50-Point AI-Assisted SEO Audit Checklist for 2026

Quick Answer

A modern SEO audit covers 5 layers: technical, on-page, off-page, content, and AEO (Answer Engine Optimization). This 50-point checklist covers all five, with AI helping on 80% of the checks.

• Run crawlers first (Screaming Frog, Sitebulb)
• Then manual checks (top 10 pages)
• Finally AEO checks (Perplexity, ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews)

What Is an SEO Audit?

An SEO audit is a systematic review of everything that affects a site's organic visibility — technical health, content quality, backlinks, and now answer-engine presence.

Why a 2026 Audit Is Different

Layer	2020	2026
Technical	Core Web Vitals new	INP replaces FID; LCP tightened
Content	Keyword density	Topical authority + entities
Backlinks	Volume focus	Topical relevance + citations
AEO	Not a thing	Table stakes
Tooling	Manual	AI-assisted, 10× faster

The 50-Point Checklist

Technical (1–15)

1. HTTPS site-wide, no mixed content
2. robots.txt exists and allows search + AI crawlers
3. XML sitemap submitted to GSC
4. Canonicals correct on every page
5. No broken internal links (crawl + verify)
6. 4xx/5xx errors under 1%
7. INP under 200ms (75th percentile)
8. LCP under 2.5s
9. CLS under 0.1
10. Mobile-friendly test passes
11. Structured data valid (Rich Results test)
12. Hreflang tags correct (if multilingual)
13. Pagination uses self-referencing canonical
14. JS rendered content visible to crawlers
15. Redirect chains ≤ 1 hop

On-Page (16–25)

16. Title tag 50–60 chars, target keyword near front
17. Meta description 140–160 chars, CTA included
18. Single H1 per page
19. H2–H6 hierarchy logical
20. Alt text on all content images
21. Internal links descriptive (not "click here")
22. URL slug short, keyword-present, hyphens not underscores
23. Open Graph + Twitter Card tags present
24. Schema.org markup for page type
25. Breadcrumbs with BreadcrumbList schema

Content (26–35)

26. Every target keyword has 1 primary page (no cannibalization)
27. Top 20 pages cover search intent fully
28. Thin content (<300 words) either expanded or pruned
29. Content freshness — top 10 pages updated in last 12 months
30. E-E-A-T signals present (author bio, sources, dates)
31. FAQ schema on how-to/FAQ pages
32. Internal linking from high-authority pages to commercial pages
33. Keyword variations + entities covered per topic
34. Content clusters have pillar + spoke structure
35. Thin/duplicate pages noindexed or consolidated

Off-Page (36–42)

36. Domain authority / URL rating checked (Ahrefs / Moz)
37. Referring domain count growing month-over-month
38. Backlink profile free of toxic domains (disavow if needed)
39. Branded vs. non-branded anchor ratio healthy
40. Linked vs. unlinked brand mentions tracked
41. Competitor link gap analysis run
42. Digital PR / citation outreach plan active

AEO (43–50)

43. Page appears when asked in ChatGPT
44. Page appears when asked in Perplexity
45. Page appears in Google AI Overviews for target query
46. Quick Answer / TL;DR section present
47. FAQ section with 5–7 Qs
48. Sources cited with links
49. Statistics with dates and citations
50. Author entity connected to Wikidata / authoritative profiles

AI Prompts for the Audit

Title + meta checker

Review these 50 title tags. Flag: >60 chars, missing target keyword, duplicate, or missing CTA.

Content gap finder

Compare my page to the top 3 ranking pages for . List entities, subtopics, and sections I'm missing.

Schema validator

Validate this JSON-LD. Flag missing required fields for . Output corrected JSON-LD.

Top Tools

Tool	Use Case	Free Tier	Best For
Screaming Frog	Technical crawl	✅ (500 URLs)	Full audits
Ahrefs	Backlinks + content	❌	Pros
Google Search Console	Indexing + queries	✅	Everyone
PageSpeed Insights	Core Web Vitals	✅	Speed audits

FAQs

Q: How long does a full audit take?

A: 4–8 hours for a 1,000-page site with AI assistance. 2–3 days manual.

Q: How often should I audit?

A: Full audit quarterly, mini-audit monthly (top 20 pages + technical health).

Q: Can AI do the whole audit alone?

A: AI handles 80% — the 20% human judgment (intent, E-E-A-T, brand voice) still matters.

Q: What's the #1 2026 audit mistake?

A: Ignoring AEO. If you don't show in ChatGPT/Perplexity, you're losing 15–25% of future traffic.

Q: Do I need paid tools?

A: Free tier (GSC + PSI + a crawler) covers 70%. Ahrefs/Semrush unlock the rest.

Q: What's an acceptable audit score?

A: 45/50 or higher. Below 40, you have serious leaks.

Conclusion

A structured audit beats intuition. Run this checklist quarterly, fix the top 5 issues each time, and your organic graph compounds.

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