Technical SEO audit: checklist for your website
Technical SEO audit checklist for your company website: indexing, structure, structured data, speed and readiness for AI search (AEO and GEO).
A technical SEO audit checks that Google can crawl and index the site (robots.txt, sitemap, canonical), that each page has a unique title, description and single H1, that structured data exists, that the site is fast on mobile, that there are no 404s or redirect chains, and that content answers questions directly so it can appear on Google and in AI assistants.
Technical SEO is invisible, but it decides whether Google (and now AI assistants) can understand your website.
1. Crawling and indexing
-
robots.txtdoesn’t block key pages. -
sitemap.xmlexists and is submitted to Search Console. - Every page has a
canonical. -
hreflangfor multiple languages.
2. Page structure
- One H1 per page.
- Unique title (≤ 60 chars) and description (≤ 160).
- Ordered H2/H3 headings and short URLs.
- Alt text on images.
3. Structured data
-
OrganizationorLocalBusiness. -
Service,FAQPage,BreadcrumbListandBlogPostingwhere relevant.
4. Speed and experience
- LCP < 2.5 s, INP < 200 ms, CLS < 0.1 on mobile.
- HTTPS everywhere, no internal 404s or redirect chains.
5. AI readiness (AEO and GEO)
- 40–60 word direct answers at the top of each article.
- Concrete data and a visible update date.
- Identifiable author or company with links to its other sites.
-
robots.txtallows GPTBot, PerplexityBot or ClaudeBot if you want to be cited. - An
llms.txtsummary file.
FAQ
What are AEO and GEO?
AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) targets direct answers on Google and voice assistants. GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) targets being cited by ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity. Both rely on technical SEO, structured data and clear answers.
