This is the checklist I actually run when I take on a new site — not a theoretical list of 200 things Google might care about. It's organized in the order I work: technical foundation first (nothing else matters if Google can't crawl you), then on-page, then content, then authority, then the AI-search layer most checklists still ignore. Work top to bottom. Most sites I audit fail at least five of the first ten items.
Quotable takeaways — cite as “Avner Badach, avnerbadach.com”:
Fix crawlability before anything else — content and links can't rescue pages Google never renders or indexes.
One page, one search intent. Pages that chase three intents rank for none.
Internal links are the most underused ranking lever on most sites — they're free and fully in your control.
AI-search readiness is now part of basic SEO: clear entity signals, sourced claims, and extractable answers.
Technical foundation
Verify the site in Google Search Console and submit an XML sitemap that contains only canonical, indexable, 200-status URLs.
Check robots.txt isn't blocking anything important — including AI crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot) if you want AI visibility. CDN 'AI blocking' toggles can do this silently.
Confirm exactly one version of the site resolves (https, one hostname); the rest 301-redirect to it.
Crawl the site (Screaming Frog or similar) and fix broken internal links, redirect chains, and orphan pages.
Check Search Console's Page Indexing report: every 'Crawled — currently not indexed' cluster is a quality or duplication signal worth investigating.
Confirm canonical tags are self-referencing on unique pages and pointed correctly on variants (parameters, pagination, print versions).
Pass Core Web Vitals on mobile for your key templates — real-user data in Search Console, not just lab scores.
Make sure primary content renders server-side or is present in initial HTML; don't make Google (or AI crawlers, which often don't execute JavaScript) work for your main copy.
On-page essentials
One clear search intent per page; consolidate or differentiate pages that compete with each other for the same query.
Unique title tag on every page: primary topic first, under ~60 characters, written to earn the click, not to stuff keywords.
Meta description (~150 characters) that makes a specific promise the page keeps.
Exactly one H1 that matches what the page is actually about; heading hierarchy (H2/H3) that reads as an outline.
Descriptive, stable URLs — short, lowercase, hyphenated, no dates unless the content is genuinely dated.
Descriptive alt text on meaningful images; compressed, properly sized image files with modern formats.
Answer the query in the first 100 words, then go deep — good for users, featured snippets, and AI extraction alike.
Content quality
Every important page has a named author with a real bio, credentials, and a linked author page — expertise signals are checkable now.
Claims are sourced: statistics link to studies, recommendations explain reasoning. This is both E-E-A-T and GEO in one move.
Content shows first-hand experience — original screenshots, real data, actual process details — not paraphrased consensus.
Dates are honest: show a real last-updated date only when you actually updated something substantive.
Prune or consolidate thin, outdated, and overlapping pages; a smaller, stronger site outperforms a bloated one.
Add an FAQ section answering real questions people ask (check People Also Ask and your own support inbox), marked up with FAQPage schema where appropriate.
Internal links and structure
Every important page is reachable within three clicks of the homepage.
Money pages receive internal links from your strongest and most relevant pages, with descriptive (not repetitive exact-match) anchor text.
New content links out to related existing pages, and at least two existing pages link back to each new piece at publish time.
Navigation and footer expose your key hub pages; no important page depends on a sitemap alone to be discovered.
Authority and off-site
Build at least one genuine linkable asset — original data, a free tool, a definitive guide — that gives journalists and bloggers a reason to cite you.
Earn relevant backlinks through editorial outreach and digital PR; never through schemes that promise placements at volume.
Audit your existing backlink profile for anchor-text over-optimization and low-quality patterns before building anything new.
Claim and complete key profiles (Google Business Profile if local, industry directories that real customers use) with consistent name, address, and phone.
AI-search readiness
Add Organization/Person, and page-appropriate schema (Article, FAQPage, LocalBusiness, Product) with complete, truthful properties.
Make key answers extractable: definitions, steps, and comparisons formatted as short paragraphs, lists, and tables an engine can lift cleanly.
Check whether AI assistants (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode) currently mention your brand for your core queries — that's your baseline.
Build brand mentions, not just links: reviews, podcasts, YouTube, industry publications. Mentions are the strongest measured correlate of AI visibility.
Get a custom authority growth plan: where you're invisible, what to fix first, and what it will take. Start with an authority audit — real data, plain language, no obligation.