seo dev audit

Website Audit Checklist

A website audit checklist covering technical SEO, on-page, performance, accessibility, and security. Run it on any site directly in the browser.

6 sections 39 items

Checklist preview

Technical SEO 8 items

Page is indexable (not blocked by robots.txt or noindex)
Canonical tag is present and self-referencing
URL is lowercase, hyphen-separated, and without trailing parameters
HTTPS is enabled and HTTP redirects to HTTPS
No redirect chains or loops
XML sitemap is present and submitted to Search Console
robots.txt is present and correctly configured
Structured data is present and valid (Schema.org)

On-Page SEO 8 items

Page has a unique title tag under 60 characters
Meta description is present and under 160 characters
Single H1 tag present and relevant to page topic
Heading hierarchy is logical (H1 → H2 → H3)
Primary keyword appears in title, H1, and first paragraph
Images have descriptive alt text
Internal links use descriptive anchor text
No orphan page — at least one internal link points here

Performance 6 items

Core Web Vitals pass in PageSpeed Insights (LCP, CLS, INP)
Page loads under 3 seconds on mobile
Images are in modern formats (WebP, AVIF) and appropriately sized
No render-blocking scripts in the <head>
Browser caching is enabled
Third-party scripts are deferred or loaded asynchronously

Accessibility 7 items

All images have alt text
Color contrast meets WCAG AA (4.5:1 for body text)
All interactive elements are keyboard-navigable
Focus states are visible on all focusable elements
Forms have associated labels
Page has a logical reading order without CSS
No content relies solely on color to convey meaning

Content & UX 6 items

Page content matches the search intent
No broken links on the page
All images load correctly
Page renders correctly on mobile (360px viewport)
CTA is visible above the fold on mobile
Contact or conversion path is clear

Security 4 items

SSL certificate is valid and not expiring within 30 days
No mixed content warnings (HTTP resources on HTTPS page)
Security headers present (X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options)
No sensitive information exposed in page source

A website audit checklist standardizes how you review a site — so every page gets the same level of scrutiny, whether you’re auditing your own site, a client’s, or a competitor’s. It covers the five areas that determine how a page performs: technical SEO, on-page optimization, load speed, accessibility, and security.

Run it directly in your browser as you review the page — no need to switch between tabs or copy findings into a spreadsheet.

Who uses this website audit checklist

SEO specialists doing on-page audits before or after publishing. Developers running a site audit checklist as part of a pre-launch review. QA engineers checking that a page meets quality standards before sign-off. Agencies delivering web audit reports to clients. Content managers doing periodic website maintenance checklist reviews to catch regressions.

How to run it

Open the page you want to audit in Chrome. Open CheckRun in the sidebar, select this template, and start a run. Work through each section while the page is in front of you — check the source, run PageSpeed in another tab, inspect the DOM. Mark each item Pass, Fail, or N/A. Add a comment on any Fail item with the specific issue found.

When finished, the run saves automatically with the page URL and timestamp. Export as CSV to include in a client report or internal audit log.

Adapting this web audit checklist

Remove the Security section for quick content-only reviews
Add an “Open Graph & Social” section for pages where social sharing matters: og:title, og:description, og:image present and correct
Add an “E-commerce” section for product pages: price visible, schema markup, add-to-cart functional, trust signals present
Extend the Accessibility section with WCAG 2.2 AA criteria for sites with compliance requirements — see the Website Accessibility Checklist
Use alongside the Landing Page Checklist for conversion-focused pages