Why we built a 190-point SEO checklist you run in order

We built a free SEO checklist with 190 checkpoints across 16 sections. Most SEO checklists read like a dumped task list, in no particular order, and fail the moment someone tries to run them as a real project. Ours is different by design. The order is the entire point.

It opens with the 12 highest-leverage moves, the dozen actions that change rankings and leads first. Then it works through Strategy and Foundations before anyone touches a Google Business Profile listing. Change a category or an address before you have a baseline snapshot, and you lose the ability to tell what caused what. Multi-location entities come after single-location fundamentals in the sequence.

AI search visibility, how you show up in ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews, sits near the end. That section depends on the technical and content work built earlier in the sequence, so it has to wait no matter how urgent it feels.

The last section is a Risk Register. It names eight tactics people ask about constantly, including gating reviews and stuffed location pages, and lays out the exposure behind each one next to the legitimate alternative. Since 16 CFR Part 465 took effect in October 2024, review gating alone carries civil penalties over $50,000 per violation, and the rule holds the business and anyone acting on its behalf liable.

Download the checklist and run it in order, skipping the sections that do not apply to your setup. If you want a team to run it with you instead of alone, that is what our SEO service does.