With this ultimate 199 point SEO checklist you can easily find key SEO and other tech issues with the website that may be hampering the overall performance of the website. You will also uncover key features of the website in the process.
Feel free to connect with us for any clarifications that you may need with this checklist.
| A | B | D | E |
|---|---|---|---|
| Check | Grading | Tools | Completed |
| GOOGLE (13 checks) | |||
| Is Google Analytics Installed? | gachecker.com | Yes /No | |
| GA duplication check | GA Debug Extension | Yes /No | |
| Is Search Console setup? | GSC | Yes /No | |
| Are there any Search Console errors? | GSC | Yes /No | |
| Google cache analysis | cache:’ in browser | Yes /No | |
| Is there a sitemap.xml file? | Sitemap Check | Yes /No | |
| Is there a discrepancy between indexed pages in Google and Sitemap? | Check Sitemap in GSC and site:in Google | Yes /No | |
| Are any invalid pages in the sitemap? | Screaming Frog | Yes /No | |
| Are there any negative search results for the brand? | Google / Visual | Yes /No | |
| Are there any negative Google Autosuggest? | Google / Visual | Yes /No | |
| Is there a Google News sitemap.xml file? | GSC | Yes /No | |
| Any manual actions? | GSC | Yes /No | |
| Are there any crawl errors? | GSC | Yes /No | |
| BENCHMARKS (6 checks) | |||
| Total Pages Indexed in Google | Site: in Browser | Yes /No | |
| Total Number of Backlinks | diib/ Ahrefs | Yes /No | |
| Total Number of Linking Root Domains | diib/ Ahrefs | Yes /No | |
| Total Number of Organic Keywords | GSC / Ahrefs / SEMRush | Yes /No | |
| 20-50 Top Keyword Positions | GSC / Ahrefs / SEMRush | Yes /No | |
| Domain Age | webconfs.com/web-tools/domain-age-tool/ | Yes /No | |
| COMPETITION ANALYSIS (5 checks) | |||
| Top 3-5 competitors identified? | Client / SEMRush / Ahrefs | Yes /No | |
| Has the competition been benchmarked? | Visual / Export | Yes /No | |
| Competitor top 10 keywords | Visual / Export | Yes /No | |
| Competitor average search positions | Visual / Export | Yes /No | |
| Top ranking keywords | Visual / Export | Yes /No | |
| Competitor Content Analysis | Ahrefs Content Explorer | Yes /No | |
| SITE ARCHITECTURE (23 checks) | |||
| Site protocol checks | Most Crawling Tools | Yes /No | |
| Pagination checks | Screaming Frog | Yes /No | |
| Canonical checks | Screaming Frog | Yes /No | |
| Print version Noindexed? | Visual | Yes /No | |
| Has Internal Linking been classified on primary pages? | Screaming Frog / SEMRush | Yes /No | |
| Site Visualisation Checks | Screaming Frog / Sitebulb | Yes /No | |
| Internal redirects | Screaming Frog | Yes /No | |
| Redirect chains & Redirect loops | Screaming Frog | Yes /No | |
| Robots.txt present? | Visual | Yes /No | |
| Robots.txt review | Visual / SC | Yes /No | |
| Are pages being correctly blocked by Robots.txt? | Visual | Yes /No | |
| Are pages being correctly blocked by Meta Robots? | Screaming Frog | Yes /No | |
| Site Structure & Silo Use | Screaming Frog / Sitebulb | Yes /No | |
| Category Use (ecomm) | Visual | Yes /No | |
| URL naming convention – is this well optimised? | Most Crawling Tools | Yes /No | |
| Error Pages | Screaming Frog | Yes /No | |
| Is an HTML Sitemap in use? | Visual / Screaming Frog | Yes /No | |
| Are Tag Pages being used? | Most Crawling Tools | Yes /No | |
| Is the site using a crumb trail? | Visual | Yes /No | |
| Is primary navigation easy to use? | Visual / UX | Yes /No | |
| Footer navigation checks? | Visual | Yes /No | |
| Is all good content under 4 clicks from home? | Most Crawling Tools | Yes /No | |
| Menu setup and use | Visual | Yes /No | |
| TECHNICAL SEO CHECKS (32 checks) | |||
| Primary Protocol Use (HTTP / HTTPS)? | Most Crawling Tools | Yes /No | |
| Does the site have a valid SSL certificate? | Chrome / sslchecker.com | Yes /No | |
| Do all pages redirect from HTTP to HTTPS correctly? | Most Crawling Tools | Yes /No | |
| Is an HSTS policy in place? | securityheaders.com | Yes /No | |
| Does the site use Subdomains? | Most Crawling Tools | Yes /No | |
| Does the site carry a Favicon? | Visual | Yes /No | |
| Site Uptime | uptimerobot.com | Yes /No | |
| Broken / Redirected Internal Links | Most Crawling Tools | Yes /No | |
| Broken / Redirected External Links | Most Crawling Tools | Yes /No | |
| Javascript Use | Screaming Frog / Visual | Yes /No | |
| Is the .htaccess file configured correctly? | Visual | Yes /No | |
| Are Dynamic Pages being served correctly? | Most Crawling Tools | Yes /No | |
| Does the site have open dynamic pages that can be blocked? | From Crawl Data | Yes /No | |
| Malware & Security Checks | sitecheck.sucuri.net | Yes /No | |
| Blacklist check | mxtoolbox.com & ultratools.com/tools/spamDBLookup |
Yes /No | |
| Site Speed Checks | webpagetest.org / GTMetrix | Yes /No | |
| Are any pages being duplicated due to poor architecture? | Most Crawling Tools | Yes /No | |
| Structured Data & Schema Use | Google Testing Tool / SC | Yes /No | |
| Are there any Chrome Console Errors? | Chrome Inspect | Yes /No | |
| Is CSS being minified? | seositecheckup.com/tools/css-minification-test | Yes /No | |
| Is Inline CSS being used? | Visual | Yes /No | |
| Is every site page secure and without errors? | Screaming Frog | Yes /No | |
| Are there any canonical errors? | Most Crawling Tools | Yes /No | |
| Are all ads and affiliate links nofollowed? | Most Crawling Tools | Yes /No | |
| Can the site be crawled and used without Javascript on? | Chrome Web Developer Exension | Yes /No | |
| Server location by IP | iplocation.net | Yes /No | |
| Check all sites on webserver | viewdns.info/reverseip/ | Yes /No | |
| Do any pages have more than 100 external links? | Most Crawling Tools | Yes /No | |
| What platform is the site built on? | builtwith.com | Yes /No | |
| Does the platform come with known restrictions? | Research | Yes /No | |
| Is a CDN in use? | builtwith.com | Yes /No | |
| Check domain history | SEMRush / Wayback Machine | Yes /No | |
| IMAGE OPTIMISATION (7 checks) | |||
| How many images are used sitewide? | Most Crawling Tools | Yes /No | |
| Are images being optimised? | Most Crawling Tools | Yes /No | |
| Are ALT tags being regularly used? | Most Crawling Tools | Yes /No | |
| Are images named sympathetically? | Most Crawling Tools | Yes /No | |