The New SEO Audit Checklist: Google Rankings + AI Mentions

Search engine optimization has always evolved alongside technology, but 2025 is bringing a shift bigger than mobile-first indexing or Core Web Vitals.

Today, a strong SEO audit must not only ensure that your site ranks well in Google, it also has to assess how your brand shows up in AI-driven search experiences like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews.

This checklist gives you a modern framework to evaluate both traditional SEO fundamentals and AI visibility signals so you can future-proof your digital presence.

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1. Technical SEO: The Foundation Still Matters

If search engines can’t crawl or index your site properly, nothing else matters. Your audit should confirm:

Crawlability & Indexation – Use tools like Screaming Frog or GSC to identify blocked pages, crawl errors, and non-indexed content.
Site Speed & Core Web Vitals – Test with PageSpeed Insights. Aim for LCP < 2.5s, CLS < 0.1, and FID < 100ms.
Mobile Responsiveness – Ensure design and content adapt cleanly to mobile.
URL Structure & Canonicals – Avoid duplicate content issues with clean URLs and proper canonical tags.

HTTPS & Security – Non-secure sites are a trust breaker for both users and search engines.

2. Content Depth: Beyond Keywords

Search engines and AI models alike prefer comprehensive, helpful content. Check for:

Topic Coverage – Does each page answer all related questions, not just the primary keyword?
Content Freshness – Outdated info reduces both rankings and trustworthiness in AI summaries.
Search Intent Alignment – Make sure pages match informational, navigational, or transactional intent.
Internal Linking – Logical pathways between related content improve topical authority.
Readability – Clear structure with H2/H3 tags, short paragraphs, and natural language.

3. E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness

AI engines and Google alike weigh credibility heavily. Strengthen it by auditing:

Author Pages – Showcase credentials, expertise, and real experience.
Firsthand Insight – Add original perspectives, case studies, or proprietary data.
Trust Signals – Visible contact info, privacy policy, and testimonials.
Citations & Sources – Outbound links to credible sources increase trustworthiness.
Brand Consistency – Align messaging across your site, social media, and business profiles.

4. Backlink Health: The Old Signal Still Works

Links remain a top trust and authority factor. Your audit should examine:

Referring Domain Quality – Are links from trusted, relevant websites?
Toxic Links – Disavow spammy or irrelevant backlinks. Better yet… try to see if you can get them removed.
Anchor Text Distribution – Natural mix of branded, topical, and generic anchors.
Link Velocity – Growth should be consistent, not spiky.
Diversity – Links from different types of sites (blogs, news, associations, directories).

5. AI Engine Visibility: The New Frontier

This is where modern SEO audits diverge from the past. AI-driven answers are shaping how people discover companies, even without clicking Google links. To audit AI visibility:

Step 1: Simulate Real User Questions

Surprisingly, the AI tools have moved beyond college kids cheating on exams, fast. People are using them as a sort of personal assistant and it’s becoming a part of their regular research process.

Ask AI engines the questions your customers would:
- “Best [service] near me”
- “Who are the top [industry] providers in [city]?”
- “What company specializes in [problem]?”

Step 2: Track Mentions

Note whether your company is named explicitly or if competitors dominate.
Identify associated attributes (fast service, affordable, high-end) that AI connects to brands.

Step 3: Analyze Coverage Gaps

If you aren’t mentioned, is it because content isn’t visible to AI training (thin, unlinked, or gated)?
Are competitors being cited from third-party sources like directories, local news, or industry blogs?

Step 4: Optimize for AI Ingestion

Publish structured data (schema markup) to make entity details machine-readable.
Get cited in third-party content: press, reviews, and authority sites.
Create FAQ-style content that matches conversational query formats.
Expand digital footprint (LinkedIn, GBP, directories, podcasts, etc.) so AI has multiple data points.

Step 5: Monitor Regularly

Run AI-mention checks quarterly, just like rank tracking.

Track progress as you build topical authority and brand recognition.

Wrapping It Up

The new SEO audit isn’t just about checking broken links or title tags. It’s about ensuring your brand is discoverable in two parallel ecosystems:

Traditional search (Google/Bing) – where technical excellence, content depth, and backlinks still rule.
AI search (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews) – where visibility depends on your authority, mentions, and structured signals.

By combining both, you’ll build a digital presence that not only ranks but also gets remembered, recommended, and repeated in the AI answers shaping tomorrow’s customer journeys.