An ecommerce SEO audit checks whether search engines can find, understand and trust your categories and products, and whether those pages deserve to rank. I review your store’s crawl routes, templates, product data and buying journeys, then give you a prioritised list of fixes with a retest for each one.

This service suits stores that have grown through new products, apps, filters or redesigns and now need a clear view of what the site delivers. It works for Shopify, WooCommerce, WordPress and other platforms. It can stand alone, or sit alongside ecommerce development or ongoing ecommerce SEO. I am an independent designer-developer based in Manchester, working across the UK, and you work with me directly.

Begin with representative journeys

A shop with several thousand products cannot be understood by reviewing only the homepage. I start with a sample that represents the catalogue: a major category, a deeper subcategory, a product with variants, an unavailable product, a filtered result and a useful buying guide.

I follow the route from category to product and into the buying or enquiry step. I review what a visitor can understand on a phone, then check whether the same pages and links can be discovered by a crawler. I record differences between templates rather than treating the catalogue as one uniform page type.

The sampling matrix

Sample	Question to answer	Evidence
Main category	Does it describe a useful product group and link to the products?	Rendered page, link sample and catalogue count.
Deep category	Can a shopper reach it through normal navigation?	Click path and crawl discovery.
Variant product	Do visible price, stock and selected options agree?	Selection states and page markup.
Unavailable product	Is the message and next step deliberate?	Live response and alternative route.
Filtered listing	Is its search visibility policy intentional?	URL, canonical, robots and link behaviour.
Buying guide	Does it answer a real decision and lead to relevant products?	Content review and contextual links.

What an ecommerce SEO audit checks

These are the areas I work through. Not every store needs every check, and I say in the scope which ones apply. Automated crawls give scale. Manual review judges intent, relevance and what a customer actually sees. My terms of business explain how the scope is agreed.

A tool output is a starting point: Collect evidence, Confirm the cause, Verify the fix.

Crawl and indexing

Robots rules and noindex tags. Are important categories and products accidentally blocked, or are low-value pages left open?
Canonical tags. Do variants, filtered pages and duplicate paths point to the version you want indexed?
XML sitemaps. Do they list only live, indexable, canonical URLs, and do they include every product you want found?
Parameter and faceted URLs. Sorting, filters and tracking parameters can create thousands of near-duplicate pages. I check which are crawlable and which should be.
Pagination. Can crawlers reach products deep in a paginated category through ordinary links?
Internal search pages. These rarely deserve indexing, but they often are.
Orphaned products. Products in the database that no category or link leads to.

Site architecture and internal linking

Category depth. How many clicks separate the homepage from a product?
Breadcrumbs. Are they present, consistent and linked?
Collection-to-product links. Are priority products linked from the relevant categories with descriptive anchor text?
Related products. Do the links help a shopper choose, or just repeat the same bestsellers everywhere?

Google’s guidance on ecommerce site structure is the reference point for this section.

Category and collection pages

Unique introductory copy. Does each important category say what the range is and who it suits?
Duplicated collections. Two categories listing almost the same products compete with each other.
Thin categories. Pages with a handful of products and no explanation, or empty pages left live.

Product pages

Descriptions. Is the text written for your store, or copied from the manufacturer and shared with every other retailer?
Variants. Do size and colour options have a sensible URL policy, and do price and stock match the selected option?
Out-of-stock and discontinued products. Is the page kept, redirected or removed deliberately? Does a shopper see an alternative?
Images and alt text. Are images sized sensibly, described accurately and crawlable?
Reviews. Are they visible on the page, genuine and consistent with any rating markup?

Structured data

I check Product, Offer, AggregateRating, BreadcrumbList and Organization markup against Google’s product structured data documentation. The key test is whether the markup matches the visible page. Price, currency, availability and rating counts in the code must agree with what a shopper sees. A page can pass a validator and still describe the wrong price.

Performance and Core Web Vitals

I test real templates, not just the homepage: a category, a product, the basket. I look at heavy images, apps and scripts that load on every page, and third-party tags. The Web Vitals metrics give the measures. If performance is the main concern, my Core Web Vitals guide goes deeper.

Content and buying guides

Intent coverage. Are there guides for the questions shoppers ask before buying?
Cannibalisation. A guide and a category that target the same phrase can split visibility. I check which page should lead and how the other supports it.

International, where relevant

For stores selling in several markets, I check hreflang annotations, currency and market versions, and whether each version has its own indexable URL. Single-market stores skip this section.

Analytics and Search Console

I check that Search Console is verified for the right property, that ecommerce events are tracked, and that internal traffic and checkout steps are not distorting the data. Search Console also separates pages with real search exposure from pages that merely exist in the database.

Platform notes

Shopify. The /products/ and /collections/ paths are fixed, so the audit works with them rather than against them. A common issue is the duplicate product URL under /collections/.../products/; I check that canonical tags consolidate it and that internal links use the preferred form. App bloat is the other regular finding, as is whether Online Store 2.0 templates are used consistently. See my Shopify SEO page for ongoing work, and Shopify development where fixes need theme changes.

WooCommerce. Category and tag archives, and attribute archives, can create thin or duplicate pages. Plugin conflicts often cause odd canonical, schema or sitemap output. HPOS (High-Performance Order Storage) is not an SEO issue, but database and plugin load affect performance. For code-level changes, see WooCommerce development.

Magento and others. The same checks apply. Layered navigation, configurable products and multiple store views usually need the most attention. If you are choosing a platform, read Shopify vs WooCommerce. If you are comparing who should do the audit, see how to choose an SEO consultant.

How findings are prioritised

Priority comes from two things: how serious the problem is, and how many pages or customers it reaches. A broken template affecting a whole range needs a different decision from one incomplete description. These examples are illustrative, not drawn from any client.

Example finding	Severity	Reach	Priority
Category template carries a noindex tag after a redesign	High	Whole range	Fix first
Faceted filter URLs are crawlable and canonicalise to themselves	Medium	Many URLs	Plan in the next sprint
Offer markup shows a price that differs from the visible price	Medium	Product template	Fix soon
A single product description is incomplete	Low	One page	Batch with content work

What you receive

A dated scope and sample register.
Findings with reproducible examples, evidence and priorities.
A plan that separates platform, theme, catalogue and content work.
Agreed implementation support where required.
A retest record for completed fixes.

Each finding records the affected scope, observed result, expected result, likely customer or discovery consequence, proposed fix and owner. The acceptance test is written before the fix is made. “All agreed priority products are linked from the relevant categories” is reviewable. “Improve internal links” is not. I retest the production result and keep the evidence.

How the audit runs

Scope. You send the store URL, platform, approximate catalogue size and the issue you want solved. I confirm what is in and out of scope.
Access. Typically read-only Search Console and analytics, plus theme or plugin lists. I do not need admin rights to the shop for most audits.
Review. I crawl the store, sample the templates and check the live pages against the areas above.
Report. You receive the findings, priorities and plan, and I walk through them with you.
Retest. As fixes go live, I test the production result against the agreed acceptance tests.

Honest scoping matters. I cannot guarantee rankings. I can show what blocks discovery, what weakens pages, and which fixes are worth the team’s time. If a migration is planned, the work belongs with my SEO migration service instead. For a wider site-level review, see the technical SEO audit.

Audit or ongoing ecommerce SEO?

An audit is a fixed piece of work with a start, a report and a retest. It suits a new engagement, a redesign, a drop you cannot explain, or a team that wants a plan before it commits budget. Ongoing ecommerce SEO suits stores with a steady programme of content, category improvements and monitoring. Many stores start with the audit and decide afterwards.

Frequently asked questions

How long does an ecommerce SEO audit take?

It depends on catalogue size, number of templates and platform complexity. I give a timescale when I agree the scope, and I tell you if the sample needs to widen.

What access do you need?

Usually read-only access to Google Search Console and analytics, and details of your theme, apps or plugins. If a staging site exists, I use it for anything I want to test safely. I will ask before needing anything more.

Can you implement the fixes?

Yes. I design and build ecommerce sites, so I can make theme, template and plugin changes myself, or write precise briefs for your developer. Earlier, I led development of the Praxis Digital 3D configurator platform used by 20+ UK businesses (2021 to 2025), so I am comfortable with complex product data.

How does a Shopify audit differ from a WooCommerce audit?

The checks are the same, but the likely problems differ. Shopify has fixed URL paths, duplicate collection product URLs and app bloat. WooCommerce has archives, plugin conflicts and more variation between builds. The audit follows what your platform actually produces.

For stores on WooCommerce that need the fixes made in the theme and plugins, see my WooCommerce SEO service.

On Shopify? The Shopify SEO audit covers the platform-specific checks: collection URLs, robots.txt.liquid, apps and redirects.

Next step

To scope an ecommerce SEO audit, send the store URL, platform, approximate catalogue size and the issue you are trying to resolve. Mention any planned migration or peak trading date so the work can be sequenced around it. Contact me to discuss your audit.