Use it like this: work top to bottom. The sections are ordered by impact — indexing problems nullify everything below them, on-page problems waste good content, technical debt taxes every page, and content depth is where rankings are actually won. Every check includes how to verify it yourself, free, in minutes. If a check fails and the fix is beyond you, at least you’ll brief your developer precisely.
Part 1 — Can Google even see you? (Indexing)
1. Your pages are actually indexed. Search site:yourdomain.com on Google.
If key pages are missing, nothing else on this list matters yet. Diagnose in
Google Search Console → Page indexing.
2. Search Console is set up and verified. It’s free, it’s Google telling you directly what’s wrong, and most businesses have never opened it. Non-negotiable.
3. robots.txt isn’t blocking what matters. Visit
yourdomain.com/robots.txt. A stray Disallow: / (or blocked CSS/JS folders) has
silently killed more sites than any algorithm update.
4. No accidental noindex tags. View source on key pages and search for
noindex. Staging-site settings that shipped to production are a classic — and invisible
until you look.
5. An XML sitemap exists and is submitted. yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml (or
similar) should list your real, canonical, live pages — and be submitted in Search Console. It should
not contain redirects, dead URLs or noindexed pages.
6. One version of your domain wins. http://, https://,
www and non-www should all redirect to one canonical version. Test all four in
a browser. Split versions split your ranking signals.
Part 2 — Does each page know what it’s for? (On-page)
7. One dominant search intent per page. The most strategic check on this list: each important page should target one query family — and no two pages should compete for the same one. Cannibalisation is self-sabotage at scale.
8. Unique, descriptive title tags. Every page. Front-load the topic, keep it natural, roughly under 60 characters so it displays whole. “Home” is not a title; neither is a keyword shopping list.
9. Meta descriptions that earn the click. They don’t affect rankings directly, but they’re your ad in the results. Unique, specific, honest — around 150 characters.
10. Exactly one H1 per page, matching the intent. The H1 should say what the page is about in the searcher’s language. Multiple H1s (a common theme-template bug) blur the signal.
11. Logical heading hierarchy. H2s for sections, H3s beneath them, no skipping levels for styling reasons. Headings are the page’s outline — for readers and crawlers alike.
12. Descriptive, stable URLs. /services/seo/ beats
/page?id=847. Short, lowercase, hyphenated, meaningful — and never changed without a 301
redirect.
13. Internal links with real anchor text. Pages should link to related pages using descriptive anchors (“Google Ads management”, not “click here”). Internal links are how authority and meaning flow around your site — and how orphan pages get found.
14. Images carry width, height and alt text. Alt text describes the image honestly (accessibility first, keywords only where natural); explicit dimensions prevent layout shift, which feeds check #20.
Part 3 — Is the machine healthy? (Technical)
15. HTTPS everywhere, no mixed content. The padlock, sitewide, with no insecure resources loading underneath it.
16. Mobile rendering is genuinely usable. Not “responsive in theory” — open your key pages on a real phone: readable text, tappable buttons, no horizontal scroll, forms you’d actually complete.
17. Core Web Vitals pass. Run PageSpeed Insights on your top pages. LCP (loading), CLS (stability) and INP (responsiveness) are measured on real users and reported in Search Console. Slow templates tax every visit — paid clicks included.
18. Your content exists in the served HTML. View source (not inspect element): can you find your headings and body copy? Content that only appears after JavaScript runs is content Google may index, later, unreliably. Server-rendered or statically generated pages dodge the whole gamble — it’s how this site is built.
19. Canonical tags are self-consistent. Each page’s canonical should point to itself (its one true URL), not to redirects or the homepage. Misfired canonicals quietly deindex sections.
20. No layout shift on load. Watch your pages load on slow connections: content that jumps as images and fonts arrive frustrates users and fails CWV. Fixed dimensions and font preloading solve most of it.
21. Redirects are clean 301s, no chains. Old URLs should hop once to their new home. Chains (A→B→C) leak signal and speed; loops kill pages outright.
22. A real 404 page returning a real 404 status. Missing pages should say so with the correct HTTP status — “soft 404s” (error pages returning 200) confuse crawlers and pollute the index.
23. Structured data is valid. Organization, breadcrumbs, articles, FAQs — marked up with schema.org JSON-LD, describing only what’s visibly on the page, validated with Google’s Rich Results Test. Never mark up ratings or reviews you don’t actually display.
Part 4 — Is there anything worth ranking? (Content)
24. Your money pages have real depth. The pages you want ranking must answer the query better than whoever currently ranks: substance, specifics, proof — not 200 words and a stock photo. Look at what’s winning and be honest about the gap.
25. Content answers the intent, not just the keyword. “SEO price” wants numbers and factors; “what is SEO” wants an explanation; “SEO agency” wants proof and a phone number. Same topic, three pages. Mismatched intent bounces.
26. No thin, near-duplicate page sets. Ten location pages with swapped city names, tag archives with one post — filtered by Google, embarrassing to humans. Consolidate or noindex the deadweight; every indexable URL should defend its existence.
27. Content freshness where it matters. Prices, dates, screenshots, claims: stale pages decay in trust and rankings. A quarterly review of your top pages beats publishing another forgettable post.
Part 5 — Do you exist where you are? (Local)
28. Google Business Profile claimed and complete. For any business with a local footprint: categories, hours, photos, services, posts. For most “near me” moments, the profile is the homepage.
29. Reviews flow steadily. Not bought, not faked, not begged in bulk — a systematic post-service request that builds velocity. Ratings decide shortlists before your website is ever seen.
30. Name, address, phone consistent everywhere. Your business details should match across the site, profile and directories. Inconsistency erodes the entity trust local rankings sit on.
Scoring yourself
- 25–30 passing: your foundation is genuinely solid — growth now lives in content depth and authority, the compounding work of ongoing SEO.
- 15–24: typical, fixable, worth prioritising by section order — indexing and technical first, always.
- Under 15: stop buying traffic; the bucket leaks. Foundation work will pay better than any campaign this quarter.
The professional version of this checklist — a full crawl, human review and a fix-list ranked by expected impact — is what our SEO audit is. It stands alone, you keep it either way, and if the honest conclusion is “your site’s fine, spend elsewhere”, that’s what it will say.
Next step: send us your URL and we’ll tell you which of these thirty is actually costing you rankings — usually it’s three of them, and rarely the three people guess.
