Technical Seo Checklist

1. Basics

  1. Analytics installed
  2. Search engine properties set up
  3. Recommended: Run a site crawl

2. Crawling & Indexing

  1. URL is indexed
  2. Important content indexed
  3. Returns a 200 status code
  4. Indexable by robots meta tag and X-robots-tag
  5. URL not blocked by robots.txt file
  6. URL listed in XML sitemap file
  7. Sitemap file location defined in robots.txt
  8. Sitemap file submitted to search engines
  9. URL is discoverable via internal links/navigation
  10. Content is available at a single, canonicalized URL
  11. Google-selected canonical matches user-selected canonical
  12. No canonical/indexation mixed signal errors
  13. Friendly URL structure
  14. Content can be rendered with basic JavaScript
  15. Important CSS, JS, and images not blocked by robots.txt

3. Meta & Structured Data

  1. Page contains a title element
  2. Title contains important keywords visible in first 60 characters
  3. Title tag is unique
  4. Page contains a unique meta description
  5. Favicon defined
  6. OG and social metadata
  7. Structured data markup
  8. Uses max-image-preview:large setting

4. Content

  1. Content isn't substantially duplicate
  2. Content organized with hierarchical HTML tags
  3. Content is keyword-targeted
  4. Content doesn't violate Google's Quality Guidelines
  5. Avoids indivusive interstitials
  6. Avoids heavy ads above the fold
  7. Content isn't loaded in an iFrame
  8. Content isn't loaded in Flash
  9. Lazy-loaded content is visible in the viewport
  10. Supports paginated loading for infinite scroll
  11. Current publication and updated dates
  12. Clear who the author and/or publisher Is
  13. Content doesn't trigger Google Safe Search filters

5. Links & Navigation

  1. Links are crawlable
  2. Page doesn't link to broken pages (404)
  3. Links use descriptive anchor text
  4. Links are qualified when appropriate (nofollow, ugc, sponsored)
  5. Faceted navigation doesn't lead to duplicate content
  6. Paginated pages are clearly linked
  7. Page does not contain an excessive amount of links
  8. Page does not link to redirected chains

6. Images

  1. Images contain descriptive alt attributes
  2. Image heights and widths are defined
  3. Use descriptive titles, captions, filenames, and text for images
  4. Images don't contain important text
  5. Images are listed in image sitemaps

7. Video

  1. Video is available on a public, indexable page
  2. The video is wrapped within an appropriate HTML tag
  3. Video is included in the video sitemap
  4. Video schema markup

8. Mobile

  1. Passes Google Mobile-Friendly Test
  2. Preference for responsive web design
  3. Mobile content and links match the desktop site
  4. Special considerations for separate URLs

9. Speed

  1. Content fully loads within a reasonable time
  2. URL passes Google's Core Web Vitals assessment
  3. Address common speed traps

10. Security

  1. The site uses proper HTTPS
  2. Site supports HSTS
  3. No hacked content, malware, or other security issues

11. International & Multilingual Sites

  1. Signal location targeting
  2. Valid hreflang annotation
  3. Page language is obvious
  4. Avoid automatic redirection

12. Backlinks (Off-Page)

  1. URL has relevant backlinks
  2. Backlinks don't violate Google Guidelines
  3. Disavow file doesn't block important links