Ultimate SEO checklist: 43 tips to optimize your website

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SEO is no longer just about ranking in Google. It also means showing up in AI-driven search surfaces like Google's AI Overviews and ChatGPT.But more surfaces means more places for visibility to slip. That's where an SEO checklist helps: It makes sure nothing important gets missed.The checklist below covers the tasks that keep you visible wherever your audience searches. It also prepares your site for a future where AI agents find what they need and take actions on it.How to use this SEO checklistAn SEO checklist is a step-by-step list of tasks that covers every part of SEO, from technical setup to content and links. Use this one by going through each item in the order we've listed it. We've divided these SEO best practices into six sections: Basic SEO practices checklist Keyword research checklist Technical SEO checklist Content & on-page SEO checklist Link building & off-page SEO checklist AI Search checklistAddress all six sections for a holistic SEO strategy. If you have limited time or resources, focus on the most relevant tasks. Then, return to this guide whenever you’re ready to move on.Download a copy of the checklist here.Basic SEO practices checklistThese first steps create a foundation for your SEO and make you more likely to gain search visibility.1. Set up Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster ToolsSet up Google Search Console (GSC) and Bing Webmaster Tools to monitor your SEO performance and submit your pages to search engines.These tools allow you to: Monitor your Google- and Bing-specific search performance Submit sitemaps and URLs Identify crawl errorsBing Webmaster Tools now includes an “AI Performance” report, which gives insight into performance across Bing Copilot, AI summaries within Bing, and some partner AI integrations.GSC also includes performance information for AI Overviews and AI Mode in the Generative AI report.2. Set up Google AnalyticsSet up a free Google Analytics 4 (GA4) account to track site traffic and user behavior. Pair it with GSC: GA4 shows what visitors do once they land on your site, while GSC shows how they found it. If you want to see how visitors interact with individual pages, add a heatmap or session-recording tool like Microsoft Clarity.With GA4, you can see: Which pages get the most traffic Traffic sources (sites, search engines, or AI tools) Bounce rates and visitsKeep in mind that AI-driven search is changing traffic patterns — users may get answers directly from AI without clicking through. So, it may be more important to focus on what users do once they land on your site than sheer traffic volume.3. Install and configure an SEO plugin (for WordPress sites)A WordPress SEO plugin helps you generate sitemaps automatically, edit robots.txt files, and manage on-page optimizations.Here are some popular SEO plugins, along with their key features:

AI-assisted content optimization: Get suggestions for improving structure, clarity, and keyword use

Automated technical SEO: Generates sitemaps, handles canonical URLs, and adds schema markup

Internal linking suggestions: Recommends relevant pages to strengthen site structure

AI content features: Uses AI to conduct keyword research, generate ideas, create an outline, and write a first draft

Schema capabilities: Imports, generates, and validates structured data

Performance monitoring: Surfaces key SEO insights at the page level and allows for trend analysis

4. Create a robots.txt fileCreating a robots.txt file (pictured below) tells search systems which pages they should and shouldn’t crawl. It helps with a broader concept called indexability (whether search engines and AI crawlers can actually discover, crawl, and index your pages).To see your current file, add “/robots.txt” to your homepage URL. For example: https://semrush.com/robots.txt.Check your robots.txt file for errors using Semrush's Site Audit tool. Go to the "Issues" tab and search "robots.txt" to see all related problems.Beyond robots.txt itself, a full indexability check covers: Meta robots tags and X-Robots-Tag headers: Both can block indexing even when robots.txt allows crawling Canonical tags: Tell search engines which version of a page to index when duplicates exist Sitemap accuracy: Make sure your XML sitemap only lists pages you actually want indexed, and that it's referenced in your robots.txt file 4xx and 5xx status codes: Pages returning errors can't be indexed even if nothing is blocking themA robots.txt file also provides guidance to AI crawlers. Blocking these crawlers can limit how your content is discovered and used in AI-generated answers. So if AI visibility matters to you, make sure important pages — and the crawlers that read them — remain accessible.5. Create and submit an XML sitemapCreate and submit an XML sitemap to help search engines understand your site’s structure and index your pages.If you use WordPress, a sitemap is created automatically. Other popular platforms do this as well. If your CMS or website platform doesn’t automatically make a sitemap, create one with a sitemap generator tool.Then, submit your sitemap to GSC and Bing Webmaster Tools and add your sitemap URL to your robots.txt file.Here’s what our blog’s sitemap looks like:Use Semrush Site Audit to find and fix sitemap issues.6. Check Google Search Console for manual actionsCheck GSC for penalties called manual actions so you can resolve them right away if needed. Scroll down the tool’s sidebar navigation and select “Security & Manual Actions” > “Manual actions” to see a report with detected issues — if there are any.Google will notify you in a GSC report if your site receives a manual action.7. Make sure Google can index your websiteMake sure Google can index your website so your content can show up in search results. Indexability is a page's ability to be added to Google's index, and pages that aren't indexed can't rank.Being indexed in Google is also important for AI visibility — many AI t