FREE SEO Checklist
A simple list of tasks to get your website SEO corrected.
Below is a handy checklist of everything needed to do an initial SEO check and setup for a new or existing website.
Once the initial SEO work is done, this is an ongoing iterative process to continually correct and improve the SEO of your website.
If you prefer, you can simply download this checklist using the button below also.
Initial Work |
Campaign Goals Identified |
Keyword Research |
Keyword Allocation |
SEO Healthcheck |
Competitor Analysis |
Initial Rankings (set up tracking) |
On-Page SEO Audit |
Page Titles & Meta Data |
No duplicated title or metadata across multiple pages. |
Title tags are 50-65 characters. |
Title tags are not missing from any pages. |
Complete H1 tags on all pages |
H1 tags have not been duplicated across multiple pages. |
H1 tags are not missing from any pages. |
Pages do not have multiple H1 tags. |
Correct use of tags including H2, H3 etc. |
URL structure is simple, readable and mirrors the site hierarchy |
Image ALT and Title tags are being used throughout the site (include keywords, specific & not duplicated). |
The site copy is original. |
There is a decent amount of content on all pages of the site. |
There is no user-generated comments or other spam on the site (check forms). |
There are not any pages with keyword-stuffing on them. |
There are contact details/ a call to action above the fold |
Exact match keywords across pages inc. titles, meta, etc. |
Are breadcrumbs on-site? |
Check and fix any broken links |
CSS Stylesheet Minification |
Mobile-Friendly Test |
AMP Integration if relevant |
Favicon on all devices |
Initial blog added |
Ecommerce |
Main category page content completed. |
Product information is unique. |
Google Webmaster Tools Audit (& Bing webmasters) |
Webmasters account is set up. |
Parameter behaviour is specified properly |
The canonical version of the site specified |
XML sitemaps are uploaded to Webmasters |
Webmasters is not returning a large number of crawl errors. |
There is not a large difference between URLs indexed and the number of URLs receiving organic traffic |
All domain variations added. |
Preferred domain selected. |
The preferred country selected. |
Data Highlighter Tool Used |
Bing Webmaster tools setup inc. sitemap |
Bing month one error check |
Site Speed Audit |
Browser caching is enabled where possible. |
Gzip Compression is enabled where possible. |
There is not an excessive amount of requests for resources. |
Query strings have been removed from static resources. |
Images are compressed and correctly sized |
Code has been minified where it can be. |
The site does not have render-blocking JavaScript. |
The site is making use of HTTP2 |
Google Analytics Audit |
Google Analytics is implemented correctly. |
Adwords & Analytics Linked |
If old site, check for old pages that have received traffic |
Check for UK Traffic (spam) |
Set Up Named Views of data if required |
Conversions |
Contact Form Above Fold/On Landing Pages |
Goal Tracking Setup |
Thank You Page |
Contact Form Direct to Thank You |
Main Citations & Directories |
Google My Business Set Up |
Bing Local Setup |
Yelp |
Yell |
Scoot |
Free Index |
Europages |
Local Directories eg. Peterborough Today |
Thomson Local |
Use Moz Local for Any other citations & consistency |
Check All Existing Listings (using Google Webmasters) |
Social Media |
Facebook Set Up & Optimise |
Facebook Ads |
Facebook Pixel Set Up |
Twitter Setup & Optimise |
Instagram Set Up & Optimise |
Linkedin Setup & Optimise |
YouTube Set Up, post videos with keywords & URL in descriptions, and keywords in subtitles |
Pinterest Set-Up & Optimise |
Google Posts |
Any Industry Specific Social Media Accounts? |
Gather any image or video resources for use on social media posts |
Google Adwords Audit |
Adwords Setup |
Multiple Ad Groups Created |
Location Set |
Exact, Phrase and Broad Match Added (set at different bids) |
Sitelink Extensions |
Callout Extensions |
Call Extensions |
Any Other Relevant Extensions |
Multiple Ads Created |
Call Only Ad |
Keyword Insertion Ad |
Negative Keywords |
Mobile Bid Adjustments |
Location Bid Adjustments |
Bing Ads Set Up? Import Google Adwords Data |
Google Shopping Campaign |
Shopping Showcase if required |
Google Remarketing Campaign |
Google Display Ads |
Email Marketing |
Gather and upload audiences to email marketing software |
Build initial Email Marketing Campaign/template |
Technical SEO Audit |
Error pages return 404 status codes, or redirect appropriately. |
All URLs work with either HTTP or HTTPS, but not both. |
All URLs work with either www or without www, but not both. |
Canonical hostname redirects are implemented correctly. |
Self-referring Canonical tags are implemented on the site to prevent duplicate content. |
Canonical markup is indicating desired content correctly. |
The same content is being served to all user agents, including crawlers. |
The site is not cloaking content. |
Internal links function without JavaScript. |
Internal links do not go through 3xx redirects. |
Internal links do not return 4xx errors. |
Page copy is shown when fetch and rendered. |
The site does not rely on loading any important content via iframe. |
The site does not hide any important content in Flash. |
Google does not have a bloated index for the site. |
The site is not being duplicated due to any other domains or subdomains. |
URL patterns (or parameters) are not returning the same content. |
The site is making use of HTTPS (SSL Certification) |
Add new domains in Webmaster tools. |
Paginated content is marked up using rel=next. |
Google guidelines are being followed for infinite scrolling/JavaScript pagination |
The site is only using 301 redirects. |
JavaScript redirects are not being used. |
Meta refresh redirects are not being used. |
There are no internal redirect chains. |
There are no redirect chains on URLs with external links. |
The IP address is being redirected to the domain name |
The faceted navigation does not result in a large number of indexable/crawlable URLs. |
Nofollow links are used where and only where we want content not to be discovered. |
The meta directive noindex tag is used where appropriate to reflect what we want in the index. |
The Robots.txt exists and specifies the location of the main XML sitemap. |
The Robots.txt is only blocking content we do not want to be crawled. |
Mobile SEO Audit |
Mobile mark-up is implemented on the site if required. |
If dynamic serving is being used, the Vary-HTTP header is being used. |
XML Sitemaps Audit |
There are XML sitemaps. |
XML sitemaps contain all valid URLs on the site. |
Sitemaps do not contain functioning URLs that we want to keep out of the index. |
All URLs in sitemaps return 200 status codes. |
Sitemap are divided into different site sections. |
Structured Data |
Structured data validates correctly in GSC |
Structured data is being used where relevant. |
Schema mark-ups implemented across site |
International SEO Audit |
Hreflang has been implemented across all relevant sites and content. |
We are linking to all international content. |
The site has set Google Search Console region targeting appropriately. |
Google Search Console is not returning errors with the sites hreflang. |
The site isn’t using parameters to differentiate content language or targeting. |
Site Structure Audit |
There are fewer than ~200 – 300 links on important pages. |
Important content is ≤ 2 clicks from the homepage. |
Important pages get links from high authority internal pages where appropriate (>1 link per page). |
Internal linking reflects the priority of content. |
Both vertical and horizontal linking is being used. |
There are breadcrumbs on the site. |
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