================================================================ SEO AUDIT CHECKLIST 2026 — 52 Items Source: https://seoscore.tools/blog/seo-audit-checklist-pdf/ License: CC BY 4.0 — use freely, attribution appreciated ================================================================ # 1. META TAGS & ON-PAGE SEO (12 items) [ ] Title tag present, 30-60 characters, primary keyword in first 30 [ ] Meta description present, 120-160 characters [ ] One H1 per page, 40%+ word overlap with title [ ] H2/H3 hierarchy clean (no skipped levels) [ ] Canonical tag present and correct [ ] Robots meta tag explicit (index, follow) [ ] Viewport meta tag present (mobile-friendly) [ ] UTF-8 charset declared [ ] HTML lang attribute set [ ] Theme color meta tag set [ ] No meta refresh redirects (use 301 instead) [ ] No duplicate titles or descriptions across pages # 2. TECHNICAL SEO & INDEXABILITY (10 items) [ ] HTTPS active, HTTP redirects to HTTPS (301) [ ] HSTS header set (max-age 31536000, includeSubDomains) [ ] X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff [ ] X-Frame-Options or CSP frame-ancestors set [ ] robots.txt valid at /robots.txt, includes Sitemap directive [ ] XML sitemap at /sitemap.xml, submitted to GSC + Bing [ ] Hreflang set if multilingual (incl. x-default) [ ] No render-blocking scripts in (use defer/async/module) [ ] IndexNow integration set up [ ] DNS-prefetch + preconnect for 3rd-party domains # 3. SCHEMA & STRUCTURED DATA (8 items) [ ] JSON-LD validates (no syntax errors) [ ] Organization schema with sameAs (LinkedIn/GitHub/Wikipedia) [ ] WebSite schema with SearchAction [ ] BreadcrumbList on every non-home page [ ] Article or BlogPosting on content pages [ ] FAQPage schema on Q&A blocks (3-5 Q&A pairs) [ ] Person schema for authors with credentials + sameAs [ ] SpeakableSpecification on lede + Quick Answer blocks # 4. PERFORMANCE & CORE WEB VITALS (8 items) [ ] LCP under 2.5s [ ] CLS under 0.1 [ ] INP under 200ms [ ] TBT under 200ms [ ] TTFB under 800ms [ ] Web fonts use font-display: swap [ ] Images modern format (WebP/AVIF) with alt text [ ] Page size under 1.5 MB initial load # 5. AEO — ANSWER ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (8 items) [ ] robots.txt Allow's GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended [ ] llms.txt deployed at /llms.txt (200-400 lines) [ ] FAQPage schema on top 10 pages [ ] SpeakableSpecification on homepage + content pages [ ] Quick Answer / TL;DR block in first 100 words [ ] Author byline with credentials + Person schema [ ] Citation-ready facts with source attribution [ ] Short paragraphs (20-80 words), clear definitions # 6. GEO — GENERATIVE ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (6 items) [ ] Content depth (pillar 3k+ words, supporting 1.5k+ words) [ ] External source diversity (5+ unique domains per article) [ ] Multi-perspective writing (consider counter-arguments) [ ] Explicit conclusion / recommendations section [ ] Visuals with descriptive alt text [ ] Topical authority cluster (15+ interlinked articles per topic) ================================================================ Run automated against seoscore.tools/ to score 260+ checks in 30s. ================================================================