This is the complete SEO audit checklist used by professional agencies to audit any website. It covers every major ranking factor — from basic technical issues to AI search optimization. Click each item to check it off as you go.
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⚙️
Technical SEO (12 checks)
HTTPS enabled
Site loads on https:// with valid SSL certificate
HTTP redirects to HTTPS
All http:// URLs permanently redirect (301) to https://
Robots.txt exists
File at /robots.txt with correct directives — no important pages blocked
XML sitemap exists
Sitemap at /sitemap.xml, submitted to Google Search Console
Canonical tags present
Each page has a self-referencing canonical to avoid duplicate content
No broken links (404s)
All internal and external links return 200 status
Page speed: LCP < 2.5s
Largest Contentful Paint under 2.5 seconds (Core Web Vital)
Page speed: CLS < 0.1
Cumulative Layout Shift under 0.1 — no content jumping on load
Mobile-friendly design
Responsive layout, no horizontal scroll, readable text on mobile
Viewport meta tag
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
Structured data (Schema.org)
JSON-LD markup for Organization, Article, Product, or FAQ as relevant
No crawl errors in GSC
Google Search Console shows no 404s or server errors on indexed pages
📝
On-Page SEO (14 checks)
Title tag present
Every page has a unique <title> tag
Title length 50–60 characters
Not too short (weak) or too long (truncated in results)
Primary keyword in title
Target keyword appears near the start of the title tag
Meta description present
Each page has a unique, compelling meta description
Meta description 150–160 chars
Long enough to be compelling, short enough not to be truncated
Exactly one H1 per page
Not zero (missing), not multiple (confusing)
H1 contains primary keyword
Natural inclusion of target keyword in the main heading
H2–H6 logical hierarchy
Subheadings follow semantic order, no skipped levels
Images have alt text
All <img> tags have descriptive alt attributes
Open Graph tags
og:title, og:description, og:image for social sharing
Internal linking
Pages link to related content; no orphan pages
URL structure clean
Short, descriptive URLs with keywords, no query strings or dates
No keyword stuffing
Keywords used naturally — not repeated unnaturally throughout content
robots meta tag correct
No accidental noindex on important pages
📄
Content Quality (10 checks)
Minimum 300 words per page
Thin content pages rank poorly — key pages need 1,000+ words
Content matches search intent
Page answers the query the target keyword implies
No duplicate content
No pages with near-identical content (check with Copyscape or Siteliner)
Content updated regularly
Blog posts and key pages refreshed with current information
Readability score good
Sentences under 25 words, paragraphs under 4 lines, active voice
LSI keywords used
Related terms and synonyms appear naturally throughout content
Featured snippet optimized
Key questions answered in clear, concise format (ideal for AI Overviews)
Author/E-E-A-T signals
About page, author bios, credentials visible to build trust
Images compressed
Images under 200KB, WebP format preferred
Video/media enhances content
Embedded videos or infographics increase dwell time
🔗
Off-Page & Authority (6 checks)
Backlink profile healthy
No toxic backlinks; quality over quantity
Domain authority growing
Track DA/DR trend over time — should be stable or improving
Google Business Profile set up
For local businesses — verified, complete, with reviews
Social profiles linked
Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook linked from site footer
Brand mentions monitored
Unlinked brand mentions converted to backlinks
Competitor backlinks analyzed
Identify link opportunities from competitor backlink profiles
🤖
AI Search Optimization (5 checks)
AI bots not blocked
GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot allowed in robots.txt (unless intentional)
FAQ schema markup
FAQ pages use FAQPage schema — AI tools love pulling from structured data
Concise, quotable answers
Key questions answered in 40–60 word paragraphs — ideal for AI citations
Brand appears in AI answers
Search your brand in ChatGPT/Perplexity — are you being cited?
Topical authority established
10+ pieces of quality content on your core topic cluster
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