Ecommerce SEO Audit Checklist: 2024 Guide for Beginners

According to Sistrix, the click-through rate (CTR) for the first result on Google is about 28.5 percent, with rates falling significantly after that. The second position gains a 15.7 percent click-through, and the third earns 11 percent. Hence, the higher your website is in the search engines, the more likely you will get more CTR.

If you want your store to reach maximum performance, your SEO strategy needs to be ship-shape, too. That’s where an audit can prove valuable. Luckily, we’ve got the ecommerce SEO audit checklist (and SEO audit video) you need to start! Keep reading to learn what aspects of your SEO you need to check.

What Is An ECommerce SEO Audit?

An ecommerce SEO audit evaluates your website’s organic visibility to uncover areas that need improvement. Your site’s SEO status is analyzed across various ranking factors during an audit. The analysis results are summarized in a report providing a top-level score and a prioritized checklist of actionable SEO fixes.

There are some mini-audits involved in your overall SEO examination, including:

• Technical audits
• Content audits
• Off-page audits

Because there are so many components to a comprehensive SEO audit strategy, we suggest bringing in an SEO agency to help with time efficiency.

When To Conduct An SEO Audit?

Algorithms and audience needs keep changing, so making small tweaks frequently can keep your site optimized for evolving conditions. Brands keep producing new content, such as blog posts, product pages, and FAQs, which can impact your overall site authority and SEO. Reviewing your entire website annually can help maintain minimum bloat and redundancy.

In addition to annual reviews, we suggest that brands conduct audits when any number of qualifying events exist — for instance:

• As part of a site migration process
• When new SEOs or digital marketers are brought onto the team
• During rebranding efforts or strategy changes

E-commerce websites are constantly changing. New product pages are added regularly, and old pages are removed. Other elements that can frequently change include product categories, navigational elements, and “Recommended product” widgets. Many different parts are always moving.

Ecommerce sites typically have a complex architecture, using URL parameters to manage where and how specific product variants are displayed. If the company operates in different markets, the ecommerce site must be configured to serve and distinguish between local and global content properly.

For the following reasons, it’s easy to miss problems on an e-commerce site. Regular SEO audits can help you keep track of changes and identify issues before they affect your organic traffic and profitability.

Ecommerce SEO Audit Checklist: Technical SEO Audit

The first step in an SEO audit for an e-commerce website is to check for technical issues. This is crucial for your website because crawling and indexing depend on the website’s technical aspects, such as how well the e-commerce site performs when crawlers like Google bots visit it. 

E-Commerce Site Structure

Website structure plays a crucial role not only for search engines but also for users. So, while checking the site structure of an e-commerce website, look at the navigation:

As you know, e-commerce navigation contains pages like home, about us, sale, and product categories, and sometimes genders are nested in subdirectories. So the best practice is to link categories, then sub-categories, and finally, products because Google crawlers work on linkages. 

If it’s not possible to link all products to category pages, create a sitemap or use Google Merchandise Feed so Google can easily understand which products to index.

You can use brain mapping to define the site navigation structure. Here is an example of brain mapping:

Rotobs.txt

The robots.txt file is small but impactful for your site rankings. Test the robots.txt file with Google Search Console to determine which pages can be crawled and set the crawl budget. This is particularly helpful when you don’t want to index pages such as the admin panel, payment pages, or customer profile pages.

This is the simplest version of defining a robots.txt file for an e-commerce site, but if you want to block some pages or products, you can add them here:

User-agent: *

Disallow: /checkout/

Disallow: /cart/

Disallow: /account/

Disallow: /login/

Disallow: /register/

Disallow: /search/

Disallow: /wishlist/

Disallow: /compare/

Disallow: /admin/

Disallow: /checkout/*

Sitemap: https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml

URL Structure

URLs are the addresses of your products for Google, yet many SEOs do not understand the importance of URL structure.

For example, you have a clothing e-commerce store and a collection of t-shirts with different colors, such as blue, black, and yellow. These are all product variants. But the question is, what is the URL structure for these products and their variants? 

Google recommends only two types of URLs for product variants: path segment structure like product/t-shirts/green and query parameters like /t-shirt?color=green. Another thing for canonicalization is adding a canonical tag without query parameters or path segments.

So, check your e-commerce URLs now. If you have any problems, search for a solution on Google or contact us for support. We are happy to help you with the e-commerce URL structure.

XML Sitemap

An XML Sitemap is like a directory of pages, category pages, sub-category pages, and the products of your e-commerce store. There is nothing technical to do with sitemaps, but while conducting a technical audit, keep these things in mind:

1. It should contain only the main canonical versions of your URLs. Ensure that these URLs are “clean” and do not contain any URL parameters.
2. It should only list URLs that you want to be indexed, ensuring these URLs do not have “noindex” meta tags and are not blocked by robots.txt.
3. It should be set to automatically update as pages are added or removed from your site.

Meta Tags

The fifth step in conducting an SEO audit for an e-commerce website is checking meta tags. An e-commerce store should have some important meta tags.

So, look at the necessary meta tags an e-commerce website should contain for more information. You can check the meta tags guidelines that Google supports.

Canonical URLs

The e-commerce website has products and their variants, such as size, color, and many more.

• Region variants. For instance, a piece of content for India and Australia is accessible from various URLs, but it is essentially the same content in the same language.
• Protocol variants: For example, a site’s HTTPS and HTTP versions.
• Accidental variants: The demo version is accidentally left accessible to crawlers.
• Device variants. For example, a page with both a desktop and a mobile version.
• Site functions: For example, the results of filtering and sorting functions on a category page.

These variants have a high chance of creating duplicate pages in your e-commerce store, and Google may have difficulty determining which page is the main page. Therefore, using the ‘rel=canonical ‘tag on your pages and websites is important for better canonicalization.

Pagination

Pagination is part of the page experience, and page experience is a ranking signal on Google. So, for this, Google recommends three types of pagination methods:

Methods	Example
Load more	Users can click buttons to extend an initial set of displayed results
Pagination	Users can click on links such as “previous,” “next,” and page numbers to navigate between pages, showing one results page at a time
Infinite scroll	Users can scroll to the end of the page to load more content

Hence, check an e-commerce website’s pagination method for an SEO audit. If the pagination does not have a series like example.com/page-1, load more button, or breaks between Infinite scroll, then it’s an issue.

HTTP Status Codes

There are four categories of HTTPS status codes: 2xx (success), 3xx (redirection), 4xx (client errors), and 5xx (server errors). But we only need to check these while doing an SEO audit because you can access all of them without a web developer:

• 404 – Use tools like GSC and Ahrefs to find 404 pages on your website.
• Broken Links: Broken links are similar to 404 errors but involve links between pages. Check this and fix it.
• Redirects: There are two kinds of redirects: permanent redirects (301) and temporary redirects (302). Check all of them and refer to the GSC (Google Search Console) page report.

Mobile Responsiveness

83% percent of consumers use their smartphones or mobile devices to purchase online. This highlights the importance of mobile responsiveness in sales. Additionally, Google considers mobile responsiveness to be a ranking factor. 

Hence, check your e-commerce website’s mobile responsiveness using the Mobile-Friendly Test or do it manually.

SSL Certificate

Ensure the website has an SSL certification because it is recommended to have an SSL certification for security reasons. For an e-commerce store, it is advised to have an Extended Validation (EV) Certificate, so checking the website’s trustworthiness is the 11th step in doing an SEO audit.

Schema Markup

Product structured data is a very important aspect for ranking your products higher in search engines because Google easily understands product schema with JSON format, enabling it to display product availability, price, and reviews on the search result page.

To check product structure data, use these two tools: schema markup validator and rich results test. If your product pages already have SEO, that’s good. If they don’t, you can prioritize this task while doing technical work.

Ecommerce SEO Audit Checklist: On-Page SEO Audit

An on-page SEO audit for an e-commerce website includes activities related to the content of the product pages and the page experience for users. See how to optimize SEO On-page below:

Meta Titles And Meta Descriptions

When you search for something on the Internet, the first thing you see is the title and description of the page comes up. These are called “meta descriptions” and “meta titles.” They should be different for every page on your website and encourage people to click on your website to learn more.

To ensure your titles and descriptions appear correctly, you should ensure they are not too long. This will help search engines display them properly and give people the best chance of finding your website. The recommended character limits are:

• Meta title: 50-60 characters
• Meta description: 160 characters

Duplicate Content

Duplicate content can be a huge issue when selling products online. This happens when the same product pages are posted multiple times or when the product descriptions provided by the manufacturer are reused on different retail sites. 

The good news is that you can prevent duplicate content issues by performing a technical SEO audit. This helps you use tools like canonicals, “noindex” tags, robots.txt rules, and more. 

But to make your content stand out, you can add unique elements like FAQs, product reviews, and shopping guides. These can make your content more interesting and engaging and help your site rank higher in search engines.

Content Quality And Brand Compliance

When creating content for your website, ensure it’s unique, useful, and easy to read. During your review, look for pages with insufficient content, poor reading experience, and typos can make your site appear unprofessional.

Moreover, your content should reflect your brand and use appropriate language and style. This helps establish a consistent brand experience across all pages of your site. Remember to use simple language that is easy to understand and keep your sentences short. 

Avoid technical jargon and legal language, and use active voice to make your writing more engaging.

Keyword Targeting And Content Cannibalization 

It can be tricky when targeting keywords on ecommerce sites since multiple products often belong to the same category and rank for similar terms. To avoid competition, it’s best to ensure your product pages are differentiated as much as possible. 

One way to do this is by using unique and specific descriptors for each product page. These long-tail descriptors can help you target more specific searches and avoid overlapping results.

Heading Optimization (H1, H2, H3)

Ensure the product name is written in the H1 heading. Other elements should be prioritized with H2 and other heading tags. It is called semantic HTML, and there is a reason for using these tags. 

You can’t use H4 for the product title or change the size using CSS. So, check the page heading hierarchy manually by inspecting it using dev tools.

Here is a short guide for heading tags:

• H1 – This heading is mainly for product content, for example, your product name.
• H2 – The heading two is for specifications, reviews, and features.
• H3 – The third one is for the name of the users who are writing reviews on your site.

Internal Linking

As Google’s search advocate stated, internal linking matters to SEO is ‘supercritical for SEO.’ He also mentioned internal linking presents an opportunity to communicate something more to Google than internal navigational links can convey.

So, check how many internal links you currently have, and if your e-commerce website has 100 products, then the internal links should be more than 1000, dynamically utilizing anchor text.

Image Optimization

Image optimization is essential to check because many customers use Google Lens to search for products. Google utilizes machine learning and alt text to provide a good experience to the searchers.

There are three things to check in an e-commerce SEO on-page audit:

1. Image Format: Examine the image format your website is using. If it relies on formats like JPEG or PNG, these formats may not be ideal for page load speed. Instead, consider using WebP, an advanced image format, offers superior compression for web images.
2. Image Alt Text: Check the image alt text. If the alt text consists of generic names like ‘image1’ or ‘image2,’ it may not benefit product ranking in Google image results. Ensure all images on your E-commerce website have descriptive names.
3. Image Sizing: Determine if all product images are the same size or different. If they are consistent in size, there shouldn’t be a problem. However, applying for a Google Merchandise Store can become complex if the image sizes vary.

Ecommerce SEO Audit Checklist: Off-Page SEO Audit

The E-commerce Off-Page SEO Audit includes only three things: Domain Authority, Page Authority, and toxic links in the backlink types (dofollow and nofollow). These three sections are collectively referred to as off-page SEO. 

Domain Authority & Page Authority

Conduct an audit of your website’s Domain Authority (DA) and Page Authority (PA); these are essential metrics for ranking. If the Domain Authority is below 10, it needs improvement; the same applies to Page Authority.

You can use Ahrefs’ free Website Authority checker tool.

Backlinks – Dofollow & Nofollow

Check how many do-follow backlinks the website currently has in referring domains. The number and quality of do-follow backlinks significantly impact SEO, website authority, and rankings. Here’s why they matter:

1. Search Engine Ranking: Backlinks act as votes of confidence for your site, influencing higher rankings on search engines like Google, especially with high-quality links from reputable sources.
2. Website Authority: Backlinks from authoritative sites enhance your website’s trustworthiness and overall authority in the eyes of search engines.
3. Referral Traffic: Do-follow backlinks drive direct traffic to your website or page when users click on links from others, increasing visibility and potential conversions.
4. Indexing and Crawling: Backlinks help search engine crawlers discover and index your web pages, making your content accessible in search results.
5. Diversity and Relevance: A diverse backlink profile from relevant domains boosts your site’s visibility and relevance across various topics.

Conclusion

E-commerce SEO audits are an important component of any digital marketing strategy. They help you identify areas for improvement and ensure you optimize your website effectively on search engines like Google or Bing.

A well-optimized website enhances your online visibility, attracts visitors, and converts leads into customers.

Although it can sometimes be easy to get overwhelmed, an SEO audit strategy needn’t be too daunting. You just need to follow a solid ecommerce SEO audit checklist.

Make sure your SEO audit covers all the above ideas, focus on the areas that need the most work, and audit regularly to get the best results.