Checking blog SEO means auditing six core areas systematically. Start with technical health: use Google Search Console to confirm all posts are indexed, check for crawl errors, and verify your sitemap is current. Run PageSpeed Insights on your five most important posts—aim for Core Web Vitals in the green, especially LCP under 2.5 seconds and CLS under 0.1. Mobile-friendliness isn't optional in 2025. On-page optimization comes next. Every post needs a unique title tag (50–60 characters), a compelling meta description, and proper heading hierarchy (one H1, logical H2/H3 structure). Check that your primary keyword appears naturally in the title, first 100 words, at least one subheading, and the URL slug. If you're using WordPress, Yoast or Rank Math will flag obvious issues, but don't treat them as gospel—context matters more than green dots. Content quality separates ranking posts from invisible ones. Compare your posts against top-three SERP results for your target keywords. Are you more comprehensive, more current, or more useful? Search intent alignment is critical—if users want a quick answer and you wrote 3,000 words of theory, you'll underperform. At Ottawa SEO, we refresh underperforming posts every 12–18 months with updated stats, new sections, or better examples rather than starting from scratch. Backlink analysis reveals authority gaps. Use Ahrefs, Semrush, or free tools like Ubersuggest to see how many referring domains point to each post. Posts with zero backlinks after six months typically need promotion—outreach, internal linking from stronger pages, or content upgrades to make them more linkable. Finally, track performance in Search Console and Google Analytics. Filter by blog subdirectory or category, then sort by impressions and average position. Posts ranking 11–20 are low-hanging fruit for optimization. Posts with high impressions but low clicks need better titles and meta descriptions. If a post gets traffic but zero conversions or engagement, the content might rank but fail to satisfy intent—rewrite the intro or add actionable takeaways. Check quarterly, not daily, because SEO moves slower than most founders expect.