Blog SEO Audit Checklist: 25 Checks for Any Article

An SEO audit does not need expensive software. For a single blog article, most of the value comes from checking a short list of things carefully. Use this checklist on new drafts before publishing and on older articles that have lost traffic.

Search intent and content (checks 1 to 7)

1. The article targets one main topic. If it tries to answer three different questions, split it.
2. It matches search intent. Search the main query and look at the results. If they are all step-by-step guides, a personal essay will struggle.
3. The answer comes early. The first paragraph tells readers what they will get, and the key answer appears near the top.
4. It shows real expertise or experience. Specific examples, original images, accurate details. Google's guidance on creating helpful, reliable, people-first content is the best reference for this.
5. Facts are accurate and sourced. Statistics link to the original source.
6. It is complete enough that the reader does not need to go back to the search results.
7. It is easy to scan: short paragraphs, descriptive subheadings, lists and tables where they help.

On-page elements (checks 8 to 13)

8. Title tag is specific, includes the main topic naturally and is roughly 50 to 60 characters so it is less likely to be cut off.
9. Meta description summarises the benefit in about 150 to 160 characters. It does not affect ranking directly but influences clicks.
10. One H1 that matches the page's topic.
11. Logical H2 and H3 structure. Read the headings alone: they should outline the article.
12. Clean, readable URL using a few descriptive words.
13. Author name and date are visible, with a link to an author profile.

Links (checks 14 to 17)

14. At least two to three relevant internal links to other articles, with descriptive anchor text. See our internal linking strategy.
15. Other relevant articles link to this one. New articles with no internal links pointing at them are hard to discover.
16. External links go to credible sources and open correctly.
17. No broken links. Check older articles especially.

Images and media (checks 18 to 20)

18. Images are relevant and properly licensed, ideally original.
19. Every meaningful image has descriptive alt text.
20. Images are compressed and sized for the web, using modern formats where possible.

Technical (checks 21 to 24)

21. The page is indexed. Check with the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console.
22. The canonical tag points to the correct URL, usually itself.
23. Structured data (Article or BlogPosting) is present and valid. Our BlogPosting schema tutorial shows how.
24. The page loads quickly on mobile and passes Core Web Vitals where you have enough data.

Freshness (check 25)

25. The content is current. Outdated prices, screenshots, rules or software steps are updated, and the modified date is changed only when the update is meaningful.

How to prioritise fixes

For an existing article, start with the checks that affect whether it can rank at all (indexing, intent match, content quality), then improve click-through (title and description), then strengthen internal links. Our guide to finding quick wins in Google Search Console helps you choose which articles to audit first.

A printable version of this checklist is available as a PDF in our submissions library.