SEO Audit Checklist: 30 Checks in the Right Order
Short answer: audit in order of what blocks rankings first. (1) Can Google crawl and index your important pages? (2) Does each page have a clear, unique title, heading and description? (3) Is the content original and genuinely useful, without thin or duplicate pages? (4) Is the page experience acceptable: speed, mobile, HTTPS? (5) Are pages well linked, inside and outside your site? (6) Is structured data valid? Use Google Search Console as the backbone, a crawler for site-wide checks, and fix issues in that order.
Each check below says what to look for and where to look. Mark it pass, fail or not applicable, then sort the fails by how many important pages they affect.
1. Crawling and indexing
Start here. Google’s basic requirements for a page to be indexed: Googlebot isn’t blocked, the page returns HTTP 200, and it has indexable content.
- robots.txt doesn’t block important pages or the CSS and JavaScript they need.
How to check: Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt; check Search Console → Settings → robots.txt report. · Guide - Important pages return 200, not redirects or errors.
How to check: Crawl the site and filter for 3xx, 4xx and 5xx. · Guide - No accidental noindex (meta tag or X-Robots-Tag header).
How to check: Search Console → Pages → “Excluded by ‘noindex’ tag”. · Guide - Each page has a self-referencing canonical, or one pointing to the right version.
How to check: URL Inspection shows the user-declared and Google-selected canonical. - Only one version of the site resolves: https, with or without www, not both.
How to check: Request http:// and the other host; both should 301 to your main version. · Guide - An XML sitemap lists only live, indexable, canonical URLs and is submitted in Search Console.
How to check: Search Console → Sitemaps; test the URLs in it. · Guide - The Page indexing report has no surprises: compare indexed pages with the pages you want indexed.
How to check: Search Console → Pages; read each “Why pages aren’t indexed” reason. · Guide - No manual action.
How to check: Search Console → Security & Manual Actions → Manual actions. · Guide
2. Page basics
Check every important template (home, category, product or article) and the top pages by traffic.
- Every page has a unique, descriptive <title>. Google sets no length limit but truncates long titles in results.
How to check: A crawler’s list of duplicate or missing titles. - Each page has a unique meta description that summarizes it.
How to check: Same crawl: duplicates and blanks. - One clear main heading that matches what the page is about; subheadings in a sensible order.
How to check: View the page outline in your crawler or browser tools. - Clean, readable URLs with words, not long parameter strings.
How to check: Scan the crawl list for odd parameters and session IDs. - Images have descriptive alt text and sensible file names.
How to check: Crawler report for missing alt. · Guide - Important content is in the HTML Google renders, not only behind clicks or tabs that load later.
How to check: URL Inspection → View crawled page.
3. Content quality
The biggest lever for most sites. Use Google’s own self-assessment questions.
- Each page gives original information or analysis, not a rewrite of other pages.
How to check: Read your top 20 pages against the current top results for their main query. - No near-duplicate pages competing for the same query.
How to check: Search Console → Performance: queries where several of your URLs swap places. - No thin pages: empty categories, tag archives, template pages where only a name changes.
How to check: Pages with zero impressions over 3–6 months. · Guide - Content is current: dates, prices, versions and screenshots are still right.
How to check: Review pages that lost clicks year over year first. - Clear authorship and an About page that explains who is behind the site.
How to check: Check templates for author names and links.
4. Page experience
Google says page experience helps, but relevant content comes first. Fix outright problems, don’t chase perfect scores.
- Core Web Vitals: LCP ≤ 2.5 s, INP ≤ 200 ms, CLS ≤ 0.1 for most real visits.
How to check: Search Console → Core Web Vitals; PageSpeed Insights for field data. · Guide - Pages work on mobile: readable text, tappable buttons, same content as desktop.
How to check: Test key templates on a real phone. - The whole site is on HTTPS with no mixed content.
How to check: Browser console warnings; crawl for http:// resources. · Guide - No intrusive pop-ups that cover the main content on arrival.
How to check: Visit key landing pages on mobile from a search result.
5. Links
Internal links help Google find and understand pages; external links bring authority and visitors.
- Every important page gets internal links from relevant pages, ideally within a few clicks of the homepage.
How to check: Crawler: pages with 0–1 internal links, and click depth. · Guide - No internal links point to redirects or 404s.
How to check: Crawler: internal links by status code. - Navigation and pagination use real <a href> links.
How to check: Disable JavaScript and click through. · Guide - Backlinks: no paid or manipulative link schemes; broken URLs with backlinks are redirected.
How to check: Search Console → Links; a backlink tool’s broken-backlinks report. · Guide
6. Structured data and search features
Optional, but it can make results richer.
- Structured data matches the visible content and passes the Rich Results Test.
How to check: Search Console → Enhancements reports. · Guide - Organization or WebSite data with your name and logo on the homepage.
How to check: Rich Results Test on the homepage. - Key question-style pages answer the question directly near the top, which suits featured snippets and AI answers.
How to check: Search the question and compare with what shows today. · Guide
Prioritize the fixes
- Fix first: anything that stops important pages from being crawled or indexed (blocks, noindex, errors, wrong canonicals), and manual actions.
- Fix next: problems on many pages at once, usually a template: missing titles, thin category pages, duplicate URLs.
- Then: content improvements to pages already ranking on page two, where a better answer can move them up.
- Last: polish such as small speed gains and extra structured data.
Do the first section automatically
The free sitemap checker finds your sitemap and tests 30 of its URLs live: HTTP status, redirects, noindex (meta tag and X-Robots-Tag header), canonical mismatches and robots.txt blocks. That covers the core of section 1 for the pages you told Google about. The rest of the list needs Search Console and a crawler.
Frequently asked questions
How do you perform an SEO audit?
Work from the foundation up: first make sure Google can crawl and index the pages you care about, then check each page’s title, headings and content, then speed, mobile and structured data, and finally links. Fix problems in that order, since nothing else matters for a page Google can’t index.
How often should I run an SEO audit?
A full audit once or twice a year, plus a quick check of Search Console’s Page indexing and Performance reports every month and after any redesign, migration or CMS change.
What tools do I need for an SEO audit?
Google Search Console is essential and free. Add a site crawler for titles, links and status codes, PageSpeed Insights for speed, and the Rich Results Test for structured data.
Can ChatGPT do an SEO audit?
An AI assistant can help you interpret findings or rewrite titles, but it can’t see your Search Console data or crawl your site the way Google does unless a tool feeds it that data. Base the audit on real reports.
What does an SEO audit involve?
Checking crawlability and indexing, on-page basics (titles, headings, descriptions), content quality, page experience (speed, mobile, HTTPS), internal and external links, and structured data, then ranking the fixes by impact.