The SEO, AEO and GEO checklist

This page condenses the whole SEO, AEO and GEO guide into a working checklist. Run it top to bottom the first time through, because the order is the dependency chain: a page that fails the technical section cannot be retrieved, a page that fails the content section will not be chosen, and a page that fails citation readiness will be retrieved and passed over. Measurement comes last because it only tells you something once the other three sections are honest.

Each item is one action, and most link to the hub page that explains the reasoning and the primary sources behind it. Treat an unchecked box as a task, not a verdict. If a term is unfamiliar, the glossary defines it.

1. Technical foundation

• Confirm every important page is crawlable: reachable server, working internal links, and a robots.txt that does not block content you want found. See technical SEO.
• Verify those pages are actually indexed, with no stray noindex directives and no canonicals pointing at the wrong URL.
• Check snippet eligibility, because Google's AI features can only use pages that are indexed, crawlable and snippet eligible. See how Google ranks.
• Keep an up-to-date XML sitemap submitted in Search Console.
• Fix the speed and rendering basics: HTTPS, correct status codes, sensible redirects, pages that load fast and work on mobile.
• Decide deliberately which AI crawlers you allow, and know exactly what each robots.txt rule blocks before you add it.
• Skip llms.txt as a tactic. Google states that Google Search ignores it. See what Google actually says.

2. Content that earns its place

• Map every page to a real search intent found through keyword research, not to a keyword variation.
• Phrase headings as the questions people ask, then answer each one in the first sentence beneath the heading. See on-page SEO.
• Add first-hand substance a competitor cannot copy: your own data, tests, experience or worked examples. See E-E-A-T.
• Put quotations, statistics and cited sources into the copy itself. The GEO research measured visibility lifts of around 41, 30 and 27 percent for those three additions. See how to get cited.
• Do not scale one template across query variations. That pattern is what the scaled content abuse policy targets. See where thin content becomes a risk.
• Earn links from sites that would mention you anyway, and value quality far above volume.

3. Citation readiness

• Keep your best pages current instead of replacing them: engines cite recently updated content 65 to 78 percent of the time, and most of it is older material that was maintained. See freshness.
• Make every key claim self-contained and quotable, with the subject named rather than called "it", so the passage survives being lifted into an answer. See snippets.
• Name and link the source for every number you use, so an engine can verify what it quotes.
• Show verifiable authorship: named authors, real credentials, a contactable organization behind the site. See E-E-A-T.
• Add structured data where it genuinely fits the content, not as an AI tactic.
• Keep your business facts consistent everywhere they appear, for local and merchant surfaces.
• Publish in the languages of your markets, so you can be cited where your customers actually ask.
• Cultivate brand mentions on independent sites, since engines learn about you from more than your own pages.

4. Measurement

• Track classic visibility in Search Console and AI visibility in its generative AI performance report, instead of guessing. See measurement.
• Measure share of voice with repeated, sampled queries and confidence intervals, never a single spot check, because answer engines vary between runs.
• Review which cited pages are decaying and refresh those first. See freshness.
• Distrust any tool claiming inside access: no third party can see Google's internal ranking or AI systems. See what Google actually says.

Work the list monthly, not once

A checklist you complete once is a snapshot; the engines you are optimizing for do not stand still. Freshness is a citation signal, competitors add the substance you added, and measurement only means something as a trend. Put a monthly pass in the calendar: verify the technical section still holds, refresh the pages that earn citations, and compare this month's share of voice with last month's. Vupie runs this loop on autopilot for its customers, but the list works exactly the same by hand.