I conduct upwards of 100 or more SEO audits every year, on sites with upwards of several million pages.  Over the past couple years people have asked whether I have an SEO checklist I go by when performing my audits.  To develop such a resource isn’t all that challenging, except to note several important factors.

• Every site is unique
• Every company has different goals
• Every competitive landscape market is unique
• Every SEO factor is not equal
• Search engines constantly change their algorithms

Once you understand these factors, you can consider creating a standardized checklist for SEO that can serve as a guide when performing a forensic audit specific to search optimization.  I’ve got one that I keep in my head, though as a courtesy to those who have asked and those who are curious, I’m providing what, for all intents and purposes, can be considered my own SEO checklist.

Note however that many of the factors I include here are not truly limited to SEO in its strictest interpretation, because I believe in at least covering the basics when it comes to other online marketnig factors such as Conversion Optimization, PPC advtertising, and even Reputation Management.

This doesn’t mean that I perform a thorough and exhaustive review and analysis of these other factors.  Instead, when called upon, I do put some time into these things and provide my professional recommendation to clients where I feel a more thorough audit should be performed on any of these.

On a final note, be aware that there’s somewhere over 80 factors listed, however the art and science of SEO teaches that all of these factors are cross-related.  So how one aspect impacts another can also be considered its own factor.  And that’s how search engines end up with thousands of factors.

If you prefer, you can download the Excel spreadsheet version of this checklist.