The Complete AEO Audit Checklist for Small Businesses
This is a detailed, actionable checklist for evaluating your Answer Engine Optimization readiness. Use it to audit your website across all 6 pillars of AEO and identify the highest-impact improvements.
The checklist includes 100 specific items organized by category. Many can be evaluated without technical expertise. For complex items, we've included hints for testing.
Your AEO Score
Complete items above to calculate your AEO readiness score.
How to Use This Checklist
Check off items as you complete or verify them. Your score updates automatically. Aim for 70+ points (70%) to be meaningfully AEO-ready. Items marked as high-impact should be prioritized first. Don't worry if you can't complete everything—focus on the biggest wins.
Category 1: Schema Markup & Structured Data (20 items)
Organization Schema
FAQ & Other Schema Types
Category 2: Entity Clarity (15 items)
Core Entity Identity
Geographic Identity
Credential & Authority Signals
Category 3: Content Structure (20 items)
Formatting & Scanability
Content Depth
Media & Visual Content
Writing Quality
Category 4: Answer Readiness (15 items)
Question-Answer Format
Quotability
Comparison & Context
Category 5: Technical Signals (20 items)
Crawlability & Indexing
Performance & Mobile
Security & Compliance
Webmaster Tools
Category 6: Citation Potential & Authority (10 items)
Backlinks & Referral Authority
Authority Signals
Your Final AEO Readiness Score
Score: 0/100
Get Professional Assessment
Completed this checklist and want expert validation? FirstAnswer's 100-point AEO audit provides a comprehensive analysis with prioritized recommendations tailored to your business.
Start Your Professional AEO AuditFAQ
Can I do an AEO audit myself?
Yes. This checklist is designed to be DIY-friendly. You can evaluate many factors yourself without technical expertise. For items requiring code or advanced analysis, you can use free tools like Google's Rich Results Test or Schema.org's Validator.
How many items do I need to complete to be "AEO-ready"?
There's no hard threshold, but we recommend targeting 70+ points (70% completion) for meaningful AI citation performance. 50-70 points indicates work needed; above 80 points indicates strong AEO readiness.
Which items are most important?
The highest-impact items are: (1) Organization schema, (2) GPTBot allowance in robots.txt, (3) FAQ schema, (4) Bing indexing, (5) Entity clarity in copy. If you only had time for 5 items, these would drive the most improvement.