A survey from Databox reveals that nearly <\/span>40%<\/span><\/a> of eCommerce stores consider search engine optimization (SEO) as the best investment in terms of results.<\/span><\/p>\n To perform these optimizations, eCommerce businesses need to perform SEO audits. An SEO audit is a health checkup for your eCommerce store that reveals issues, misconfigurations, and areas of improvement that are affecting organic visibility.<\/span><\/p>\n eCommerce teams can quickly spot technical problems, unoptimized pages, and missing data with SEO audits. This helps streamline the site maintenance process as webmasters won\u2019t have to scratch their heads by much to discover opportunities for site enhancements.<\/span><\/p>\n There are many moving parts in an eCommerce SEO audit that can make it complicated to manage, particularly for small online stores or teams with limited resources.<\/span><\/p>\n In this article, let\u2019s look at everything you need to know to get started with conducting in-depth SEO audits for your eCommerce platform.<\/span><\/p>\n Start by listing SEO-specific goals that will improve the experience of your visitors. It is possible that these objectives will start out as performance targets such as increasing site traffic and dwell time. After identifying them, you can translate them into SEO goals.<\/span><\/p>\n For instance, site traffic can increase if you improve the search rankings. One way to improve search rankings is to remove the dead pages and make the pages lighter by compressing images or implementing lazy loading.<\/span><\/p>\n Moreover, those two things will also enhance the visitor experience on your platform which can boost the overall dwell time as well.<\/span><\/p>\n When the list of goals is complete (it is a good rule of thumb to keep it short, particularly for small teams), it\u2019s time to start looking for relevant tools. Solutions like Google Analytics and Google Search Console are a must as they are completely free and provide insights into your site performance at a glance.<\/span><\/p>\n On top of that, you need an <\/span>SEO crawler<\/span><\/a>, keyword research software, backlink tool, and organizational tools to manage the auditing process. The first step after gathering these tools is to benchmark your site performance to measure progress later on.<\/span><\/p>\n Keep in mind that eCommerce sites usually have a larger number of heavy pages and complicated architecture. It can be advantageous to go for specialized high-performance tools for reliable results and cost-efficiency, particularly in the long run.<\/span><\/p>\n eCommerce SEO Audit preparation checklist:<\/span><\/p>\n A technical SEO audit for eCommerce websites shows how visible and navigable the platform is for search engines and users. It involves using a crawler to parse through all the pages and find technical issues and misconfigurations that affect its performance.<\/span><\/p>\n Crawlers can reveal issues like broken links, improper redirect, missing metatags, server failures, page speed, orphan pages, etc. This is essential for <\/span>eCommerce SEO<\/span><\/a> teams as it makes the subsequent maintenance efforts structured and efficient.<\/span><\/p>\n You should also use tools like PageSpeed Insights and Google Search Console to discover additional areas of improvement such as JavaScript errors and mobile performance issues.<\/span><\/p>\n Each of the issues needs to be addressed in its own way. For instance, broken links need to be either removed or redirected. Larger images need to be compressed. Meta Tags should be added or updated throughout.<\/span><\/p>\n While tackling each of the above technical issues, continually check your progress by monitoring site performance metrics such as page speed and responsiveness across devices.<\/span><\/p>\n Moreover, you may manually need to push crawl requests to Google for important pages after optimization to ensure the <\/span>search engines<\/span><\/a> serve them to your potential buyers immediately. If you have too many technical issues, it is crucial to prioritize.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Aim for low-hanging fruits first and then continually move toward more nuanced issues. A good rule of thumb is to start by addressing 404 and 5xx errors and compressing images.<\/span><\/p>\n eCommerce technical SEO audit checklist:<\/span><\/p>\n On-page audits bring issues like inadequate or incorrect keyword usage, missing alt texts for images, thin or duplicate content, and unoptimized titles and descriptions into the light. Fixing them is crucial for delivering a great experience to your visitors and improving indexability.<\/span><\/p>\n When the pages are ranked properly on the search engine for the relevant keywords and they provide the right information to your visitors, you can expect higher traffic, increased dwell time, and more conversions.<\/span><\/p>\n Here, you will need tools such as Ahrefs and Semrush to conduct in-depth <\/span>keyword research<\/span><\/a> and find competitors for those search terms. This will make it easier to optimize product and category pages accordingly.<\/span><\/p>\n As you can imagine, fixing these issues, particularly when they are prevalent can be time-consuming and resource-intensive. It can be advantageous to leverage automation and AI tools to speed up the process.<\/span><\/p>\n For instance, you can use large language models (LLMs) to write product descriptions based on the manufacturer\u2019s details while incorporating keywords. Similarly, you can use specialized plugins to add AI-generated alt text to images on your eCommerce platform.<\/span><\/p>\n This is also a great opportunity to add relevant internal links. Embedding internal links well makes it easier for search bots to map your website and index it appropriately.<\/span><\/p>\n eCommerce on-page SEO audit checklist:<\/span><\/p>\n Off-page SEO audits reveal external factors that might be impacting your eCommerce store\u2019s search visibility. This includes backlinks, social signals, and overall online reputation. Optimizing them helps make your site appear credible, trustworthy, and authoritative to search bots and users.<\/span><\/p>\n eCommerce SEO teams should start by auditing the backlink profile with the help of tools like Moz Link Explorer and Majestic. You can also look at the backlink profiles of your competitors to quickly recognize enhancement opportunities.<\/span><\/p>\n The basic rule here is: that organic mentions in respectable sites are beneficial while referrals from sketchy domains do more harm than good.<\/span><\/p>\n Coming to social signals and <\/span>online reputation<\/span><\/a>, keep a close eye on relevant terms and trends on various platforms and publications. Promptly address the grievances of disappointed customers to offer a rightful resolution and regularly publish public relations articles.<\/span><\/p>\n Tools like Hootsuite and Sprout Social can be great for tracking buyer sentiment across platforms. Similarly, you can set Google Alerts specific to your brand and industry to stay on top of other mentions across the web.<\/span><\/p>\n eCommerce off-page SEO audit checklist:<\/span><\/p>\n Local SEO audits are essential for eCommerce stores that operate in a specific geographical region or serve customers residing in a particular area. This is also crucial for online shops that have brick-and-mortar stores.<\/span><\/p>\n Ensure you have pages dedicated to the relevant locations. These pages should resonate culturally and demographically with the audience. Use all the relevant words, phrases, and lingo to hit the mark with your messaging.<\/span><\/p>\n If you have a physical store, get listed in Google My Business and add useful content to your profile such as catalog and pictures.<\/span><\/p>\n Another important thing while promoting a local business is <\/span>managing reviews<\/span><\/a>. Keep a close eye on different listings and forums to remain on top of potential issues. This keeps the eCommerce teams agile and proactive in maintaining a good local reputation.<\/span><\/p>\n eCommerce local SEO audit checklist:<\/span><\/p>\n The five steps outlined above can be tedious, particularly for budding eCommerce stores with limited hands on the deck. While talking about those steps, we briefly mentioned a few tips that are collated below:<\/span><\/p>\n SEO audits are vital for eCommerce businesses aiming to boost visibility, traffic, and sales. A thorough audit identifies technical, on-page, off-page, and local SEO issues that could hinder performance.<\/span><\/p>\n To run an SEO audit for your ecommerce site, start by preparing with clear goals and the right tools.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Conduct technical audits to address site speed, architecture, and mobile usability. Perform on-page audits to optimize content, meta details, and keyword usage. Assess off-page factors like backlinks and social signals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Lastly, focus on local SEO to ensure consistent listings and a strong local presence.<\/span><\/p>\n Remember, SEO is a continuous process. Regular audits help maintain and improve your site\u2019s performance. Ecommerce teams should establish a routine for SEO activities, ensuring they stay ahead in the competitive online market.<\/span><\/p>\n Gaurav Belani<\/span><\/p>\n Gaurav Belani is a Senior SEO and Content Marketing Analyst at <\/p>\n1. Prepare for the eCommerce SEO Audit<\/span><\/h2>\n
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2. Technical SEO Audit<\/span><\/h2>\n
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3. On-Page SEO Audit\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n
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4. Off-Page SEO Audit<\/span><\/h2>\n
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5. Local SEO Audit<\/span><\/h2>\n
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Best practices while auditing eCommerce sites for SEO<\/span><\/h2>\n
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Final Thoughts<\/span><\/h2>\n
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