Technical AEO checklist: 12 steps for website owners
Use this list to find avoidable barriers between your useful content and search or answer systems. Work from access and indexability first, then improve clarity, evidence and measurement.
Start here: a technically accessible page is only eligible to be considered. It still needs useful, relevant content and reasons to be trusted.
- 01
Confirm the page is publicly reachable
Open the canonical URL in a private browser window. Check that it returns the intended page rather than a login wall, error, challenge page or redirect loop.
- 02
Review robots.txt and hosting rules
Check the user-agent rules and your CDN or firewall. Do not block important content by accident. Choose deliberately which AI crawlers, if any, you permit; allowing a bot does not guarantee a citation.
- 03
Check indexability directives
Inspect the page for noindex, nosnippet and conflicting HTTP X-Robots-Tag headers. Keep private dashboards and account pages out of search, but let crawlers fetch public pages.
- 04
Publish a clean XML sitemap
List canonical, indexable URLs that return successfully. Keep redirected, private, duplicate and error URLs out. Reference the sitemap in robots.txt and submit it in Search Console. A sitemap helps discovery; it does not guarantee indexing.
- 05
Make important content available in delivered HTML
View the page source or fetch the HTML without running JavaScript. The main answer, headings and essential product or service information should not exist only after a client-side app loads.
- 06
Use one clear title and main heading
Give each page a distinct, descriptive title and a clear H1. Use nested H2 and H3 headings to describe real sections, not to repeat variants of a keyword.
- 07
Write direct, complete answers
Put the core answer near the relevant heading, then explain qualifications, examples and next steps. Avoid vague openings that depend on context from another section.
- 08
Support claims with verifiable evidence
Use first-hand examples, original data, named authors or reviewers where appropriate, accurate dates and links to reliable primary sources. Do not invent credentials, testimonials or statistics.
- 09
Use structured data only when it matches the page
Add valid schema markup for entities and content that visitors can see. Test the JSON-LD. Never add fake reviews, ratings, prices, FAQs or organization details.
- 10
Strengthen internal links
Link related pages using descriptive anchor text. Important guides and tools should be reachable through normal HTML links, not only through scripts or search forms. Check for broken destinations.
- 11
Check mobile usability and loading
Test the page at mobile widths, keep layouts stable, optimize images and fonts, and measure Core Web Vitals with field or browser tools. A server response timer alone is not a Core Web Vitals measurement.
- 12
Measure search and AI visibility separately
Use Search Console for search queries, clicks, impressions, countries, devices and indexing. Keep a consistent set of customer prompts for AI tools and record dated mentions and cited URLs. Audit scores are not rankings or citations.
Which checks can AEOCheck automate?
AEOCheck can inspect a subset of these signals in public HTML and site-level files, including response status, robots rules, sitemap discovery, metadata, canonical tags, headings, structured data, internal links, image alt text, mobile viewport and selected response diagnostics. It does not run a real browser, execute JavaScript, measure field Core Web Vitals, query Search Console or test whether an AI assistant cites a page.
See the complete check catalogue and the AEOCheck methodology for the exact scope and scoring limits.
Reliable references
- Google Search Central: AI features and your website
- Google Search Central: helpful, reliable, people-first content
- Bing Webmaster Guidelines
Run these checks against your own site
AEOCheck turns several technical checks into a report with page-level evidence and suggested next steps.
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