Website Audit · 2026 Edition

The 50-Point
Website Audit Checklist

Looking to update or redevelop your website? Work through our 50-point checklist to find exactly where you can improve — now covering SEO, AEO and GEO for the age of AI-powered search.

Designing or redesigning your website is a major investment that shapes the success of your business for years. Getting it right starts with an honest look at your current site — so you can prioritise the right improvements and brief your new project with confidence.

GRM's Digital Strategists built this 50-point checklist to help you audit your website end to end: from content and technical SEO to the new frontier of AEO and GEO. Work through it section by section, tick off what's covered, and flag the gaps.

How to use it: Print this sheet and tick each box by hand, or run through it on screen. Every empty box is an opportunity to improve.

Your progress0 / 50 complete

Have you defined a clear goal and primary audience for each page of your website?
Does every page have clear navigation and a single, obvious call to action (CTA)?
Does the content on each page genuinely support that page's goal?
Is your copy free of spelling and grammatical errors, and consistent with your brand's tone of voice?
Is content structured for scanning, using headings, white space, bullet points and supporting visuals?
Are your images clear and crisp, and is the site linked to your active social media profiles?

Is your content aligned to the search intent behind the keywords you are targeting?
Does each page have a unique, optimised H1 and a logical H2/H3 heading hierarchy?
Do all of your images include descriptive alt text?
Does every page have a unique, compelling meta title and meta description?
Have you submitted an XML sitemap to Google Search Console and resolved any crawl errors?
Are internal links, canonical tags and redirects configured correctly, with no duplicate or orphaned pages?

Have you implemented relevant schema markup (Organisation, Article, Product, Breadcrumb, FAQ)?
Does your structured data pass Google's Rich Results Test with no errors or warnings?
Do you mark up FAQs and how-to content to support rich results and AI-generated answers?

Quick tip ·Run your site through a technical SEO crawler such as Screaming Frog or Semrush to surface broken links, missing meta data and crawl issues at scale.

New to these?

AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) is optimising your content to be the direct answer in featured snippets, voice search and assistants.

GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) is making your content easy for generative AI — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews — to find, trust and quote. As search shifts from links to answers, both are fast becoming essential.

Does your content answer real user questions directly and concisely, in the natural language people actually use?AEO
Do you use clear question-style headings with a succinct answer placed immediately beneath them?AEO
Is content “chunked” into self-contained passages an engine can lift as a complete answer?
Are key facts, statistics and claims stated explicitly and attributed, so AI can quote them accurately?GEO
Is your business information consistent across the web (Wikidata, authoritative directories, NAP) to build machine trust?GEO
Have you reviewed how your brand appears in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews, and noted the gaps?
Have you set an intentional policy for AI crawlers in robots.txt (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended)?
Have you published an llms.txt and a clear stance on how generative engines may use your content?

Quick tip ·Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews a question your customers would ask. If a competitor is named and you aren't, that's your GEO opportunity.

Can your team create, edit and delete pages without development input?
Does your team find the CMS easy and intuitive to update?
Can you create content workflows and approvals between your team members?
Is your website integrated cleanly with your CMS and key third-party platforms (CRM, marketing automation)?
Is your CMS, with its plugins and integrations, up to date and free of errors?
Does your CMS have limitations that may block your future plans? (Consider a headless / composable approach.)
Is your hosting model right for your traffic and growth, and is the site backed up with a tested restore process?

Does the design follow your brand guidelines and feel consistent throughout?
Is the website fully responsive and tested across all devices and breakpoints?
Is the navigational menu simple, predictable and easy to use?
Is your font and typography legible at every size, with sufficient colour contrast?
Does the site meet WCAG 2.2 AA (keyboard navigation, visible focus, labels, alt text) for a frictionless, inclusive journey?

Is GA4 (with Google Tag Manager) correctly configured, with key events and conversions tracked across the journey?
Are other relevant pixels (LinkedIn, Meta) in place and consent-gated, and are form submissions reliably captured? For ecommerce, is monetary / purchase tracking in place?
Are you using behavioural tools such as heatmaps and session recordings to analyse and remove friction in the user journey?

Your audit summary

0 of 50 checks complete

50 opportunities to strengthen your site remain.

01Content & Messaging0/6
02E-E-A-T & Authority0/4
03SEO Foundations0/6
04Structured Data & Schema0/3
05AEO & GEO0/8
06Technical & CMS0/7
07Security & Privacy0/4
08Speed & Core Web Vitals0/4
09Design, UX & Accessibility0/5
10Tracking & Measurement0/3

Get in touch

Need help with your web development project?

Whether you're developing a new website or refreshing your current site, our Digital Strategists would love to hear from you. We use digital tech to drive growth for enterprise businesses — and make it deliver.

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The 50-PointWebsite Audit Checklist

Content & Messaging

E-E-A-T & Authority

SEO Foundations

Structured Data & Schema

AEO & GEO

Technical & CMS

Security & Privacy

Speed & Core Web Vitals

Design, UX & Accessibility

Tracking & Measurement

0 of 50 checks complete

Need help with your web development project?

The 50-Point
Website Audit Checklist