The Free SEO Checklist: 25 Fixes Before You Pay for Anything

Most websites don't need an agency. They need the basics done properly. Our checker runs 83 checks on every page, and the same handful of problems hold back most sites. Here they are, in the order we'd fix them.

Can search engines reach you?

1. One address, not four. http://, https://, with and without www should all end on the same page with a single permanent redirect.
2. HTTPS everywhere. A valid certificate, and no page or image still loading over http://.
3. robots.txt isn't blocking you. One wrong Disallow: / can hide a whole site. Check it after every redesign.
4. No accidental noindex. Staging sites often launch with noindex still switched on.
5. A sitemap that tells the truth. List only pages that load, aren't redirected and are meant to be indexed. Point to it from robots.txt.
6. Missing pages return 404. If a made-up address shows a friendly page with a 200 status, search engines index your error page.

Does each page say what it's about?

7. A unique title on every page, roughly 30 to 60 characters, with the main search phrase near the start.
8. A meta description that sells the click, about 120 to 160 characters.
9. One clear H1 that matches what the page promises.
10. Real content. Pages with a few lines of text rarely rank. Answer the question fully.
11. No near-duplicate pages competing with each other for the same search.
12. A canonical tag on every page, pointing at itself or the main version.

Is it fast on a phone?

13. Images in WebP or AVIF, sized for the screen, with width and height set.
14. Lazy-load images below the fold.
15. Fewer render-blocking scripts. Defer anything that isn't needed to draw the first screen.
16. Compression on (gzip or Brotli) and sensible caching headers.

Do search engines and AI understand you?

17. Structured data for what you are: Organization, LocalBusiness, Product, Article or FAQ.
18. Let AI crawlers in. If GPTBot or PerplexityBot are blocked, those assistants can't cite you.
19. Content in the HTML, not only drawn by JavaScript, so every crawler sees it.
20. A language tag, and hreflang if you have more than one language.

Will people click and trust you?

21. Share previews: an Open Graph title, description and a 1200×630 image.
22. About, contact and privacy pages that are easy to find.
23. Descriptive image alt text.
24. No broken internal links.
25. Internal links to your best pages from your home page and menu.

What next?

Fix the first section before anything else. A page that can't be reached can't rank, however good it is. Then work down the list. If you'd rather not do it by hand, create a free account and approve the fixes we write for you.

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