The 10-Point SEO Checklist, Explained (Not Just Listed)

Most SEO checklists just hand you a list of ten things to check off without explaining why any of them matter. That makes them easy to skip, or to do half-heartedly. Here's the reasoning behind the basics — once you understand why, you stop treating them as busywork.

Meta title and description aren't ranking factors, but they decide who clicks

Google has been fairly clear that your meta description doesn't directly affect ranking. What it does affect is click-through rate — if your title and description don't make someone want to click over a competing result, you lose the visitor before they even reach your page. Over time, low click-through rates on a ranking page can work against you indirectly.

One H1, and it should mean something

Search engines use your H1 as a strong signal for what the page is fundamentally about. Having none, or having several competing H1s, muddies that signal. It's a small technical detail with an outsized effect on how clearly a page communicates its topic.

ALT text isn't just for accessibility

ALT text exists primarily so screen readers can describe images to visually impaired visitors — that alone is reason enough to add it. But it also gives search engines textual context for images they otherwise can't interpret, which matters if you want any chance of showing up in image search.

Sitemap and robots.txt are about being found, not about ranking directly

Neither of these files makes your content rank better on its own. What they control is whether search engines can find and crawl your pages in the first place. A missing sitemap means new pages might take much longer to get discovered. A misconfigured robots.txt can accidentally block search engines from your whole site — it's worth checking occasionally, not just once at launch.

Page speed is one of the few items on this list that's a confirmed, direct ranking factor

Unlike some items on this list that work indirectly, page speed (specifically Core Web Vitals) is something Google has explicitly confirmed as a ranking signal — and it also directly affects whether visitors stick around at all.

Check your own site

Nexlink's SEO Checklist walks through all ten of these with a one-tap explanation for each, and tracks your progress as you verify them on your own site — free, no account needed.