You’ve added new products, fixed your meta titles, maybe even hired someone to “do SEO”, but traffic still isn’t moving. Worse, the right customers aren’t showing up.
Sound familiar?
That’s because most eCommerce SEO problems aren’t fixed with surface-level tweaks. The real issues, duplicate content from filters, bloated site structure, missing schema, painfully slow load times, are buried deeper. And unless you run a proper SEO audit, you won’t find what’s actually holding your store back.
This isn’t about fixing everything. It’s about fixing what matters.
In this guide, you’ll get a step-by-step eCommerce SEO audit checklist built for real-world stores, not textbook examples.
What Is an eCommerce SEO Audit (And Why It’s Different)?
An eCommerce SEO audit is a deep technical and strategic review of your online store’s search engine performance. But unlike a basic SEO audit for a blog or service site, this one’s built for complexity.
Product filters, thousands of URLs, duplicate content, JavaScript-heavy pages, these are just a few of the issues eCommerce sites face that can quietly sabotage rankings.
A proper audit doesn’t just ask, “Are we optimised?” It asks:
- Are key product and category pages actually crawlable?
- Are you competing with your own URLs through parameter chaos?
- Are you showing up for the terms your buyers are really searching?
And most importantly, can Google and your customer actually find and trust your site?
Whether you’re running a mid-size D2C brand or scaling a multi-category marketplace, an eCommerce SEO audit checklist ensures your technical setup, content, and site structure are working with search engines, not against them.
What are the 12 Fixes to Examine During an eCommerce Site Audit?
Infographic of 12 Tasks to Examine During an eCommerce Site Audit
If your eCommerce store is underperforming in search, chances are the root causes aren’t obvious. Technical SEO mistakes, poor content structure, and hidden crawl errors often go unnoticed without a thorough, expert-led SEO audit.
Here’s what professional SEO teams look for during a full-scale audit.
1. Crawlability and Indexing Diagnostics
To assess how search engines interact with your site, professionals use advanced tools like Screaming Frog and Google Search Console to:
- Detect broken links and redirect chains.
- Identify incorrectly blocked paths in robots.txt
- Validate the structure and accuracy of XML sitemaps.
- Surface critical pages are excluded from indexing.
Why this matters: Even your best product pages can vanish from search if Google can’t crawl or index them correctly.
2. Deep On-Page SEO Analysis for Revenue Pages
High-intent pages like product and category listings require precision optimisation. Auditors check:
- Unique, keyword-aligned title tags and meta descriptions.
- Clean heading structure with one H1 and supporting H2s.
- Logical, crawlable URLs (no dynamic clutter or ID-based slugs).
- Strategic internal links to related products or content.
Goal: Ensure each core page is both search engine-friendly and conversion-ready.
3. Core Web Vitals and Performance Review
Using PageSpeed Insights and GTmetrix, SEO teams evaluate technical performance across devices:
- Compress assets and streamline server responses to improve LCP.
- Fix layout shifts (CLS), especially during mobile load.
- Remove render-blocking resources like third-party scripts.
- Apply lazy loading to enhance perceived speed.
Impact: Better user experience = higher rankings and lower bounce rates.
4. Duplicate Content & Keyword Cannibalisation Checks
A manual crawl plus tools like Ahrefs or Semrush help identify:
- Duplicate product or category pages dilute authority.
- Misused or missing canonical tags.
- Internal competition across pages targeting the same terms.
Fix: SEO teams restructure or consolidate conflicting URLs, ensuring each page has a clear purpose.
5. Structured Data & Schema Validation
A proper schema ensures search engines understand your products. Professionals audit:
- Product markup (price, availability, brand, reviews) via JSON-LD.
- Schema health via Rich Results Test and GSC Enhancements.
- Errors that prevent rich snippets from appearing in SERPs.
Why it matters: Enhanced listings improve visibility and click-through rate.
6. Site Architecture & Navigation Clarity
Experienced auditors evaluate whether your site supports both UX and SEO:
- Flat structure (important pages within 3 clicks of the homepage).
- Clean, index-safe faceted navigation.
- Effective use of breadcrumbs and pagination.
- Avoidance of infinite scroll without fallback logic.
Bonus: Internal linking is refined to prioritise seasonal and high-margin categories.
7. Content Quality & Keyword Targeting Strategy
SEO experts review content with both users and algorithms in mind:
- Check for thin or duplicated product descriptions
- Evaluate how well blog content addresses actual buyer queries
- Match keywords to search intent using advanced research tools
Pro move: Integrate best practices content like buying guides or FAQs directly on high-priority category pages.
8. Mobile Usability & Accessibility Audit
Beyond responsiveness, mobile audits focus on functionality:
- Fix spacing issues, misaligned layouts, and touch target errors.
- Ensure checkout is frictionless across devices.
- Remove intrusive pop-ups affecting user experience.
Context: With mobile-first indexing, poor mobile UX damages rankings and conversions alike.
9. Backlink Profile and Off-Page SEO Assessment
Your domain’s authority plays a crucial role in competitive categories. SEO teams analyse:
- Backlink health and diversity across anchor texts.
- Toxic or spammy external links that may need disavowing.
- Domain Authority gaps compared to top-ranking competitors.
Next steps: Plan link-building campaigns through PR, partnerships, and content syndication.
10. Verify HTTPS Implementation
Check if your site uses HTTPS to ensure data encryption and security.
Why it matters: Google uses HTTPS as a ranking factor, and browsers flag HTTP pages as “Not Secure.”
- Ensure an SSL certificate is properly installed.
- Redirect all HTTP URLs to HTTPS versions.
- Check for mixed content issues using Screaming Frog or Why No Padlock.
11. Add or Optimise Alt Text for Images
Search engines rely on alt text to interpret images, especially for accessibility and ranking image-based queries.
- Add descriptive, keyword-relevant alt text to all product and category images.
- Avoid vague or repetitive labels like “image1.jpg” or “photo.”
- Check for missing alt attributes using Screaming Frog or SEOptimer.
12. Identify Content Gaps and Missed Opportunities
A content gap audit reveals search queries and topics you’re not targeting yet, despite customer demand.
- Use tools like Ubersuggest or AnswerThePublic to find keyword gaps.
- Check competitor blogs or category pages for FAQs, guides, or reviews you’re missing.
- Plan new content assets around missed informational or transactional intent.
Insider Tip:
While these tasks might seem technical, they aren’t optional if you’re serious about growing your store. Most require experience, platform familiarity, and advanced tools, one reason why brands often turn to eCommerce SEO audit services like Wild Creek Web Studio to get it done right the first time.
What a Real eCommerce SEO Audit Looks Like with Wild Creek Studio
When you’ve got 500+ product pages and zero visibility to show for it, it’s not just frustrating, it’s expensive. We at Wild Creek Web Studio help B2B manufacturers fix what SEO tools can’t see, using hands-on audits and strategy-first thinking.
For one industrial supplier, our audit uncovered crawl errors, duplicate content, missing product schema, and a tangled site structure (Source). Here’s what happened next:
- 62% surge in users (from 45,443 to 73,671 monthly)
- 54% rise in pageviews (from 128K to 197K)
- 70% jump in new visitors (from 42,553 to 72,230)
Read the entire case study here.
Our audits include:
- Deep crawl diagnostics using Screaming Frog & GSC
- A full technical fix list including Core Web Vitals and schema
- Content and architecture restructuring
- Backlink evaluation and opportunities
Then we hand over a prioritised roadmap your team can actually implement, or we can roll up our sleeves and do it with you.
This isn’t just a template or surface scan; it’s a professionally driven audit tailored to eCommerce complexity. If you’re ready to find exactly what’s holding back your breakthrough, let’s talk.
[Book your eCommerce SEO audit →]
Conclusion
If you’re treating Search engine Optimisation like a plug-and-play marketing tool, your brand name is already a step behind. For eCommerce brands, SEO content marketing is deeply technical, multi-layered, and incredibly easy to get wrong, especially when you don’t know what you’re missing.
An eCommerce SEO site audit isn’t just about fixing errors. It’s about identifying opportunities in search algorithms your competitors haven’t touched. It is understanding how search engine bots interact with your store, and turning overlooked pages into high-performing assets.
From crawl budget waste to schema gaps, every technical issue that goes unchecked isn’t just a problem; it’s missed revenue.
Whether you’re scaling fast, recovering from a traffic drop, or prepping for a seasonal push, the right audit turns confusion into clarity, and rankings into revenue.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an eCommerce SEO site audit?
An eCommerce SEO site audit is a technical SEO evaluation of your store’s performance, covering all aspects of your website. It uncovers issues like crawl errors, schema markup gaps, and page speed problems that affect rankings, organic traffic, and overall SEO strategy.
Why is a technical SEO audit important for eCommerce websites?
A technical SEO audit helps ecommerce businesses identify hidden SEO issues such as slow site speed, crawl budget waste, and duplicate meta tags, all of which can hurt search engine rankings and reduce organic search visibility.
What tools are used to audit SEO eCommerce?
Tools like Google Analytics, Google PageSpeed Insights, and site crawl platforms such as Screaming Frog help audit SEO for eCommerce. These reveal technical issues, keyword gaps, and on-page problems that impact search engine results, affecting your overall search results.
Can content like blog posts and informational content affect eCommerce SEO?
Yes, high-quality blog posts and informational content improve keyword reach and support internal linking. They help search engine bots understand your ecommerce brand, enhance SEO strategy, and drive more relevant keywords into your search engine rankings.
How does mobile usability impact an eCommerce SEO audit?
During an ecommerce SEO site audit, mobile responsiveness is a ranking factor. Technical SEO issues on mobile devices, like layout shifts or poor image optimisation, can hurt your user experience and your user’s browser performance in search engine results.
