Free SEO audit checklist 2026: step-by-step website audit

An SEO audit sounds intimidating, but it's really just a structured walk through your pages checking that each one gives search engines and readers what they need. You don't need enterprise software to start. This checklist covers the on-page, content and technical basics that make the biggest difference — and you can complete most of it for free.

On-page essentials

These live on the page itself and are the fastest wins. Check each important page for:

• Title tag — around 50–60 characters, main keyword near the front, compelling enough to earn the click. Too long and it truncates in results; missing the keyword is a common miss.
• Meta description — 140–160 characters that summarise the value and include a call to action. It doesn't directly rank you, but a good one lifts click-through.
• One H1 — exactly one main heading per page, containing your primary keyword. Multiple or missing H1s confuse the page's structure.
• Subheadings — H2s and H3s that break the content into scannable sections and include related terms.
• Keyword placement — your primary keyword in the title, first paragraph and at least one subheading, used naturally. Avoid stuffing; a density of roughly 0.5–2.5% is plenty.

Rather than eyeball all of this, paste a page into the Index Master SEO checker. It scores the page out of 100, flags each issue as pass, improve or fix, and even generates optimised title, meta and keyword suggestions. For a quicker check, the Website SEO Checker runs the same core audit.

Content quality

On-page tags help, but content is what actually ranks. For each page ask:

• Does it fully answer the query? Compare it to what already ranks. If competitors go deeper, expand yours with the sections they cover and the questions they answer.
• Is it original and useful? Rewritten or thin content that adds nothing rarely ranks. Add your own examples, data or perspective.
• Is it readable? Short paragraphs, descriptive subheadings and the occasional list keep readers — and dwell time is a positive signal.
• Is it current? Outdated pages slip. Refresh facts, years and examples periodically.

Links and images

• Internal links — link related pages to each other with descriptive anchor text. This spreads authority and helps new pages get discovered.
• Outbound links — link to a couple of credible sources where relevant; it adds context and trust.
• Image alt text — describe each meaningful image. It helps accessibility and image search.
• Image size — compress images so they don't slow the page.

Technical basics

These decide whether Google can crawl, index and trust your site at all:

• Indexability — no accidental noindex tags, nothing important blocked in robots.txt.
• Canonical tags — each page declares its preferred URL to avoid duplicate-content confusion.
• XML sitemap — lists your key pages and is submitted in Google Search Console.
• Mobile-friendly — the layout works on phones; most visits and Google's indexing are mobile-first.
• Speed & Core Web Vitals — compress images, trim heavy scripts, keep the layout stable as it loads.
• HTTPS — your site loads securely; it's a baseline trust and ranking signal.

Clean URLs matter here too — short, lowercase and hyphenated. If you're restructuring, the URL Slug Generator and Meta Description Generator help you tidy slugs and descriptions at scale.

AI search readiness (AEO & GEO)

Search no longer ends at Google's ten blue links — a growing share of answers come straight from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews, often without a single click. Being ready for that means a few extra checks on top of classic SEO:

• AI crawler access — robots.txt should allow GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended and CCBot (unless you deliberately opt out). AI engines can only cite what they can crawl.
• /llms.txt — a plain markdown file at your domain root summarising what the site is and links to key pages, giving AI systems a fast, structured overview.
• Question headings + direct answers — key H2s phrased as real questions, each followed by a 40–60 word plain answer before the detail. That short block is what answer engines lift.
• Schema beyond the basics — FAQPage for Q&A, plus the type matching each page (SoftwareApplication for tools, Article or HowTo for guides), and Organization schema with sameAs links.
• Evidence signals — concrete statistics and a citation or two to authoritative sources measurably raise the odds an AI cites your page.

Run the full technical audit in one click with our free SERP Audit (Google Lighthouse health score + live rank check), and test AI visibility with the free AI Search Readiness Checker fetches your page, robots.txt, llms.txt and sitemap, runs Google PageSpeed Insights, and returns one score across SEO, AEO, GEO and speed with a fix line for every fail.

Off-page: authority

Everything above is in your control. Off-page SEO — mainly links and mentions from other reputable sites — builds the authority that lets competitive pages rank. You don't buy links; you earn them by publishing genuinely useful resources people want to reference. A few quality links beat dozens of spammy ones, which can actively hurt you.

Your audit checklist

• Title 50–60 chars with keyword near the front
• Unique meta description, 140–160 chars, with a CTA
• Exactly one keyword-rich H1, plus structured H2s/H3s
• Content that fully answers the query, original and current
• Internal + outbound links with descriptive anchors
• Alt text on images, compressed for speed
• Indexable (no stray noindex / robots block), canonical set
• Sitemap submitted, mobile-friendly, fast, HTTPS
• Clean lowercase hyphenated URLs
• AI-ready: AI bots allowed in robots.txt, /llms.txt present, question headings with direct answers, rich schema

Work through it one page at a time, starting with your most important pages. Fix the fails first, then the improvements. Re-check after changes, and repeat the audit every few months as your site grows.

Frequently asked questions