL AND LIMITED MIGRATION VALIDATION The contractor will: • Crawl all publicly accessible and indexable HTML pages on NorthMarkSign.com. • Identify internal broken links, redirecting internal links, canonical conflicts, accidental noindex settings, sitemap problems, and important crawlability issues. • Verify that the HTTP, HTTPS, www, and non-www versions resolve consistently to the approved NorthMark domain. • Test up to 40 priority BaileySign.com and WelchSign.com legacy URLs. • Confirm that the tested legacy URLs use permanent, one-hop redirects to an appropriate existing NorthMark page. • Correct redirect loops, chains, 404 destinations, malformed redirects, or clearly incorrect destinations found within the tested group. • Verify that the NorthMark XML sitemap contains canonical, indexable URLs returning a 200 status. • Verify the relevant Google Search Console property and current sitemap submission. This is a limited validation and correction assignment. A complete rebuild of every historic Bailey and Welch redirect is not included unless separately approved. 2. NORTHMARK BRANDING, TITLES, AND SEARCH APPEARANCE The contractor will correct global template settings and up to 30 priority URLs approved by NorthMark. The priority URL list will include the homepage, News, Portfolio, major navigation pages, the three buying guides, transition pages, and other important existing pages. Review and correct, where applicable: • SEO title tags • Meta descriptions • Page H1 headings • Open Graph titles and descriptions • Social-sharing titles and images • Canonical tags • Relevant structured-data fields • Navigation labels • NorthMark capitalization • Obvious spelling errors • Visible placeholder text • Unintended references to Bailey Sign or Welch Sign Approved historical references on the About page and approved Bailey/Welch transition pages may remain. The contractor must not automatically remove legitimate historical references. No substantial rewriting or expansion of page content is required. 3. NEWS, PORTFOLIO, AND INTERNAL NAVIGATION REPAIR The contractor will verify and correct the crawlability and functionality of the existing News and Portfolio sections. Requirements include: • Every visible News, article, buying-guide, and project card must contain a direct, crawlable HTML link to its canonical page. • Links should not depend exclusively on JavaScript, filtering, hovering, or user interaction to become discoverable. • News and Portfolio archive content must be discoverable in a standard crawl beginning at the homepage. • Existing category buttons, filters, search functions, and pagination or load-more behavior must be tested. • Homepage cards, service cards, industry cards, project cards, calls to action, desktop navigation, mobile navigation, and footer navigation must be tested. • Links that unintentionally open JPG files, media-attachment pages, broken pages, redirected URLs, or noncanonical URLs must be corrected. • Important internal links should lead directly to a canonical URL returning a 200 status. • Any visible card that is not intended to be clickable must not appear or behave as though it is a broken link. No new industry, service, geographic, project, or archive pages are required. When an existing item has no appropriate destination, NorthMark and the contractor will agree whether to: • Link it to an appropriate existing page; • Link it to an approved section of an existing page; or • Remove the link behavior. 4. COMPLETE THE THREE EXISTING BUYING GUIDES This phase includes the following existing guides: • Monument Signs Buying Guide • Electronic Message Centers Buying Guide • Channel Letters and Exterior Lettering Buying Guide The contractor will finish and standardize these existing pages without substantially expanding or rewriting their content. BUYING GUIDE TITLES AND METADATA For each guide, correct and standardize: • On-page title • H1 heading • SEO title • Meta description • URL display and canonical • News archive title • Buying Guides category assignment • Breadcrumb title • Open Graph title and description • Social-sharing image • Article or BlogPosting structured data • Published and last-updated information where appropriate BUYING GUIDE IMAGES Using NorthMark’s existing image library, the contractor will: • Select or confirm an appropriate hero image for each guide. • Replace temporary, duplicated, unrelated, poorly cropped, or incorrectly sized images. • Confirm that images display correctly on desktop, tablet, and mobile. • Add accurate, natural alt text. • Set appropriate image dimensions. • Compress oversized images without visibly reducing quality. • Configure the correct social-sharing image. • Prevent images from being unnecessarily distorted or stretched. • Avoid serving an image at dimensions substantially larger than its displayed size. NorthMark will approve the primary hero image selected for each guide. New photography, custom illustration, and substantial graphic design are not included. BUYING GUIDE NAVIGATION For each guide, the contractor will: • Create or correct the table of contents. • Make every table-of-contents link move to the correct section. • Correct heading anchor IDs. • Correct all “back to top” links. • Add working links between the three buying guides. • Replace literal instructions such as “link to blog” or “link to channel letter guide” with the actual working links. • Add appropriate links to existing NorthMark service or project pages where the guide already references those topics. • Confirm that every internal link leads directly to a canonical URL returning a 200 status. • Provide a clear route back to the News or Buying Guides archive. • Confirm that all three guides appear correctly in the existing Buying Guides navigation or filter. BUYING GUIDE QUALITY CONTROL The contractor will correct: • Duplicate introductions • Repeated paragraphs or content blocks • Empty headings • Visible editorial instructions • Placeholder copy • Broken links • Duplicate anchor IDs • Obvious spelling and punctuation errors • Inconsistent NorthMark capitalization • Unapproved Bailey or Welch references • Clearly inconsistent heading levels • Formatting problems affecting readability This does not include a substantive rewrite, new research, new sections, or major content expansion. 5. TECHNICAL QA AND PROOF OF COMPLETION All substantial changes must first be completed in staging where practical. Before production deployment, the contractor must: • Create or confirm a current backup. • Maintain a detailed change log. • Obtain approval before changing any URL or slug. • Obtain approval before installing any new plugin. • Avoid changing the existing caching or performance configuration without approval. NorthMark currently has excellent Lighthouse performance. The contractor must preserve that performance and must not activate NitroPack or add another speed-optimization system without demonstrating a specific need and receiving written approval. REQUIRED FINAL DELIVERABLES The contractor must provide: 1. A before-work crawl export. 2. An after-work crawl export. 3. A URL-level change log showing exactly what was changed. 4. A list of the 30 priority URLs reviewed. 5. A list of the legacy redirects tested and their final status. 6. Desktop and mobile screenshots of all three completed buying guides. 7. A test sheet for every buying-guide table-of-contents link, back-to-top link, and related-guide link. 8. Structured-data validation results for all three guides. 9. A list of any remaining exceptions or issues outside the agreed scope. 10. A short screen-recorded walkthrough of the completed work. 11. Confirmation that all approved changes are live on the production website. 12. Backup and rollback information for any code, template, plugin, or configuration change. ACCEPTANCE REQUIREMENTS The project will be considered complete when all of the following have been verified: TECHNICAL AND MIGRATION • The approved NorthMark domain version resolves consistently. • No redirect loop exists within the tested legacy URL group. • No tested legacy URL passes through more than one redirect unless NorthMark approves a documented exception. • The NorthMark XML sitemap contains only approved canonical and indexable URLs returning a 200 status. • No critical canonical, robots, sitemap, or indexability issue remains within the agreed scope. BRANDING AND METADATA • The 30 approved priority URLs have been reviewed. • No unapproved Bailey or Welch wording remains in their SEO titles, meta descriptions, Open Graph data, or relevant schema. • NorthMark capitalization is consistent within the corrected elements. • The homepage, News page, Portfolio page, and three buying guides have approved titles and metadata. • Approved historical and transition-page references remain intact. NAVIGATION AND CRAWLABILITY • Every visible News and Portfolio item contains a direct crawlable link to its canonical page. • The existing articles, buying guides, and project pages can be discovered through a standard crawl beginning at the homepage. • No tested navigation item unintentionally opens an image file or media-attachment page. • No site-generated internal link within the corrected templates returns a 4XX or 5XX status. • Corrected internal links do not pass through avoidable redirects. • Desktop and mobile navigation have been tested. BUYING GUIDES • All three buying guides have approved titles, hero images, metadata, and social-sharing images. • No literal link instructions or visible editorial placeholders remain. • Every table-of-contents link works. • Every back-to-top link works. • Every related-guide link works. • No approved guide contains duplicated introductory content. • Images display properly on desktop, tablet, and mobile. • The guides appear correctly in the existing News and Buying Guides navigation. • Relevant Article or BlogPosting and Breadcrumb structured data passes validation without critical errors. PERFORMANCE AND FUNCTIONALITY • No material performance regression has been introduced. • No approved form, navigation item, filter, button, or call to action has been broken by the contractor’s changes. • No visual regression has been introduced on desktop or mobile. PAYMENT MILESTONES Milestone 1 — Baseline and Approved Work List: $225 Released after delivery of: • Initial crawl • Proposed 30 priority URLs • Proposed legacy redirect sample • Specific implementation list • Confirmation that the contractor can complete the implementation within the fixed price A generic SEO audit will not satisfy this milestone. Milestone 2 — Completed Live Implementation: $1,050 Released after: • All approved corrections are implemented on the production website • All three buying guides are completed • Navigation and archive corrections are live • Metadata and branding corrections are live • Limited migration corrections are live Milestone 3 — Final QA and Documentation: $225 Released after: • NorthMark independently verifies the work • Final crawl and change log are delivered • Any punch-list corrections are completed • Final screenshots, validation results, and recorded walkthrough are delivered OUT OF SCOPE FOR THIS PHASE This phase does not include: • Creating new service pages • Creating new geographic pages • Creating new industry pages • Creating new project case studies • Creating new buying guides • Substantial content expansion or rewriting • Google Business Profile work • Local citation cleanup • Bing Places or Apple Business work • Backlink outreach • Ongoing monthly SEO • Blog production • Paid advertising • Social media management • A complete analytics rebuild • A formal accessibility audit • Website redesign • Broad speed optimization • NitroPack activation • Mass directory submissions • Purchased links PREFERRED TIMELINE Approximately 10–14 business days from receipt of all required access. Applicants should not accept the project if they cannot implement and verify the work within the fixed $1,500 budget. APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS Please provide: 1. Confirmation that you accept the $1,500 fixed-price scope and milestone structure. 2. Your proposed completion timeline. 3. Two examples of WordPress technical SEO work that you personally implemented. 4. An example of a WordPress archive, card, filter, or JavaScript crawlability problem you corrected. 5. An example of an existing long-form article or buying guide that you properly formatted and optimized. 6. Confirmation that you can make WordPress template or theme corrections when required. 7. The crawling and validation tools you will use. 8. One specific problem you currently observe on NorthMarkSign.com and how you would prove that it had been corrected. 9. Confirmation that this will be an implementation engagement, not an audit-only engagement. Generic proposals, monthly content packages, link-building packages, and proposals centered on creating new pages will not be considered.