SEO Audit Checklist for 2026

This is the checklist we use internally at AuditCrawl. It covers every check our automated tool runs, organized by category. Use it as a manual reference or as a verification guide for automated audit results.

Technical SEO (10 checks)

• ☐ Site is served over HTTPS (not HTTP)
• ☐ HTTP → HTTPS redirect is in place
• ☐ www → non-www redirect (or vice versa) is consistent
• ☐ robots.txt exists and doesn't block important pages
• ☐ XML sitemap exists and is submitted to Google Search Console
• ☐ No broken internal links (404 errors)
• ☐ No redirect chains (A → B → C — should be A → C)
• ☐ Canonical tags are set on all pages (prevents duplicate content)
• ☐ Structured data (schema.org) is present on key pages
• ☐ Google Search Console is set up and verified

Content Quality (10 checks)

• ☐ Every page has a unique title tag (under 60 characters)
• ☐ Every page has a unique meta description (120-160 characters)
• ☐ No duplicate title tags across the site
• ☐ Every page has exactly one H1 tag
• ☐ Heading hierarchy is logical (H1 → H2 → H3, no skipped levels)
• ☐ No thin content pages (under 300 words for content pages)
• ☐ All images have descriptive alt text
• ☐ All images are compressed (under 200KB for content images)
• ☐ Images are served in WebP format where supported
• ☐ Open Graph tags (og:title, og:description, og:image) are set for social sharing

Check any page's meta tags instantly: free meta tag checker. Check heading structure: free heading checker.

Performance (5 checks)

• ☐ LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) is under 2.5 seconds
• ☐ CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) is under 0.1
• ☐ INP (Interaction to Next Paint) is under 200ms
• ☐ Google PageSpeed score is 90+ (desktop) and 70+ (mobile)
• ☐ No render-blocking CSS or JavaScript in the critical path

Test your speed: free page speed test.

Mobile & UX (5 checks)

• ☐ Site is fully responsive (not a separate m. subdomain)
• ☐ Viewport meta tag is set correctly
• ☐ Tap targets (buttons, links) are at least 48×48px
• ☐ Text is readable without zooming on mobile
• ☐ No horizontal scrolling on mobile viewports

How to use this checklist

Two approaches:

1. Manual audit: Work through each item using browser DevTools, Google Search Console, and the free tools linked above. Budget 4-8 hours for a thorough manual audit of a small site.
2. Automated + manual verification: Run a full AuditCrawl report (2-5 minutes, $7.99) which checks most items automatically, then manually verify the UX items that require human judgment (tap target sizes, text readability, horizontal scrolling).

The automated approach covers 25 of 30 items on this checklist. The remaining 5 (mobile UX items) require a human eye because they depend on design judgment, not just measurable metrics.

After the audit: prioritize fixes

Don't try to fix everything at once. Prioritize by impact:

1. Critical issues first — HTTPS, broken links, missing titles. These are actively hurting your rankings right now.
2. Quick wins second — meta descriptions, image alt text, sitemap submission. High impact, low effort.
3. Optimization last — speed tuning, schema markup, heading refinement. Important but not urgent.

A full AuditCrawl report automatically identifies content opportunities and provides an AI-generated content strategy — so you know exactly what to publish first.