Step-by-Step Guide to Conducting an E-commerce Website Audit

Running an online store without checking the website is risky. It’s like selling in a shop with broken lights. You won’t notice what’s missing. A study found that many e-commerce websites have serious SEO issues. This means many online stores lose traffic and sales without even knowing. 

A proper ecommerce website audit helps you find these problems early. You can fix broken pages, improve speed, and make sure your store shows up in search results. In this guide, we will explain each step in a simple way to help you improve your e-commerce website performance.

What Is an Ecommerce Website Audit, and Why Should You Perform It?

An ecommerce website audit is a full checkup of your online store. It looks at how well your site works, how easy it is to use, and how it performs in search results. This helps you find problems and fix them before they hurt your business. 

Regular audits keep your website running smoothly and improve customer experience. Here’s why you should do it:

• Improve user experience and accessibility for all visitors
• Boost site performance and loading speed
• Ensure data security and follow compliance rules
• Identify and fix broken links, errors, and weak spots

A good audit keeps your store strong and ready to grow.

1. Set Clear Goals & Objectives

Let’s begin your ecommerce website audit with the first step, “setting clear goals.” Before you start checking anything, ask yourself, what do I want to fix or improve?

• Do you want more traffic?
• Faster speed?
• Better user experience?

You should define the audit scope clearly. Focus on things like SEO, site speed, user experience (UX), and website security. Also, think about your business goals. If your goal is to get more sales or rank higher in search, your audit should support that. Clear goals help you stay on track and not waste time.

2. Technical SEO Audit 

Now move to the technical SEO audit. Start by checking your XML sitemap and robots.txt file. These help search engines find and crawl your pages. Make sure they are working right. Go to Ettvi’s robots.txt validator tool and put your domain in it. Robots. Find out which robot exclusions prevent the search engine from instantly crawling or indexing your website. And fix them.

Then check crawlability and indexability. Check if search engines are able to read and show your pages. You can check it using ettvi's crawlability tool. It enables the validation of Robots Meta Directives, which give Googlebot and Bingbot crawl instructions.

Next, test your site speed. See how fast your pages load. Tools like PageSpeed Insights help you check Core Web Vitals. You can also check it using Ettvi's page speed checker tool. Enter the URL of your webpage to perform a thorough speed analysis, identify performance problems, and identify areas for seed optimization to enhance user experience. 

Also, test how your site looks and works on mobile. That matters a lot now.

Don’t forget to check if your site uses HTTPS—it keeps user data safe. Lastly, look for broken links, redirect errors, and 404 pages. Go to Ettvi’s broken link checker tool and put in your site link. Using an effective crawler, it will thoroughly scan your particular webpage, identify any broken links (dead links), both internal and external, and report back to you. So, you can easily fix them to save your website's rank and crawl budget. Fixing these helps both SEO and user trust.

3. On-Page SEO Audit

Now move on to the on-page SEO. First, check your title tags and meta descriptions. These are what people see on Google before they even click. Keep them short and clear. Use your main keyword here. Every page should have a unique title and meta description.

Further Read:  What are Meta Tags and Why they are Important in SEO?

Then look at your headers. Use only one H1 per page. Usually for the main title. After that, use H2 and H3 for subheadings. This helps both users and search engines understand your content.

Check your keywords too. Are you using the right words your customers search for? Place them naturally in your product titles, descriptions, and blog posts. But don’t overuse them as this makes crawler angry.

Now look at the images. Every image should have an alt text. This helps search engines and users who use screen readers. Also, reduce image file size so your site loads faster. Go to Ettvi’s image compression tool and upload your large image. It reduces the size of provided images without sacrificing quality by using advanced compression algorithms.

Lastly, review schema markup or structured data. It helps search engines understand your products better. For example, add product price, rating, and availability in the code.

4. Content Quality & Content Audit

Next step is your content. Go through your blog, product, and category pages. Check if they give useful, clear, and honest information.

Watch out for thin, duplicate, or outdated content. Pages with very little or repeated content don’t help users or SEO. Update them with fresh text or remove them if they’re not useful.

If you see low-performing pages in your analytics, don’t ignore them. Try to improve the content. If they still don’t work, it’s okay to remove or merge them with other pages.

Further Read: What is SEO Optimized Content

Add internal links to guide users from one page to another. This also helps Google crawl your site. Don’t forget call-to-actions (CTAs) like “Buy Now” or “Learn More”. These compel users toward action.

5. Site Architecture & Navigation

Now check how your website is structured. Your site hierarchy should be simple and easy to follow. A good rule is: users should reach any page in 3 clicks or less.

Use a smart internal linking strategy. Link related products and blog posts together.

Also check breadcrumbs, menu bars, and search boxes. These help users know where they are and find things fast. A clean structure keeps people on your site longer and helps search engines index pages better.

6. User Experience (UX) & Accessibility

Now let’s move on to the UX audit. Good websites are easy to use. Start by testing your navigation. Can visitors find what they need without confusion? Your menu should be simple. 

Keep the layout clean with enough white space. Don’t use too many popups or distracting elements. Also, make sure your text is easy to read. So use large fonts and plain colors.

Next, focus on accessibility. Not every user interacts with your website the same way. Check if your images have alt text. It helps screen readers describe them. Make sure the color contrast is strong enough so text is readable. And test keyboard navigation. Can someone move through the site using only a keyboard?

To go deeper, use tools like heatmaps to see how users behave. Heatmaps show where people click, scroll, or stop. This helps you understand what’s working and what’s not.

7. Off-Page SEO Audit

Off-page SEO is all about how other sites see your store. Start by checking your backlink profile. Backlinks from trusted websites help boost your ranking in search engines. Tools like Ahrefs or Semrush can show who links to you.

Then, check your social media integration. Is your site connected to platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or X (Twitter)? Do your product pages have social share buttons?

Look for brand mentions online, even if they don’t link to your site. These still help with authority. Also check customer reviews and ratings. Check them on your site and third-party platforms. Strong reviews build trust and help SEO too.

8. Security & Compliance

Security is important for both trust and SEO. First, make sure your site uses SSL (HTTPS). You can check this by looking for the lock icon in the browser. Also, you can check it using Ettvi’s SSL Checker tool. You can validate any website’s TLS or SSL certificate and verify the chain of trust for free. Make sure that all of the online communications and data transmissions are encrypted. If your site still shows HTTP, it’s time to upgrade.

Scan your site for malware and harmful code. There are tools like Sucuri and Google Safe Browsing that help. Also, follow privacy laws like GDPR. Your site should have a visible privacy policy and cookie consent if required.

9. Analytics Review & Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO)

Now it’s time to look at the data. First, make sure Google Analytics is set up and working. Without tracking, you won’t know what’s happening on your site.

Check conversion funnels. See how people move through your site, like homepage to product page to checkout. Where do they drop off?

Also check the bounce rate. A high bounce rate means users leave quickly without doing anything. This could mean your page is too slow, confusing, or not helpful.

Use the data to find high-performing and low-performing pages. See what’s working, and apply those patterns to weaker pages. Small changes based on data can bring big results over time.

10. Compile Findings and Recommendations

After going through all the steps, now it’s time to put everything together. Make a list of the problems you found. Start by fixing technical issues like broken links, speed, and mobile errors. 

Then move to on-page SEO, such as titles, headers, and image tags. After that, fix or update weak content. Lastly, improve user experience and design based on heatmaps and feedback.

Create a simple action plan. Write down what needs to be done, who will do it, and how long it will take. This keeps your team focused and avoids delays.

Also, don’t treat this as a one-time job. Set a review routine, maybe once a month or every quarter. This helps you stay ahead of problems and keeps your site fresh.

Conclusion

A full ecommerce website audit can improve traffic, fix hidden issues, and boost your sales. It gives you clear steps to grow your store in the right way. Don’t wait until things break check often and act early.

Need help with your audit or want tools to make it easier? Contact us at ETTVI, or subscribe to get more helpful guides like this. We’re here to help your store run better.