The Ultimate eCommerce Site Audit Checklist For 2021

Just like Rome, your eCommerce site wasn’t built in a day. 

A successful eCommerce store takes multiple iterations, regular experimentation with new apps and features being added and removed, and constant evolution. In the process, your store might pick up redundant elements, unnecessary tech and code, and even usability issues.  This is why every eCommerce store needs a site audit.

A site audit, usually run by an eCommerce expert, evaluates different problems within your site from both a business and user perspective, from your tech stack to your user experience. It helps you find dependable and scalable solutions, and set up systems in place to keep your site optimized and help you grow your business.

However, before you hire an expert, you can evaluate your eCommerce site yourself and get an understanding of the kind of problems you have on-site. This checklist is designed to help you self-evaluate your eCommerce site. 

Disclaimer: You still need an expert to conduct the site audit, pinpoint areas of improvement, and make changes to help you increase your engagement and revenue. Read why you need an eCommerce site audit.

Here’s what your eCommerce site audit checklist in 2021 should cover

Site Usability Checklist 

• Are your links active and working?

Use a link checker tool to test all links and ensure you don’t have any broken links. Redirect any broken links to relevant pages to keep your shoppers on-site and increase your SEO score.

• Is your website navigation seamless?

Can your shoppers navigate across your site easily? Do they have difficulty understanding your categories and browsing products within your collections? Pinpoint problem areas within your site structure for a better customer experience

• Is your user experience optimized for mobile devices?

Ensure that your site loads easily and is usable on different mobile devices. This includes using the right font sizes, well-placed buttons, and especially, easy checkout experiences on mobile. 

• Are your images optimized for quick loading?

Check all your images to ensure that they are of high-quality but are minified to avoid slowing down your website.

• Are your meta tags structured and optimized?

Ensure that all meta and alt tags on your website are optimized. Use the right keywords to make it easier for shoppers to find products and for Google to rank your pages better.

User Journey Checklist

• Think and rethink your content strategy

Are your shoppers getting the right information? Check your product descriptions and edit them to reflect one consistent messaging. Check your on-site pages like About and Privacy Policy, and update them with any new information. It’s crucial to check the style of the content on your site and ensure that it fits your brand voice.

• Be discoverable on search

Can shoppers easily find your site on search engines, especially within the Shopping tab? If not, enable Google Shopping and use the right keywords on your product pages to rank higher. An SEO expert can help you understand the right way to make your site rank on search.

• Make your CTAs highly visible

Can shoppers easily find your CTAs? Make sure that they’re above the fold and feature a high contrast design. Place your CTAs at highly visible touchpoints on your website.

• Use heatmaps to identify drop-offs

Understand what’s causing your shoppers to drop-off your site by using heatmaps and analyzing behavior flows.

• Optimize your checkout for quicker purchases

How do your shoppers flow through your checkout? Is there any step that takes longer for your shoppers? Review your checkout process and find areas where shoppers may be facing friction.

• Understand why shoppers are abandoning their cart

What’s causing abandonment on your eCommerce site? Use your analytics to understand reasons for cart abandonment and test different strategies to increase checkout rates.

Technical Audit Checklist

If you’re not familiar with website development, we recommend that you pursue the following points in the checklist with a trusted Shopify Expert.

• Evaluate your existing tech stack

Evaluate your existing tech stack to understand what’s causing redundancies. Ensure that you are working with an expert to keep your tech stack lean.

• Test your site speed

Over 40% of customers drop off an online store that takes more than 3 seconds to load, so check your site speed using tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights. Since eCommerce stores carry a lot of media, identify what's causing your website to slow down. Your eCommerce expert would then be able to evaluate the problems and find the right solution to speed up your site.

• App audit and additional code that is adding load to the site

Audit the apps you’re using on your eCommerce site and remove ones that aren’t contributing to your business growth. Apps infuse additional code into your main codebase, and not all of this is removed when you uninstall apps. Be mindful when you’re planning your functionalities and use hybrid apps that serve multiple functions across your store.

• Implement version control

Ensure that you have well-documented records of the changes made to your website to easily track the evolution of your website.

Optimize your website with this eCommerce site audit checklist!

We hope this eCommerce site audit checklist helps you evaluate problems within your eCommerce website. A routine site audit can help you keep your store fast and usable, ensuring a better experience for your shoppers. 

If you have too many tasks on your plate or just want to conduct your eCommerce site audit right, you can reach out to our team of eCommerce experts. At Coderapper, we’ve helped leading brands to audit their store, find redundancies, problems, and areas of improvement, and set up systems to improve their eCommerce business.

Reach out to us at hello@coderapper.com for an eCommerce site audit.