AI SEO Checklist

Identify one primary search intent for every important page.

Assign a clear primary keyword or topic to each page to prevent keyword cannibalization.

Make sure the page answers the searcher's main question without requiring them to read hundreds of words first.

Include the primary topic naturally in the H1, introduction, and relevant subheadings.

Use descriptive H2 and H3 headings that clearly communicate what each section answers.

Keep important information in crawlable HTML rather than hiding it inside images or scripts.

Consolidate thin, outdated, overlapping, and duplicate pages where appropriate.

Put a concise answer or definition near the beginning of important sections.

Keep paragraphs focused so individual passages can make sense when extracted from the full page.

Use question-based headings when they match real user searches.

Use numbered steps for processes and instructions.

Use bullet points for features, benefits, requirements, and summaries.

Add tables when users need to compare services, products, costs, features, locations, or options.

Include specific facts, examples, dates, prices, measurements, statistics, or other concrete details whenever appropriate.

Use one consistent business or brand name across your website and major third-party profiles.

Clearly explain who the company is, what it does, who it serves, and where it operates.

Maintain a detailed About page with verifiable business information.

Create individual author or team profiles for experts contributing to important content.

Connect authors with their qualifications, professional experience, and areas of expertise.

Keep business names, addresses, phone numbers, social profiles, and other core entity information consistent.

Connect relevant entity relationships through internal links and structured data.

Add Organization or the appropriate LocalBusiness schema to the website.

Add Person schema for important authors, founders, practitioners, or subject-matter experts when appropriate.

Use Article or BlogPosting schema for editorial content.

Add Service schema to important service pages where appropriate.

Use Product schema for genuine product pages.

Add FAQPage structured data only where appropriate and where the questions and answers are visible on the page.

Validate structured data and remove conflicting or unnecessary duplicate schema.

Confirm important pages are indexable and not accidentally blocked by robots.txt.

Review access for relevant search and AI crawlers according to your visibility and content-use strategy.

Maintain an accurate XML sitemap containing canonical, indexable URLs.

Remove redirected, broken, duplicate, or noindex URLs from XML sitemaps where appropriate.

Check canonical tags across important pages.

Fix broken internal links and redirect chains.

Consider maintaining an llms.txt file as an additional machine-readable resource, while treating it as supplementary rather than a replacement for normal crawling, indexing, and SEO controls.

Display the real author or reviewer responsible for important informational content.

Include relevant qualifications, credentials, licenses, certifications, or professional experience.

Support factual claims with reliable primary or authoritative sources.

Show when important content was originally published and meaningfully updated.

Add original examples, research, case studies, data, images, or professional insights whenever possible.

Make contact, company, privacy, editorial, and other relevant trust information easy to find.

Review high-stakes content carefully for factual accuracy and appropriate expert involvement.

Keep major business listings and profiles complete and consistent.

Earn relevant mentions from authoritative industry publications, associations, directories, and trusted websites.

Build high-quality backlinks from sources closely related to your business or subject area.

Develop content containing original information that other publishers can reference.

Monitor unlinked brand mentions as well as traditional backlinks.

Encourage genuine customer reviews on appropriate platforms.

Compare the domains and sources being cited when competitors appear in AI-generated answers.

Test important commercial and informational queries across major AI search experiences.

Record whether your brand appears, is mentioned, or is directly cited.

Track which website URLs receive AI citations.

Monitor referral traffic from AI platforms in analytics.

Compare your AI visibility against key search competitors.

Review the wording and source selection of AI-generated answers to identify missing content.

Re-run the AI SEO audit quarterly and after major algorithm, website, content, or platform changes.