Download the complete SEO checklist and optimize your website to the max. It covers both basic and advanced SEO concepts.
This is the ultimate SEO checklist for 2025. If you’re looking for a comprehensive checklist to optimize your website for Google in 2025, you’ve come to the right place.
Our SEO checklist is comprehensive and covers all areas of SEO, including SEO fundamentals, technical SEO, on-page SEO, keyword research, off-page SEO, local SEO, and mobile SEO.
To take advantage of this checklist and use it effectively to improve your SEO, you need to understand the different components that make up search engine optimization , or SEO as it is widely known.
Here’s your SEO basics checklist:
1. Understand SEO basics and key terms
SEO Overview
What is SEO?
SEO is a process that involves a set of rules you can apply to your website so that search engines can access, crawl, and index your content without problems.
Your overall goal with SEO is to create better websites in terms of both content and usability that keep both users and search engines happy.
If you’ve read my previous post on how search engines work , you’ll know that search engines are governed by complex algorithms that use a number of parameters before deciding which websites to display at the top of search results.
To control the entire SEO process and give the algorithms what they want, the various SEO rules are grouped into three main categories, which is how other terms such as technical SEO, on-page SEO, and off-page SEO were born.
RESOURCES TO LEARN MORE
- SEO Basics: The Complete Guide to Getting Started
- The different types of SEO
2. Add and verify your website with Google Search Console
Google Search Console Reports for SEO
Google Search Console is a free service provided by Google that gives webmasters access to a range of tools and reports to optimize their websites for Google search.
You can use Google Search Console to find out what Google knows about your website, analyze your Google rankings, identify and fix crawling and indexing errors, and report changes to your website to Google.
GSC is the most important tool for optimizing your website’s SEO.
To get started with Google Search Console, you’ll first need to create an account, then add and verify your web properties.
RESOURCES TO LEARN MORE
Add and verify your website with Bing Webmaster Tools
Bing, although not as popular as Google, is the second most used search engine and is worth considering.
Bing has a set of tools you can use to optimize your website’s appearance in Bing Search. They’re called Bing Webmaster Tools and have similar functionality to GSC.
RESOURCES TO LEARN MORE
4. Set up Google Analytics and learn how to use basic SEO reports
To monitor your SEO performance, you need analytics and reporting tools, and Google Analytics is the best tool to use (and it’s free).
The first step is to install the Google Analytics code on your website and familiarize yourself with basic SEO reporting.
RESOURCES TO LEARN MORE
- Google Analytics and SEO
- The best Google Analytics reports for beginners
5. Check Google penalties
One of the basic SEO checks you should do from the start is to make sure your website isn’t under a Google penalty.
Google has various penalties (manual and algorithmic) that are imposed as a form of “punishment” on websites that violate its Guidelines.
If your website is hit by a Google penalty, you may need to follow a different route to recover from the penalty first (if possible) and then continue with the SEO checklist.
RESOURCES TO LEARN MORE
- How to check if your website is penalized by Google.
Technical SEO Checklist
Your goal with technical SEO is to help search engines find, access, crawl, interpret, and index your website seamlessly.
It’s called “technical” because it has nothing to do with the actual content of the website or its promotion (more on this later).
Here’s your technical SEO checklist:
6. Review your permalink structure and make your URLs SEO-friendly.
A permalink is the URL of a web page. It’s called a permalink because it’s not expected to change throughout the page’s lifespan.
For SEO reasons, you should check and ensure that ALL pages on your website have SEO-friendly URLs.
SEO-friendly URLs have the following characteristics:
- They are short and descriptive
- Include keywords
- They use hyphens (-) to separate words
RESOURCES TO LEARN MORE
- What is a permalink?
- How to Create SEO-Friendly URLs
- SEO best practices for URLs
7. Install SSL and make sure your website is HTTPS
Having an SSL installed on your website is one of the known ranking factors .
An SSL ensures that any information shared between your website and the server is protected.
If you haven’t yet migrated your website to HTTPS, then this is a top priority item on your to-do list.
Adding an SSL to your website isn’t enough for SEO purposes; you need to make sure you’re doing it correctly to avoid losing your current rankings.
RESOURCES TO LEARN MORE
- How to migrate from HTTP to HTTPS
8. Check for errors in the Google Search Console Coverage Report
The Index Coverage Report
If there are any problems during the crawling and indexing phase, this is very bad for your SEO.
It can cause major problems with your rankings, so one of the checks you should do regularly is visit the coverage report in Google Search Console and check for errors.
RESOURCES TO LEARN MORE
- How to find and fix indexing errors .
9. Check and optimize your robots.txt file
Robots.txt is a file that resides in the root folder of your site and instructs search engines about which pages on your site they can crawl and index.
A misconfiguration of your robots.txt file can lead to major errors or even de-indexing your website from search engine results.
RESOURCES TO LEARN MORE
- How to check and optimize your robots.txt file .
10. Check WordPress visibility settings
If you’re using WordPress as your CMS, in addition to checking your robots.txt file, you should also check your visibility settings in WordPress and make sure you’re not accidentally blocking search engines from accessing your content.
The setting is in SETTINGS / READING
Search Engine Visibility Setting
11. Check your comment settings and make sure all comment links are nofollow.
Another check you should make is to make sure all the links in your comments section have the nofollow attribute.
Comments are good for SEO and should be enabled on your blog, but to avoid a Google penalty for “unnatural links,” all outgoing links should be nofollow.
A nofollow link tells search engines not to pass any PageRank (or link juice) to the target website.
The easiest way to check this is to use the INSPECT option in Google Developer Tools.
12. Optimize the menu and site structure
If you want to be a true SEO expert , while auditing your website, you must not forget to optimize your site structure.
This is a mistake I see all the time when performing an SEO audit .
A good site structure is no more than 3 levels deep and allows you to access any website link from the home page in 3 clicks or less.
Ideal Site Structure for a Small Business Website
The website menu should accurately reflect the structure of the website.
If this isn’t the case with your website, reviewing its structure can help improve your SEO.
RESOURCES TO LEARN MORE
- How to Optimize Your Site Structure for SEO
13. Optimize your XML sitemap and submit it to search engines
An XML sitemap is a file that lists all the pages on your site that search engines need to know about.
You should ensure that your XML sitemap is properly optimized and valid, and then submit your sitemap to Google and Bing.
14. Check your sitemap for errors in Google Search Console
Submitting your sitemap to Google isn’t the end of the story. You should regularly check Google Search Console for sitemap errors.
Submit Sitemap to Google using Google Search Console.
15. Add structured data markup to your homepage
Schemas and structured data are very important for SEO today.
They can help you dramatically improve your website’s appearance in Google search results, and they’re good for local SEO and voice SEO.
Many people forget to add the necessary structured data to their homepage, and this is a big mistake.
Your homepage is one of the most important pages on your site for many reasons, and when it comes to SEO, it should be treated like the rest of your pages.
When it comes to structured data for your homepage, you should make sure to define the following schemas:
- Organization (if it’s an online business)
- Local business (if it has a physical presence, i.e. a store)
- Person (if you have a personal blog).
RESOURCES TO LEARN MORE
- Introduction to structured data markup in Google Search.
16. Test your structured data markup implementation
Schema definitions sometimes change, so it’s good practice to regularly test your schema implementation using Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool.
You can use the tool to check the structured data you’ve added to your homepage and other pages.
It is very important to keep the scheme information up to date and valid.
17. Enable breadcrumb menus on all your posts and pages
Breadcrumb menu example
A breadcrumb menu is a small menu, typically located at the top of a page, used as a navigation aid. It shows the way from the current page to the main page.
Breadcrumb menus are good for user experience and therefore also good for SEO.
Google loves breadcrumbs and recommends using them on your site.
RESOURCES TO LEARN MORE
- Breadcrumbs and SEO
18. Check that your breadcrumb scheme implementation is correct
One of the benefits of using breadcrumb menus is that they improve the presentation of your search snippets in mobile search results.
Google sometimes uses the breadcrumb name instead of the URL in the search snippet, so you’ll want to make sure you add the relevant structured data for your breadcrumbs.
If you’re using the Yoast SEO breadcrumb plugin, it automatically adds the correct structured data and schema code.
19. Check that all your pages define a canonical URL
What is a canonical URL?
Canonicalization is an advanced SEO concept , but something that is extremely important to get right.
Canonical URLs can help you resolve duplicate content issues, protect your content from being used by other websites (with or without your consent), and are the only way to specify your preferred domain to Google.
To learn more about canonical URLs and how to use them correctly, read these guides:
RESOURCES TO LEARN MORE
- What is a canonical URL?
- www vs non-www
20. Implement hreflang if your website is available in more than one language
If your website content is available in more than one language, you should use hreflang tags to inform Google about localized versions of your page.
Failure to do so can create indexing problems, as Google may be confused if the same page is available in more than one language.
They usually get it right, but by using hreflang you minimize the possibility of any problems.
Check out this guide for more information on how to implement SEO for your multilingual website.
21. Check and optimize your 404 page
A 404 page appears when a page cannot be found on your site. This could be because users misspelled a URL, or because a page was removed from your site and is no longer available.
For the best user experience, you should ensure your 404 page makes sense and offers users alternative options to find what they’re looking for.
This is what my 404 page looks like:
Custom 404 Page
22. Check and improve your website’s loading speed
As part of a technical SEO review, it’s important to check and improve your website’s loading speed as much as possible.
Loading speed is a well-known Google ranking factor and a very important user experience factor.
Google Study: Mobile Speed and Conversions
Slow websites lose money and customers for every second they are late.
RESOURCES TO LEARN MORE
- SEO Tips for Beginners
23. Use Lazy Loading for images and videos
A practical way to improve your site’s loading speed, especially on mobile devices, is to use Lazy Loading for images and videos.
Lazy loading is a mechanism that loads images or videos only when they are in the user’s viewport.
Lazy loading can be implemented very easily. If you’re using WordPress, you can use WP-ROCKET (the plugin I’m using on this site) or the Native Lazy Load plugin (from Google) to enable this feature on your website.
24. Optimize your website’s logo and favicon
One last thing to review before moving on to the rest of the points on this SEO checklist is to optimize your website’s logo and favicon.
Optimize means:
Make sure your logo is an image and not text – Google may decide to display your logo in search results, and to do so, it must be an image.
Give your logo the right name – Don’t just use the word “logo,” but use your website name and logo. For example, reliablesoft-logo.png
Add ALT text with your logo – Keep the alt text simple, for example “reliablesoft logo”
When it comes to using favicons, be sure to specify a custom favicon for your site that is square in size.
Google is testing the display of favicons in search results, so you should make sure your website is represented correctly.
On-Page SEO Checklist
On-Page SEO Techniques
On-Page SEO is all about the content of your page and has two main goals.
Help you create content that meets user intent and provide guidelines on how to create SEO-friendly content that is easily understood by search engines.
Here’s your on-page SEO checklist:
25. Optimize your page titles (including the home page)
Optimizing your page title is the most important SEO factor. Your title should include your target keywords, as this helps both search engines and users get an idea of the page’s content.
In addition to using keywords in your title, you should also follow these best practices:
- Each and every page on your website should have a unique title tag.
- A page title should accurately describe the content of the page.
- Titles should be short and informative (usually less than 60 characters)
When optimizing your titles, don’t forget your homepage.
RESOURCES TO LEARN MORE
- Page Title Optimization
26. Optimize meta descriptions (including the home page)
Meta descriptions are displayed in search results and are a great opportunity to “advertise” your page to users.
Good meta descriptions can increase your CTR (click-through rate) and drive more search engine traffic using your existing content and rankings.
RESOURCES TO LEARN MORE
- How to Perfectly Optimize Your Meta Descriptions (with Examples)
- The optimal length of the meta description (case study)
27. Search for your brand on Google
One check you should do (and that not many people do) is to search for your brand name on Google and review the results.
You need to make sure that nothing negative (like a negative review) appears for your brand because this can have a negative impact on your reputation but also on your SEO.
28. Optimize your website for Google sitelinks
Sitelinks in Google Search Results
Another way to improve your website’s appearance on Google is through sitelinks.
Although you can’t directly control which sitelinks are displayed for your website, there are ways to guide Google in choosing the sitelinks you want.
RESOURCES FOR MORE INFORMATION
- How to get sitelinks from Google
29. Optimize your posts for Google sitelinks
Google also displays sitelinks for individual posts. Post sitelinks make your search snippet more clickable.
For example, look at the sitelinks on one of my posts.
To help Google display sitelinks in your posts, you can “name” the different sections of your article using the ID attribute or named anchors.
Here’s an example:
Post sitelinks in Google Search Results
30. Optimize your posts for Google featured snippets using lists
Google loves to display lists at the top of its search results. This often happens with “how-to” articles, tips, or posts that include lists.
For example, try Googling “SEO Tips,” “SEO Checklist,” “How to Become an SEO Expert,” and you might see something like this:
Google snippet with a list
The good thing for SEOs is that it’s easy to configure your posts to be eligible for list snippets.
31. Check and optimize the H1 tag of all pages (including the home page)
One of the easy on-page SEO elements to optimize is the H1 tag.
The H1 tag is the first major element displayed on a page and is usually equal in value to the page title.
H1 Tag SEO is easy:
- The H1 tag should be the same as or slightly different from the page title.
- Make sure the H1 tag is visible and not hidden from users.
- Style your H1 tag differently from the rest of the headings
- Use only one h1 tag per page
RESOURCES TO LEARN MORE
- How to optimize the H1 tag for SEO.
- Differences between the H1 tag and the page title.
32. Check and optimize your page titles
In addition to the H1 tag, you should also optimize the other headings in your post. These are typically the H2 and H3 headings.
SEO guidelines to follow:
- Don’t use heading tags when other tags such as bold or italics are more appropriate.
- Don’t overuse headings. Use headings when important for structure, navigation, and to make the page content easier to read.
- It’s not necessary to use all types of headings on a page. You can have only h1s or h2s, depending on the length and type of your content.
- Having a balance between the use of headings and other formatting elements is always the best approach.
Conclusion:
By passing through this complete SEO checklist, you will be halfway to optimizing your site for 2025. SEO is a recurring process, and being aligned with the latest trends and best practices is the secret to long-term success. Be it performing the basics of SEO, tweaking technical ones, or performing your on-page and off-page optimization, each step is important. Always monitor your website’s performance, look at results, and constantly update to improve. Correct SEO doesn’t just boost your search engine rankings but better it for the user, and that is what makes companies successful in the long run. Stay consistent, constantly update, and see your website soar in the search rankings!
Saad Raza is an SEO specialist with 7+ years of experience in driving organic growth and improving search rankings. Skilled in data-driven strategies, keyword research, content optimization, and technical SEO, he helps businesses boost online visibility and achieve sustainable results. Passionate about staying ahead of industry trends, Saad delivers measurable success for his clients.