SEO Audit Checklist: 52 Checks and How to Fix Them

Add a unique <title> tag inside <head> that describes the page and includes its main keyword.

Keep titles between 30 and 60 characters so Google shows them in full. Put the main keyword near the start.

Add <meta name="description" content="..."> with a clear summary that makes people want to click.

Aim for 70 to 160 characters. Shorter descriptions waste space, longer ones get cut off in search results.

Add <link rel="canonical" href="https://yoursite.com/page"> pointing to the preferred URL of this page to prevent duplicate content.

If this page should rank by itself, its canonical tag should point to its own URL. Point it elsewhere only for true duplicates.

Remove "noindex" from the robots meta tag or the X-Robots-Tag header if you want this page to appear in Google.

Add <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> so the page displays correctly on phones. Google indexes the mobile version first.

Add a lang attribute to the <html> tag, for example <html lang="en">, so search engines and screen readers know the page language.

Add <meta charset="utf-8"> as the first tag inside <head> to avoid broken characters.

Add og:title, og:description, and og:image tags so links to this page look good when shared on Facebook, LinkedIn, and WhatsApp.

Add <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image"> so shares on X show a large preview image.

Add a favicon with <link rel="icon" href="/favicon.ico">. Google shows it next to your result on mobile.

Start the page with <!DOCTYPE html> so browsers render it in standards mode.

Add one <h1> heading that states the main topic of the page and includes its main keyword.

Use one H1 per page for the main title, and H2 to H6 for sections below it.

Do not skip heading levels (for example H2 straight to H4). A clean outline helps search engines understand your content.

Pages with fewer than 300 words are often seen as thin content. Add useful detail, examples, and FAQs that answer what searchers want.

Add a short, descriptive alt attribute to every meaningful image. It helps accessibility and image search rankings.

Set width and height attributes on images so the browser reserves space and the layout does not jump while loading (CLS).

Serve the site over HTTPS with a valid SSL certificate and redirect all HTTP traffic to HTTPS. Google uses HTTPS as a ranking signal.

The page should return status 200. Fix server errors, or redirect removed pages to a relevant live page.

Link directly to the final URL. Each extra redirect slows the page and wastes crawl budget.

Aim for under 800 ms. Use caching, a CDN, faster hosting, and fewer database queries per page.

Keep HTML under 500 KB. Remove inline data, unused markup, and large embedded scripts or styles.

Enable gzip or Brotli compression on your server. It usually shrinks HTML, CSS, and JS by 70% or more.

Add a robots.txt file at the root of your site that allows crawling and lists your sitemap.

Your robots.txt blocks this page. Remove or narrow the Disallow rule if you want it in search results.

Create a sitemap.xml, upload it to your site root, list it in robots.txt, and submit it in Google Search Console.

Add JSON-LD schema (Organization, Article, Product, FAQ, and so on) to become eligible for rich results in Google.

One of your JSON-LD blocks is not valid JSON, so search engines ignore it. Fix the syntax (commas, quotes, brackets).

Load every script, stylesheet, image, and iframe over https://. Browsers block or warn about http:// files on secure pages.

Send the Strict-Transport-Security header so browsers always use HTTPS for your domain.

Use short, lowercase URLs with hyphens between words, and avoid underscores and long query strings.

Combine or remove unused scripts and stylesheets. Fewer requests means a faster page.

Update or remove links that return 404 or server errors. Broken links hurt user experience and waste crawl budget.

Link to related pages on your own site. Internal links help Google discover pages and pass authority between them.

Keep links on a page under 300. Too many links dilute their value and can look spammy.

Replace empty or generic anchors like "click here" or "read more" with words that describe the target page.

Remove rel="nofollow" from links to your own pages so link authority flows through your site.

Give every page its own unique title. Duplicate titles make pages compete with each other and confuse Google about which one to rank.

Write a unique meta description for each page that summarizes what is different about it.

Update internal links to point straight to the final URL instead of a URL that redirects.

These pages are in your sitemap but no other page links to them. Add internal links from related pages so visitors and Google can find them.

Your sitemap lists URLs that return errors or redirect. A sitemap should only list live, final URLs that return 200.

Important pages should be reachable within 3 clicks of the homepage. Link to deep pages from menus, category pages, or the homepage.

These pages are hidden from Google on purpose with noindex. Check the list and remove noindex from any page you want to rank.

Include the target keyword in the title tag, ideally near the start.

Use the target keyword in the meta description. Google bolds matching words in search results.

Include the target keyword in the main H1 heading.

Use the keyword in the URL slug, separated by hyphens.

Mention the target keyword within the first 100 words of the content.