SEO Checklist (2026): 90 Checks, Where to Look and How to Fix Each

Who this checklist is for

• Small business owners who run their own site on WordPress, Shopify, Wix, Squarespace or Webflow.
• Marketers who inherited a site and need to know what is broken first.
• Freelancers and agencies who want one client-ready list to audit from.

If you only need one part, use the deeper companion lists: the technical SEO checklist, the local SEO checklist, or your platform's list for WordPress, Shopify, Wix or Squarespace.

The SEO checklist, section by section

1. Setup and basics

1. Verify a Domain property in Google Search Console (DNS TXT record). It covers http, https, www and subdomains in one view.
2. Set up Bing Webmaster Tools with the one-click import from Search Console.
3. Make sure analytics records organic visits and key events (purchase, form, call).
4. Serve the whole site on HTTPS, with http 301-redirected.
5. Keep one host: www or non-www, never both live.
6. Check robots.txt blocks nothing you want found. To keep a page out of Google, use noindex: Google has to crawl a page to see the noindex (Google).
7. Submit an XML sitemap that lists only live, indexable, canonical URLs. One file holds up to 50,000 URLs or 50 MB, and Google ignores <priority> and <changefreq> (Google).
8. Keep staging copies behind a password.
9. Write down your 5 to 10 money pages. Every check starts there.

Want every Search Console report audited? Use the Search Console audit checklist. Auditing one page and want to tick items off in your browser? Use the free SEO audit checklist tool.

2. Keyword research

Start with the queries you already show for. In Search Console, open Performance, last 3 months, Queries, and add the Position column. Queries at position 8 to 20 with real impressions are your first targets: Google already sees you as relevant. Then confirm intent by searching each keyword in a private window. If the top 5 results are buying guides, a product page will not rank for it. Give every keyword one target page; two pages chasing one query split the clicks.

3. On-page SEO

Google sets no character limit for titles or meta descriptions. It cuts them to fit the screen and may rewrite them (titles, snippets). Put the important words first. Ready-made patterns: title and meta swipe file.

4. Technical SEO (short version)

Check that money pages are indexed (URL Inspection), carry no accidental noindex, self-canonicalise, work on a phone, and pass Core Web Vitals: LCP under 2.5 seconds, INP under 200 milliseconds, CLS under 0.1 (Google). Fix 404 links, redirect chains and server errors. For the full pass (rendering, logs, architecture, hreflang), use the technical SEO checklist. If pages are "Crawled, currently not indexed" or "Discovered, currently not indexed", the indexing problems fix guide covers every reason.

5. Content

Google's systems aim to reward helpful, people-first content (Google). In practice: open the top 3 results for your keyword, list what they miss, and add it from your own experience. Put the answer in the first 2 sentences. Show who wrote it. Refresh pages that lost clicks before writing new ones. AI help is fine; mass-producing pages without added value breaks Google's scaled content abuse policy (Google).

6. Links

Find who links to you (Search Console > Links), 301 any linked page that now returns 404, claim the directories real buyers use, and turn unlinked brand mentions into links. Mark paid links with rel="sponsored". For links inside your own site, use the internal linking playbook.

7. Local

If you serve customers in an area: claim your Google Business Profile, use the same name, address and phone everywhere, build one real page per location, and ask for reviews. Full list: local SEO checklist.

8. AI search visibility

Google says there are no extra requirements for AI Overviews or AI Mode: a page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet, and clicks from AI features count inside the normal Web totals in Search Console (Google). For other assistants, check robots.txt and your CDN's bot settings. OpenAI says sites that block OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers (OpenAI). Google-Extended controls Gemini training and grounding and does not affect Google Search inclusion or ranking (Google). Then state key facts as plain sentences ("Northwind Outdoors ships to the US and Canada, free over $75") so they can be quoted.

9. Measurement

Save a dated baseline before you change anything. Log every change with its date. Judge results 28 days after Google recrawls the page, not 3 days after you publish. Report non-brand clicks and organic conversions monthly: the monthly SEO report template is built for that.

Sample from the spreadsheet

Three real rows from the Checklist tab:

SEO myths this checklist leaves out

Many checklists that rank today still repeat rules Google does not use. Ours skips them:

• "Titles must be under 60 characters." No limit; Google truncates by screen width.
• "Keep keyword density at 1 to 2 percent." There is no density target (SEO Starter Guide).
• "Only one H1 per page." Several H1s are not a Google problem.
• "Add FAQ schema for rich results." FAQ rich results show only for well-known government and health sites; HowTo rich results are gone (Google, 2023).
• "AI Overviews need llms.txt or special markup." Google says no.

How to prioritise the 90 checks

1. Week 1, blockers: Search Console, robots.txt, noindex, indexing of money pages, HTTPS, one host.
2. Weeks 2 to 4, quick wins: titles and descriptions on pages with high impressions and low CTR, queries at position 8 to 20, broken links.
3. Month 2, content: refresh decayed pages, fill keyword gaps, add first-hand detail.
4. Ongoing: links, AI visibility tracking, monthly report.

Use SEOmatic to run the 2026 SEO checklist (seomatic.ai/resources/seo-checklist) on mysite.com.

1. Run check_site on mysite.com and tell me the verdict.
2. Run connect_seomatic so you can use my Google Search Console data. Then run get_started.
3. Setup and technical: run site_audit. Use gsc_insights (action sitemaps) and gsc_indexing (action batch_inspect) on my 10 most important pages (from gsc_performance action top_pages, last 3 months). Report which pages are not indexed and why.
4. Keywords: use gsc_performance (action top_queries) to list queries at average position 8 to 20 with real impressions, and gsc_insights (action cannibalization) for queries where two of my pages compete.
5. On-page: run site_pages (action analyze) on my 5 most important pages. Use gsc_insights (action ctr_outliers) to find pages with far fewer clicks than their position should earn.
6. Content: use gsc_performance (action compare_periods) to list pages that lost the most clicks versus the previous period. Check gsc_insights (action seasonality) before calling a drop real.
7. AI search: say whether check_site found AI search crawlers blocked in robots.txt, and read ai_citations (action scan_results) if a scan exists.
8. Give me a table: checklist section | check | pass or fail | evidence (with the date window) | proposed fix.
9. For each failing check that can be fixed on a page, stage the fix with task_manage (action create) as a proposal. Then show me the proposals with show_approval_cards. Do not approve or execute anything yourself.