The Complete 2025 AI-SEO Checklist: 100 Points for Modern Search

Why SEO Changed in 2025

If you’ve noticed your search traffic acting weird lately, you’re not alone. Google’s recent core updates have caused significant SERP fluctuations, and Microsoft’s Copilot Search changed how AI systems find and cite content.

After spending months testing what actually works, I’ve put together this 100-point checklist covering everything from traditional SEO to AI optimization. Each point is something you can implement today.

Download the complete checklist: I’ve created a downloadable version you can use to track your progress.

AI Search Changes Everything

SearchGPT shows 87% overlap with Bing’s top results, demonstrating how AI systems rely on traditional search infrastructure. Perplexity AI hit 110.4 million monthly visits in March 2025.

Google replaced SGE with AI Overviews, which now appear for complex topics across search results. The good news? Google confirms “there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews” beyond standard SEO best practices.

What does this mean for your site? You need to optimize for both traditional search engines and AI systems. That means shifting from pure keyword focus to entity-based content that clearly demonstrates expertise.

The 100-Point Breakdown

Here’s how to prioritize your efforts for maximum impact:

• AI/LLM Optimization (including AI Overviews): 25 points
• Structured Data & Entity SEO: 20 points
• Core SEO Fundamentals (includes AI Overviews eligibility): 15 points
• Technical Performance & Core Web Vitals: 15 points
• Security & Trust Signals: 10 points
• PWA & Mobile Features: 5 points
• Social & Open Graph: 5 points
• Content & Voice Search: 5 points

Focus on the top categories first—they’ll give you the biggest wins.

Critical Infrastructure Requirements

Server-Side Rendering (4 points)

AI crawlers don’t execute JavaScript. If your content loads via JavaScript, AI systems won’t see it.

Quick test: Run curl -s https://yoursite.com | grep -i "your-main-content" - if nothing shows up, AI crawlers can’t see your content.

• Implement SSR or SSG for all content pages (2 points)
• Verify AI crawler access in server logs (1 point)
• Test content visibility with curl (1 point)

AI Crawler Setup (8 points)

AI crawler traffic exploded in 2025. You need proper configuration to handle this.

Your robots.txt should include:

# Allow search crawlers
User-agent: Googlebot
User-agent: GPTBot
User-agent: PerplexityBot
User-agent: ClaudeBot
Allow: /

# Control training crawlers
User-agent: GPTBot
User-agent: ClaudeBot
User-agent: Google-Extended
Crawl-delay: 1
Allow: /

# Point to your AI usage policy (create at /llms.txt)
Llms-Txt: /llms.txt

• Add all AI crawlers to robots.txt (2 points)
• Set up dynamic content serving for different user agents (2 points)
• Monitor AI crawler traffic in your logs (2 points)
• Add content licensing headers (2 points)

Entity SEO (7 points)

Google’s Knowledge Graph tracks billions of entities. You need to help search engines understand what your content is about, not just what keywords it contains.

• Define your primary entity and its relationships (2 points)
• Use consistent entity naming across all content (2 points)
• Create entity-based internal linking (2 points)
• Build authority through relevant entity mentions (1 point)

Basic entity schema example:

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Organization",
  "@id": "#organization",
  "name": "SocialTide",
  "sameAs": ["https://www.linkedin.com/company/socialtideai"],
  "knowsAbout": ["AI Marketing", "Digital Strategy"]
}

Core Web Vitals (10 points)

INP replaced FID as a Core Web Vital. Here are the thresholds you need to hit:

• INP: ≤ 200ms (Good)
• LCP: ≤ 2.5s
• CLS: ≤ 0.1

Fix INP issues with this approach:

// Break up long tasks to improve INP
function yieldToMain() {
  return new Promise((resolve) => {
    setTimeout(resolve, 0);
  });
}

async function processLargeTask(items) {
  for (let i = 0; i < items.length; i++) {
    await processItem(items[i]);
    // Yield control back to the browser every 50 items
    if (i % 50 === 0) {
      await yieldToMain();
    }
  }
}

• Get INP ≤ 200ms across all interactions (3 points)
• Achieve LCP ≤ 2.5s using AVIF/WebP images (3 points)
• Keep CLS ≤ 0.1 with proper element sizing (2 points)
• Enable HTTP/3 and modern compression (2 points)

Schema Markup (8 points)

Schema.org now includes 816 types. Focus on the ones that matter for your business.

Voice Search Schema

With voice search growing rapidly, add speakable markup:

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org/",
  "@type": "WebPage",
  "speakable": {
    "@type": "SpeakableSpecification",
    "cssSelector": ["h1", ".summary-paragraph", ".key-points"]
  }
}

• Add complete Organization/Person schema with entity linking (2 points)
• Implement speakable schema for voice search (2 points)
• Create FAQ/HowTo schemas for AI systems (2 points)
• Map entity relationships with @id connections (2 points)

Note: For AI Overviews, ensure pages are eligible for Google Search snippets (covered in core SEO fundamentals)

Security Setup (8 points)

Security headers are now ranking factors. Here’s what you need:

Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload
Content-Security-Policy: default-src 'self'; script-src 'self' 'unsafe-inline'
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
X-Frame-Options: DENY
Referrer-Policy: strict-origin-when-cross-origin
Cross-Origin-Embedder-Policy: require-corp
Cross-Origin-Opener-Policy: same-origin

• Implement all security headers above (3 points)
• Enable TLS 1.3 with modern cipher suites (2 points)
• Add E-E-A-T signals with author entities (2 points)
• Create privacy policy with structured data (1 point)

Content for AI Systems (8 points)

AI systems need well-structured content that clearly demonstrates expertise. Here’s how to deliver it:

• Create FAQ sections with conversational Q&A format (2 points)
• Use clear hierarchical content organization (2 points)
• Optimize images and videos with proper context (2 points)
• Develop content around entities, not just keywords (2 points)

Note: Google’s AI Overviews favor comprehensive, people-first content that addresses complex topics thoroughly

FAQ implementation example:

<div itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/FAQPage">
  <div itemscope itemprop="mainEntity" itemtype="https://schema.org/Question">
    <h3 itemprop="name">How do you optimize for AI search?</h3>
    <div
      itemscope
      itemprop="acceptedAnswer"
      itemtype="https://schema.org/Answer"
    >
      <p itemprop="text">
        Focus on entity-based content with comprehensive schema markup and clear
        hierarchical structure.
      </p>
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

Tools & Monitoring

Essential Tools

1. Google Rich Results Test - Validate your schema
2. PageSpeed Insights - Monitor Core Web Vitals
3. Chrome DevTools - Measure INP in browser
4. Schema Validator - Check markup

What to Track

• AI search citations (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude mentions)
• AI Overviews appearances in Search Console
• Knowledge graph appearances
• Featured snippet capture rate
• AI crawler traffic patterns

Why This Matters

Most businesses are still doing SEO like it’s 2020. The convergence of traditional search and AI means the rules have changed.

The winners in 2025 won’t be those with the most content, but those with the most technically sound, AI-optimized presence. This checklist gives you the exact steps to get there.

Get the Complete Checklist

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The future of search is here. The question isn’t whether AI will change SEO, it’s how you’ll adapt to capture the opportunity. This checklist is a starting point to get you to baseline.

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