The Complete SEO Checklist for 2025

We all know that keeping track of every SEO task feels like a nightmare, but an SEO checklist makes it easier for you to keep track of every task to improve your site’s performance.

One can “Win or Die’’ by following or skipping this SEO checklist.

The comprehensive SEO checklist encompasses SEO basics, On-Page SEO, Off-Page SEO, Technical SEO, Keyword Research, and Content Checklist.

Let’s start with SEO basics:

1. Set up Google Analytics

Google Analytics is one of the best tools to find out your site’s traffic. 

These tools allow you:

• To find out the organic traffic and referral traffic you are receiving,
•  Which pages are getting more traffic
• The device used to visit your website.
• Bounce rate
• Average engagement rate
• Page views
• Time spent on your site.

2. Set up Google Search Console

Google Search Console is another powerful tool to track your site’s performance on Google. 

GSC allows you:

• To submit your sitemap and page URLs, 
• Measure your core web vitals, 
• Fix crawl errors

3. Install SEO Plugin

The SEO plugin makes it super easy to optimize your website for Search Engines. 

Yoast SEO and Rank Math are the most widely used SEO plugins for WordPress websites, making them ideal for beginners. These plugins enable you to easily edit robots.txt and generate sitemaps. 

4. Make Sure Your Site is Indexed

Make sure that Google can index your pages. If your pages have a no-index tag, then Google won’t be able to index your pages, and they won’t appear in (SERP) Search Engine Result Pages.

You can use the SemRush tool to find out how many pages of your website are indexed by Google.

5. Create and Submit a Sitemap

A sitemap helps search engines to understand the structure of your website and crawl easily and index the pages on your site. So, create and submit an XML sitemap to Google Search Console, and also add your sitemap to the robots.txt file.

To find the sitemap, you can use:

• yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml
• yourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xml

Here is how the Sitemap looks: 

6. Create Robots.txt

A robots.txt file tells Google bots which pages to crawl and which pages not to. 

To find the robots.txt file, you can use:

yourdomain.com/robots.txt

A robots.txt file looks:

Do Keyword Research 

Another important part of the SEO checklist is conducting keyword research. Keywords are search queries that match your product or services. 

Steps to do keyword research:

1. Check your Competitor Keywords

The first step in doing keyword research is identifying your competitor keywords. These are keywords that your competitor is using to improve their rankings and traffic. 

You can use tools like Ubersuggest and SemRush to find out the keywords that your competitors are already targeting. And look for keywords that are missing.

2. Search Your Main Keywords

Now the second step is to search for the main keywords that are high in volume and have the potential to drive traffic and revenue.

You can use SemRush to find out your niche keywords that are driving the most organic traffic to your industry type. 

You can use their domain overview to find out your competitors or any websites’ keywords that are driving the most organic traffic.

3. Target Long-Tail Keywords

Long tail keywords refer to more specific phrases that users type into search engines. They have lower search volumes but are easier to rank. 

Use Ubersuggest or Semrush to find long tail keywords. Here I am giving steps for both tools:

Ubersuggest:

1. Go to Ubersuggest, enter your main keyword, and click search.
2. On the left side, go to keyword research and click keyword ideas
3. Now, from the list of keywords, find out the queries that have four or more words with high volume and low SEO difficulty.
4. Click on the keyword to view the detailed data.

Semrush:

1. Go to Semrush and click on the Keyword Magic tool
2. Now enter your keyword and click search
3. Select broad match and set the volume and keyword difficulty filter
4. Also, if you want question-based keywords, you can select the question filter to find out the long tail questions asked.

4. Use ‘People Also Ask’ Insights

This is a great way to find out what your audience is searching for on Google. You can find this question by entering the specific keyword on Google, and you will see the People Also Ask section like this:

Now, you can use these keywords in the Answer the Public tool to find additional questions.

You can create an FAQs page using these questions, in a blog post, or on the pages where you can add relevant questions and answer them to solve the user’s query.

Technical SEO 

Technical SEO improves a site’s visibility and user experience by ensuring that your site is indexable and crawlable.

Steps of the Technical SEO checklist:

1. Ensure your Website is Mobile Friendly

Google’s algorithm uses mobile-only indexing, which means Google will primarily index the mobile version of the website rather than the desktop version.

To ensure your website is mobile-friendly, you can use Google Chrome to test your website. 

To test, “go to Chrome > enter your website > right click > select inspect”

And, you will see options to check your website on different mobile devices, like:

Here, you can check how your website appears on various mobile devices and determine if any adjustments are needed.

2. Check Site Speed

The site speed of your website is crucial for user engagement. Slow site speed leads to poor user engagement, higher bounce rates, and fewer conversions. 

Faster loading speed = higher user engagement

Google measures site speed through Core Web Vitals metrics. These metrics include:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Measures how fast your main content of the page loads.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Measures how layout shifts when your page is loading.
• Interaction to Next Paint: Measures how responsive your website is to user interactions.

You can find these metrics using Google’s Page Speed Insights tool. Enter your URL and click Analyze, and you will get the page’s performance report and a list of recommendations to make it better.

Use the recommendations and focus on improving your website’s page speed.

3. Fix Broken Links

Broken links, also known as Dead Links, usually create a negative experience for users. 

To find broken links, you need to do a site audit by using tools like Semrush, Ubersuggest, and Ahrefs. 

If you are using UberSuggest:

• Crawl your website with the site audit feature.
• Find “Pages with Broken Links” 
• Click and see the details of affected URLs

Fix the broken links by updating the old URL, removing the link, or redirecting to a new one.

4. Ensure You’re Using HTTPS

Google uses HTTPS as a confirmed ranking signal. 

To check if your site is using HTTPS, check your browser’s address bar; it will show the padlock icon:

If you don’t see HTTPS, it means your website is not secure and you need to install a TLS/SSL certificate.

Additionally, during the site audit, you will receive information about your site’s HTTPS status.

5. Make Sure Your Website doesn’t have Duplicate Versions

Your website’s duplicate version can cause issues in indexing, crawling, and security issues.

Here’s how your domains can appear:

• https://example.com
• http://example.com
• http://www.example.com
• https://www.example.com

Except for one, all three domains should redirect to the main HTTPS version of the website. To check, you can use https://httpstatus.io/.

6. Use Clean URLs

A clean URL or SEO friendly URL is short, descriptive, and easy to understand. Always use hyphens to separate the words.

A SEO friendly URL looks like:

https://yourdomain.com/mens-watches

7. Add Schema Markup 

Schema markup is a type of code, also known as Structured data, that you add to a website to help search engines better understand your website and display it in search results.

It helps in enhancing SEO, leads to rich results, and better visibility in search engine result pages.

Schema markup looks like this for a recipe:

Adding a schema has become easy with plugins like all-in-one SEO or Yoast SEO. And to check if your schema is working correctly, you can go to Schema Markup Validator.

On-Page SEO Checklist

1. Look For Missing Title Tags and Fix Them

Title tags help users and search engines to understand a page’s topic. It’s always recommended to add a keyword in your title tag naturally. 

“A title tag should be written under 60 Characters.”

You can check a page’s title tag by viewing its source code, specifically in the <head> section or you can use “To the web” tool.

Missing title tags can negatively impact SEO and reduce visibility in search engine results pages. 

You can find the missing title tag section in your site audit and also “Why and How to Fix it”.

2.  Look For Missing Descriptions and Fix Them

A meta description is a summary of a page’s content that is displayed in a search engine results below the title tag. 

A unique, well-written meta description can significantly impact click-through rates. 

You can find the missing meta descriptions section in your site audit. 

3. Find Missing H1 tags and Fix Them

H1 tags are used to define the main heading of a webpage. Each page needs an H1 tag that describes the main topic. 

H1 tags are important both for users and search engines to understand the topic of the web page. You can find the missing H1 tag section in your site audit.

4. Find and Fix Missing Image Alt Text

An image alt text is referred to as the description of an image that is displayed as text when the image fails to load. It helps search engines and visually impaired users to easily understand the image. 

A site audit will give you the list of missing alt text. 

5. Ensure to Add Internal Links 

Internal links help search engines and users to find pages on your website. Search Engine uses these links to crawl and index websites’ content. 

Through the site audit, you can find missing internal links and which pages have fewer internal links. You can boost these pages by adding more contextual internal links.

Content Checklist

1. Audit Website’s Underperforming Content

A content audit is important to check which pages on the website are underperforming in terms of traffic and engagement.

You can use Google Analytics to check the underperforming pages. Google Analytics will give you metrics like page views, average engagement rate to understand which page needs improvement.

2. Update Old Content

Old content can negatively impact your site’s value. Up-to-date content helps in improving search engine ranking and enhancing user experience. 

Regularly updating content shows that your website is active and can significantly impact your overall success. 

If you are doing a site audit using Ubersuggest, then you will get the information about content gaps, outdated content, and topics your competitors are covering and you are not.

Off-Page SEO Checklist

1. Examine Your Competitors’ Backlink Profile

According to Google, Backlinks are one of the important ranking factors. Backlinks are links coming to your site from other websites. 

For beginners, it’s very important to check their competitors’ backlink profile and start by replicating wherever they are present.

Yes, there are many ways to get backlinks, but analyzing a competitor’s backlink profile is a great start.

You can use tools to analyze the backlink profile:

• Mozbar
• Ubersuggest
• Semrush
• Ahref

These tools will help you get the list of backlinks where your competitors are present. You just have to enter your competitor’s URL in one of these tools and click analyze, and you will get the list of backlinks.

2. Conduct Backlink Gap Audit

Conducting a link intersect analysis will help you identify the websites linking to your competitor but not to your site.

You can use the Ahref tool to do the backlink audit:

• Go to their site explorer 
• Add your URL
• Then, Go to the  Link Intersect Report
• Add a few of the competitors’ URLs
• Now, hit the “Show Link Opportunities”

And you will get the list of websites where your competitors are present.

If you think it would be beneficial for your business to list on any websites where your competitor is present, then go make an account, profile, and you will get a link too.

3. Create Your Google My Business Profile

If you are a local business owner, then Google Business Profile is a must to appear in local searches. Only creating a business profile doesn’t going to help but updating it every month will enhance your search visibility, user experience, and trust.

Fill out correct information with photos, videos, phone number, opening hours, products and services.

A Google My Business Profile Looks like:

Conclusion

Yes, SEO is a process that never ends, and including everything in one seo checklist is nearly impossible. However, the steps mentioned above will help you achieve higher rankings, increased traffic, and better results. 

Also Read: How to do an SEO Audit Step-By-Step Guide