SEO Audit Checklist: 25 Things to Check on Every Page
An SEO audit doesn’t have to be a 60-page document. Most ranking problems come from a short list of issues that are easy to test and usually easy to fix. This checklist covers the 25 checks we run on every page, grouped by what they protect. Work through it manually, or let a website SEO audit run all 25 across your site in a few minutes.
Indexing: can search engines find and keep the page?
These checks carry the most weight, because a failure can remove a page from search results entirely.
1. The page returns 200 OK
Test: load the URL in an SEO checker or your browser’s network panel. Fix: repair server errors, restore deleted pages, or 301-redirect moved pages to their replacement.
2. No noindex directive
Test: look for noindex in the robots meta tag and in the X-Robots-Tag response header. Fix: remove it from pages that should rank — check your CMS and SEO plugin settings, where it is often switched on by accident.
3. robots.txt allows the page
Test: open /robots.txt and check that no Disallow rule matches the page path for Googlebot or all crawlers. Fix: narrow or remove the rule. Remember that robots.txt blocks crawling, not indexing — use noindex for pages you want out of results.
4. A self-referencing canonical tag
Test: find <link rel="canonical"> in the head and confirm it points to the page’s own preferred URL. Fix: add one, use an absolute URL, and make sure there’s only one.
5. HTTPS with a valid certificate
Test: the page loads over https:// without warnings, and http:// redirects to it in one hop. Fix: install a free certificate and add a site-wide 301 redirect.
6. An XML sitemap that’s listed in robots.txt
Test: open /sitemap.xml (or the URL in robots.txt) and confirm it’s valid XML listing your important pages. Fix: generate one with your CMS or SEO plugin, add a Sitemap: line to robots.txt and submit it in Search Console.
Relevance: does the page clearly say what it’s about?
7. One unique title of 50–60 characters
Test: read the title tag and count its characters. Fix: lead with the main topic, add the benefit, end with your brand. Make every page’s title unique.
8. A meta description of 140–160 characters
Test: check that the description exists, is unique and fits the length. Fix: summarize the page and give a reason to click. Avoid repeating the title word for word.
9. Exactly one H1
Test: count the H1 elements and read their text. Fix: keep one H1 that matches the page topic; turn other big headings into H2s. Watch out for themes that wrap the logo in an H1.
10. A logical heading outline
Test: list the headings in order and look for skipped levels or a wall of text without H2s. Fix: structure the page into sections that mirror the questions people ask.
11. Enough content to answer the query
Test: count the visible words and compare your page with the pages that rank for the same keyword. Fix: expand thin pages with genuinely useful information, or merge them into a stronger page.
Quality and links: is the page well maintained?
12. No broken links
Test: request every link on the page and look for 404, 410 and 5xx responses. Fix: update or remove broken links; redirect missing internal pages to their best replacement.
13. No redirect chains
Test: follow the page’s redirects and count the hops. Fix: link to final URLs directly and make every redirect a single hop.
14. Alt text on meaningful images
Test: find images without an alt attribute. Fix: describe each meaningful image briefly; use an empty alt="" only for decoration.
15. Enough internal links
Test: count links to other pages on your own site, and check that important pages receive links from your navigation or content. Fix: add contextual links with descriptive anchor text.
16. No mixed content
Test: on HTTPS pages, look for images, scripts or stylesheets loaded over http://. Fix: switch every resource URL to https.
Speed: does the page load quickly?
17. Server response under 800 ms
Test: measure time to first byte. Fix: add page caching, a CDN or faster hosting; optimize slow database queries.
18. Text compression enabled
Test: check the Content-Encoding response header for gzip or br. Fix: enable compression in your server, control panel or CDN.
19. No render-blocking scripts in the head
Test: look for <script src> tags in the head without defer or async. Fix: add defer, move non-critical scripts down, inline critical CSS.
20. Images declare width and height
Test: find images without dimensions. Fix: add width and height attributes or a CSS aspect-ratio so the layout doesn’t jump.
21. Reasonable HTML size and lazy loading
Test: check the HTML size and whether below-the-fold images use loading="lazy". Fix: remove inline bloat and lazy-load images further down the page — but not the main hero image.
Mobile, sharing and rich results
22. A mobile viewport tag
Test: look for <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">. Fix: add it to your template.
23. A language attribute and favicon
Test: check <html lang> and a <link rel="icon">. Fix: set the language code and add a square icon of at least 48×48 pixels.
24. Open Graph and Twitter Card tags
Test: look for og:title, og:description, og:image and twitter:card. Fix: add them with a 1200×630 image so shared links look professional.
25. Valid structured data
Test: find JSON-LD blocks and confirm they parse and use the right types (Organization, Product, Article, LocalBusiness, BreadcrumbList). Fix: add markup for your page type and validate it with Google’s Rich Results Test.
Site-wide checks to add when auditing many pages
When you audit a whole site rather than one page, add three comparisons that single-page checks can’t make:
- Duplicate titles — several pages competing for the same query.
- Duplicate meta descriptions — results that look identical in search.
- Broken internal links across the site, with the page each one was found on.
How to use this checklist efficiently
Running 25 checks by hand on every page doesn’t scale. A practical routine is:
- Run an automated audit to get the full list of failing checks and affected pages.
- Fix indexing problems (1–6) immediately — they block everything else.
- Fix template-level issues next, because one change fixes many pages.
- Work through relevance and content on your highest-value pages.
- Schedule a weekly re-audit so new problems are caught early.
Want to see how your pages score on all 25 checks? Run the on-page SEO checker on a single page for free, or audit your whole site.
Put this into practice: Run a website SEO audit — free, no signup, results in under 30 seconds.