A step-by-step SEO checklist you can start implementing this week

This checklist is designed for business owners, marketing managers, and in-house marketers who want to understand their SEO health before hiring help—or who are auditing what a current agency has delivered. You don't need technical expertise to work through it; most sections include explanations of what to look for and red flags to catch.

If you're already working with an agency, this checklist works as a validation tool. If items are checked off but you're not seeing traffic growth, that's a signal worth investigating. If you're preparing for an agency conversation, working through this list first makes that conversation far more productive—your prospective partner will see you've done the groundwork.

Skip sections that don't apply to your business. A local accounting firm doesn't need multi-location optimization. An e-commerce store doesn't need Google My Business setup. The checklist is a menu, not a mandate.

Before content, before links, before any strategy—your site has to be crawlable, indexable, and fast. Google announces this bluntly: Core Web Vitals matter. So does mobile-first indexing. If your site fails these basics, no amount of content or links will help.

Crawlability and Indexing:

• Check your robots.txt file—does it block important pages from Google?
• Review your XML sitemap—is it submitted to Google Search Console and up-to-date?
• Run a crawl audit (using Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, or similar) to find crawl errors, broken links, and duplicate content
• Verify you're using HTTPS across your entire domain (not just homepage)
• Check for redirect chains—more than two hops slow crawlers and leak authority
• Test your site on Google's Mobile-Friendly Test—is it passing?

Site Speed and Core Web Vitals:

• Check your Core Web Vitals score in Google Search Console—aim for "Good" across all three metrics
• Run a PageSpeed Insights audit and note which resources are causing slowness
• Image optimization is often the quickest win—are your images compressed and in modern formats?
• Review your hosting infrastructure—outdated servers are the silent performance killer

Site Structure:

• Verify your site uses a clear, logical hierarchy—category → subcategory → page
• Check internal linking: are important pages linked from your homepage or top navigation?
• Ensure URL structure is clean and keyword-relevant, not stuffed with parameters or session IDs

Most sites don't have a content problem—they have an organization problem. You probably have more content than you realize. The audit reveals what's working, what's duplicative, and what's missing entirely.

Inventory Your Content:

• Export all pages from your site (using a tool like Screaming Frog or your CMS export)
• Identify which pages drive traffic and conversions (check Google Analytics)
• Find thin pages—under 300 words with minimal value—and decide whether to expand, merge, or delete them
• Look for duplicate or near-duplicate content that dilutes authority
• Check for orphan pages (pages with no internal links pointing to them)

Keyword Gap Analysis:

• Make a list of keywords your site currently ranks for (from Google Search Console)
• Research keywords your audience searches for related to your service (use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, or SEMrush)
• Identify gaps: keywords you should own but don't
• Note: "Should own" doesn't mean high search volume—it means high relevance and conversion intent

On-Page Signals:

• Audit your title tags—are they under 60 characters, keyword-relevant, and click-worthy?
• Review your meta descriptions—under 155 characters, accurate, with a value proposition?
• Check H1 tags—one per page, descriptive, not keyword-stuffed
• Review internal anchor text—does it match the topic of the linked page, or is it generic?

Your backlink profile tells a story. It shows whether past SEO efforts were ethical, whether you've been hit by penalties, and whether you need cleanup before moving forward.

Audit Your Current Links:

• Export your backlink profile from a tool like Ahrefs or SEMrush
• Sort by domain authority and relevance—are most of your links from reputable, topically relevant sites?
• Look for red flags: links from spammy directories, private blog networks (PBNs), or unrelated industries
• Check anchor text distribution—natural profiles have varied anchor text; over-optimized profiles use the same keyword 20+ times
• Identify broken backlinks (pages linking to you that no longer exist)—these are opportunities to recover with 301 redirects

Google Penalties and Manual Actions:

• Check Google Search Console for any manual actions or security issues (this is a red flag you can't ignore)
• If you see a manual action, your site has been flagged by a human reviewer—you need a reconsideration request with evidence of cleanup
• Research your domain history: has it ever been used for spam? (Use Wayback Machine)

Link Building Readiness:

• Do you have a resource on your site that naturally attracts links (research, tools, data)?
• Are there press mentions or industry coverage you're not capitalizing on with link outreach?
• Identify 10-15 competitor domains—what sites link to them that don't link to you?

Your competitors show you what's possible in your market. This isn't about copying them—it's about understanding the threshold for visibility and identifying your differentiation.

Competitive Benchmarking:

• List your top 5 organic search competitors (use SEMrush or Ahrefs to see who ranks for your keywords)
• For each competitor, note: their domain authority, estimated organic traffic, top-performing pages, and link sources
• Look for patterns: Do they dominate with blog content? Technical resources? Case studies? This shows format preference in your market
• Identify where you're losing visibility: keywords they rank for that you don't
• Note: Competitors aren't your roadmap—they're your reality check

On-Site Conversion Setup:

• Verify Google Analytics 4 is installed and tracking correctly (check the Real Time report)
• Set up conversion goals: form submissions, demo requests, email signups, calls, purchases
• Install Google Search Console and connect it to Google Analytics
• If you run paid ads, verify your conversion tracking matches your organic analytics
• Review your call-to-action placement on high-traffic pages—is it visible without scrolling?

Tracking and Attribution:

• Check if you're tracking phone calls from your site (use a call tracking tool if you receive significant phone inquiries)
• If you have multiple conversion types, assign them different values (a demo request is more valuable than a newsletter signup)
• Verify UTM parameters are consistent across campaigns (if you run any ads or email)

Some checklist items take a day. Others take weeks. Knowing the difference keeps you from burning out and helps you set realistic expectations with an agency.

Quick Wins (1-2 weeks):

• Fix title tags and meta descriptions on your top 20 pages
• Compress images and enable browser caching
• Delete or redirect broken internal links
• Submit your updated XML sitemap to Google Search Console
• Set up Google My Business if you have a physical location
• Install or verify your conversion tracking

Medium-Term Work (4-8 weeks):

• Rewrite or consolidate thin pages
• Build internal linking strategy for top-priority keywords
• Create or update pillar content in your core service areas
• Review and improve page speed (this often requires development time)
• Research and implement schema markup for your industry (FAQ schema, local business schema, etc.)

Long-Term Effort (3+ months):

• Build a content calendar and publish consistently (most sites need 2-4 new pieces monthly to move the needle)
• Develop a link-building strategy and identify partnership opportunities
• If you have a penalty or major spam links, conduct cleanup and submit a reconsideration request
• Scale technical improvements across your entire site

Most in-house teams can handle quick wins alone. Medium-term work requires more expertise. Long-term work is where an agency typically delivers the most value—consistency, expertise, and accountability compound over time.