Ecommerce Website Audit

Ecommerce website audits are a great way to identify issues and opportunities to help deliver results and drive growth for your clients with online stores. Offering these audits demonstrates your ecommerce expertise, provides value to clients, helps identify opportunities for improvement, and can lead to additional service offerings and increased client retention in the competitive ecommerce landscape.

Ecommerce website audits are essential for online businesses as they pinpoint issues that need to be addressed and areas for improvement from SEO and security to user experience. Resolving these issues improves user experience, increases conversions, and drives more traffic and sales growth.

An ecommerce website audit tool automatically scans online stores to assess factors specific to ecommerce, including product page structure, and checkout process, as well as general factors like site structure, design elements, content quality, user experience, and technical issues. It generates reports with actionable insights for optimizing online stores.

Running ecommerce website audits and generating reports can be time-consuming. The best approach is to use an ecommerce website audit tool like ours, which automates the process, saves time, and provides actionable insights specific to online stores. Complement this with manual checks for a thorough analysis. We recommend starting with the most important pages and features to get quick wins in the ecommerce context.

We are unaware of any e-commerce-specific tools aside from our software, My Web Audit, which is an all-in-one solution for agencies that pulls data from various sources and is tailored for ecommerce sites. Other useful tools include Google PageSpeed Insights, GTMetrix, Google Analytics, and Google Search Console. My Web Audit consolidates these insights, so you don't need multiple tools and subscriptions. We also integrate ecommerce-specific metrics and checks that other general SEO tools might miss.

Our comprehensive ecommerce audit reports include:

• An executive summary tailored to online retail.
• Detailed findings across all aspects of the ecommerce website, including product pages, category structure, search functionality, and checkout process.
• Prioritized recommendations specific to improving online sales and user experience.
• Visual data representations for easy client understanding.

Please see this sample ecommerce website audit report, which lists all the points we cover when we audit an online store.

Pricing can vary based on the online store's size, complexity, and number of products. Pricing typically ranges from $0 to $3000 or more, depending on how you use the audit in your agency:

• Free or low-cost audits for lead capture or existing client value-add.
• Low to mid-price audits ($250 to $1500) for small to medium ecommerce sites or "lite" audits along with a 1-2 hour consultation.
• Higher-priced audits (over $2000) for larger, more complex online stores or multi-national ecommerce businesses.

Consider tiered pricing structures or bundling audits with ongoing ecommerce website maintenance and optimization services. Our tool allows for flexible pricing models to suit your agency's needs and the specific requirements of ecommerce clients.

Typical scenarios for running an ecommerce website audit include:

• When encountering a new prospect or client who wants to improve their current online store.
• After an ecommerce website has been redesigned or migrated to a new platform.
• When there's been a significant drop in sales or conversion rates.
• Before and after major sales events (e.g., Black Friday, holiday season).
• When it has been 3-6 months since the last audit (ecommerce sites typically need more frequent audits due to the dynamic nature of online retail).

A professional ecommerce website audit tool like ours empowers your agency to generate high-value, branded ecommerce website audits faster than doing it manually or using any other software. Presenting these data-driven insights builds client trust in your ecommerce expertise and helps you win more business in the online retail space.

We recommend conducting an ecommerce website audit every 3-6 months, with more frequent mini-audits (monthly) of the most important pages and features to monitor ongoing progress and proactively address emerging issues.

Ecommerce website audits can help grow your agency in many ways:

• Serving as a client acquisition tool: Offer free or low-cost ecommerce audits to attract potential clients, showcase your expertise, and provide immediate value.
• Creating upselling opportunities: Use audit findings to identify areas for improvement, naturally leading to conversations about additional services your agency can provide, such as ecommerce SEO, product page optimization, conversion rate optimization, and more.
• Facilitating retainer contracts: Demonstrate the ongoing need for ecommerce website maintenance and optimization, encouraging clients to commit to long-term retainer agreements.
• Build trust & deliver quick wins: Identify and fix easy-to-resolve issues discovered in the audit, immediately proving your value to new ecommerce clients and building trust.
• Diversifying your services: Expand your agency's offerings beyond basic web design, positioning yourself as a comprehensive ecommerce solutions provider.

Common issues include slow page speed, poor product page optimization, complicated checkout processes, inadequate product descriptions, lack of customer reviews, insufficient product images, poor mobile responsiveness, inadequate security measures, and technical SEO issues specific to ecommerce sites.

Key metrics for ecommerce sites include website traffic, conversion rates, average order value, cart abandonment rate, product page bounce rates, search engine rankings for product-related keywords, page load time, and mobile vs. desktop performance.

Use the audit findings to create a prioritized action plan. Our audit projects the impact an issue can have on an ecommerce website when resolved. Address high- and medium-impact issues first, then focus on other low-impact problems. Based on the audit results, this could be a combination of issues related to product page optimization, checkout process improvement, technical issues, user experience, content optimization, search engine optimization, and conversion rate optimization strategies specific to ecommerce.

A comprehensive ecommerce audit should include design analysis, user experience evaluation, product page optimization assessment, checkout process analysis, content quality assessment, performance analysis, conversion optimization, security analysis, mobile responsiveness check, and SEO factors. Please see this sample ecommerce website audit report, which lists all the points we cover when we do an ecommerce website audit.

The time varies depending on the online store's size and complexity. Our automated checks and manual assessment using our Chrome Extension make initial results of the home page, category listing page, product page, and other important URLs available in 15-20 minutes. For a comprehensive ecommerce audit, of every page it may take you a couple of days or more. We recommend starting with the most critical pages and features to get quick wins for your ecommerce clients.

Absolutely! Use it to attract new clients by offering a free or low-cost audit, or to provide ongoing value to existing clients by conducting regular performance checks.