Top Audit Tools for E-Commerce Websites to Maximize Sales

You have finally set up your online store, and you know that the effort does not come from product strategy alone but also technical housekeeping. You want your customers to find your online store and buy products from your brand. With these goals, you need a repeatable data-driven way to find the opportunities that result in sales and to scale your business even further.

This post lets you in on the top audit tools for e-commerce websites to maximize sales, and also how and when to use these tools. You can also find practical advice, so you can integrate the audit tools into your workflow seamlessly and hopefully turn your results into revenue. By choosing the right audit tools for e-commerce websites, you understand why they can be the best investment you can ever make.

Why You Need E-Commerce Audit Tools

If you have just heard about auditing tools for your online stores, you may be wondering if you really need to invest in one. A simple look into your business idea and consumers, you may think that you already know what you need to do. But with specialized SEO auditing tools, you will also get insights into your traffic, design, and other things that you may need to update on your online store.

Without data, you may not be able to see the full picture. Let’s say you have a simple e-commerce website or have a well-designed one; you may not notice that your website’s breadcrumbs may need updating. Your content format may take a while to load, or there may be a lack of descriptions in your product images.

An audit of your online store gives you clarity on those little updates or hidden problems that need fixing. It also shows how customers move on your website and even suggests how to fix them. Here are more reasons why you need e-commerce audit tools.

1. You Understand Your Customer Behaviors

With an audit tool, you learn what your customers click, how long they will be on your product page, and where and what they skip. With the data, you will understand how to improve your website pages.

2. You Improve Website Performance

You can also improve your website performance to keep your customers engaged on your pages. These tools show issues in your website and why customers leave your product pages. It could be about slow loading, broken links that need immediate fixing, server errors, and even possible security risks.

3. You Strengthen Your SEO

Auditing tools are not only for finding out what’s wrong with your website and the overall health of your online store. It also helps you check your title tags, meta descriptions, alt texts, and crawlability. These SEO gaps can be fixed quickly, and when you find them now, your products can show up in the search results properly.

4. You Make Data-Based Decisions

Although you have the idea of what your customer wants, you also need to know what your customers and other target audiences are really searching for. Auditing tools provide insights based on evidence. This way, you won’t have to worry about guesswork. You can back up your expertise on your customers with SEO data.

5. You Increase Your Revenue

Once all of the fixes have been applied, you can now boost your customer conversions. If your site loads faster and has fewer issues, customers tend to save your online store and come back to buy more of your product. Customers love it when your online store becomes reliable.

Your goal is to get target customers to find your website and products and then convert these visitors into buyers. With audit tools, you can have the power to look into the data and combine your customer insights to create better solutions for your online store.

Top 5 Audit Tools for E-Commerce Websites

Now that you know the importance of auditing tools and why there is a need to audit your online stores, you are now in search of the right auditing tools for your e-commerce websites. Here are some of the best ones we can find that are free to use, and some with subscriptions that come with more auditing tools:

1. Google Analytics

First in the list is Google Analytics. It is one of the most important audit tools for any e-commerce website. It is free with tons of customization options to get reports about your visitors’ interaction with the pages they visit. It shows how long they are staying and what actions they take before leaving your website pages. Once you have established your website, Google Analytics starts working for you.

Through this information, you can adjust your marketing strategies and improve your product pages so you can have visitors convert their visits into a purchase. You can see your best-performing products and which pages receive the highest traffic.

Just like brick-and-mortar stores, customers also leave their items in the virtual cart. Google Analytics shows how many customers add products and leave them in their virtual cart, too. Of course, it also shows how many customers make their purchase. Although it is sad to see customers leave without buying those items in their cart, these metrics will help you improve your checkout flow, which will hopefully improve your revenue.

You can also see how many customers add products to their cart, how many abandon their cart, and how many finish their purchase. When you track these metrics, you can make changes that improve your checkout flow and increase your revenue.

Google Analytics also has access to the number of users accessing your online store. If you have a campaign, you can also view the conversions. This way, you can understand the best marketing strategies that are working for you and ones that are not. If you are interested in customer demographics, devices, and devices, Google Analytics will also provide the results for you.

2. Google Search Console

Another free tool you should use is Google Search Console. Do you want your online store to rank higher? This tool is the best one to look into keywords that are bringing in traffic to your store. It also shows how many impressions your pages get and the clicks you receive.

Google Search Console is also capable of identifying crawl errors and indexing, and page issues. Once you fix these issues, your website gets recommended more in the search results to your target customers. You can also find your top-performing pages and keywords on your website. You can also submit sitemaps and request indexing for new pages on Google Search Console.

3. Ahrefs

The first and most powerful SEO tool is Ahrefs. It provides competitor data and reviews your backlinks. On this platform, you can find new keyword opportunities, too. Just like running a physical store, you understand that you have competitors in your industry. You want to be the number 1 online store for your target customers.

Ahrefs can show what your competitors are doing to help you compete with them. Like Google Search Console, Ahrefs also monitors organic traffic, checks broken links, and identifies content gaps. It also shows your website’s authority and suggests how to build stronger links.

It also has an auditing feature that tells you the issues you have in your online store. From duplicate content to missing tags, you can get the data you need in Ahrefs. Although it comes with several features, it also means you may have some time to learn how to use the platform.

4. SEMrush

SEMrush is ideal for SEO and marketing. It is also capable of auditing your website, tracking keywords, and analyzing backlinks and competitors. Planning to run an advertisement campaign, SEMrush is also capable of advertising research. Many e-commerce owners love SEMrush as it offers a view of their full digital landscape.

What does the auditing tool on SEMrush do? It checks technical issues of your online store and provides a score. This platform also helps you learn about your website’s crawlability, HTTPS, and internal linking. If you are new to auditing tools, this one’s perfect for you. Although it may still take a while to get used to managing it, SEMrush will guide you through the process.

You also receive suggestions from SEMrush on how to improve your online store’s structure and how to enhance your mobile performance. If you do not know how to fix broken pages, SEMrush will help you to do it as well.

It has content optimization tools to help improve your product descriptions, blog posts, and even your very own landing pages. The audit tool will suggest readability improvements and further SEO efforts you need for your e-commerce website. Once your content has been fixed and optimized, your online store will be easy to find for your customers.

5. Screaming Frog

Have you heard of Screaming Frog? The tool crawls your website and looks for possible technical issues. Online stores consist of several pages for individual products, product categories, and home pages. Through Screaming Frog, you can find out if your pages lack tags or have broken links and duplicate pages.

Screaming Frog is useful for large categories. You want all of your product pages to be visible in search results and have all the necessary SEO improvements each of your product pages needs. When you have the result of your complete site structure, you can keep your website organized.

With all the brand and product images you have, you want to find out if one of them is too heavy. Screaming Frog can locate slow-loading elements and pages for you, so you can make improvements and keep your customers from leaving your page. This tool is everything you need to create a clean and fast website.

How to Run a Technical SEO Audit

Have you chosen an audit tool for your online store? It is time to run a technical or a local SEO audit for your website. You can start by conducting a site crawl with your auditing tools. In this process, you can find broken links, duplicate content, and missing meta tags.

Then, you need to cross-reference your crawl output with Google Search Console’s coverage data. In this next process, you can find indexability problems and pages. They are either blocked by robots or incorrectly tagged as index.

Next, look into PageSpeed Insights to improve your website’s speed and Core Web Vitals. You can get to know several ways to conduct technical SEO audits for websites to improve your rankings here.

On-Page and Content Audits for Product Page

Your product pages should answer your customers’ questions before they even ask for it. It should contain the product price, shipping, and availability. Instead of relying only on your return policy page, you can include a summary of it on each product. Don’t forget the review element on your page for new customers on your site ensure you are reliable.

During your on-page audits, you have to look for product descriptions and product titles. They must be optimized for an easy read, unique, and come with reliable keywords. Check the content wisely to avoid duplicates. You can update their canonical tags and content blocks.

Next, your product images must be compressed. It should be able to load fast so your customers can see what they ordered from a visual perspective. Use your audit tools for e-commerce websites to inspect your schema markup and image optimization to increase your visibility and click-through rates.

Don’t forget to add comparison guides and buying guides to your online store. This will help your customers to know what to do and what to expect when they make the purchase. Plus, the FAQ improves your visibility and helps customers understand what your products and services are about.

What to Fix First After an Audit

You now have the results of your first online store audit. What do you do with it? The audit gives you a long list of things to do, so it is important to do high-impact and low-effort ones first. So this is how your checklist should look.

1. You can start by fixing broken links first, and maybe some redirect chains that are not working. Ensure they lead to the right pages and especially to the high-traffic product pages.
2. Your mobile pages should load fast so that you can drive for pages that drive organic traffic. To do this, you need to reduce your Largest Contentful Paint (LCP). If you are new to auditing, this focuses on elements that delay your content from loading. You can start by resizing and optimizing your images.
3. Ensure your product schema is correct. Your product pages must have the price, availability, SKU, reviews, and more.
4. You want your customers to make the final purchase quickly. So, take some time to review how your checkout steps work and remove all the unnecessary steps.
5. Your product pages must load quickly as well. Remember that product pages come with several images to tell your customers what they will be expecting. Compress these images so they can show faster.

These are easy to fix actions after using the best audit tools for e-commerce websites. Once done, you can immediately see the difference and the effects it has on your online store. Work on these by batch so you can make updates immediately.

Measuring Success: Metrics to Track After You Implement Fixes

How do you check the success of your updates after the audit? You can track your successes and ensure you made the right updates through these metrics:

• Organic Conversion Rate: Are visitors coming from search engines buying your products more after you implemented the updates? The results may not be immediate for this one, so you can also check if they made an effort to also add your product to their virtual carts.
• Organic Revenue / Revenue per Session: From your organic visitors, how much is the total amount your customers are spending? This shows your SEO efforts working directly with your sales. Has the spending increased or decreased?
• Checkout Completion Rate / Cart Abandonment: The metric itself tells you what it means, and through this, you can see if your updates have lower card abandonment.
• Indexed Pages & Crawl Errors (GSC): This confirms that your technical fixes allow search engines to find your pages and your online stores.
• Backlink Growth / Referring Domains: Do more websites link back to your online store or pages? This metric shows that you are attracting the right domains and reputable ones.

Monitor these metrics once you have applied the updates recommended after auditing your online store. This way, you know how your audit tools for e-commerce websites improve your ROI and how they positively impact your online stores.

Common Audit Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

If you are new to website auditing, you may be overwhelmed by the list of errors you get. Don’t let that discourage you, and avoid these traps:

1. Group similar problems and fix them together. Do not treat every red flat as a separate project.
2. Do not start with low-impact fixes.
3. Include mobile performance in your optimization plans.
4. Avoid over-relying on a single tool. Some of them can miss JavaScript-rendered pages. Plus, behavior tools can sometimes misinterpret bot traffic.
5. Approach your audit and updates like an experiment. Set A/B tests, especially for UX changes.

Recommended Playbook for Your First 90 Days After an Audit

What should you do in the first 90 days after your first audit? If this is your first time auditing your online store, here is an easy guide for you to follow. You can integrate this plan into your very own SEO workflow.

Days 0–14: In the first two weeks, please fix urgent technical and security issues. This can span from broken redirects and mixed content. Make 404s one of your priorities in these stages, too.

Days 15–40: Next, you need to improve your page performance. Online stores have several product pages to work on. So start with working on image compression and critical CSS.

Days 41–70: In this stage, you need to implement on-page SEO content. Ensure you have unique product descriptions, proper schema markup, and properly written meta descriptions.

Days 71–90: Finally, run UX tests on your online store, checkout flow, A/B test CTAs, and roll out winners.

While using your website audit tools, you need to track the KPIs from the earlier updates you have made. This ensures your updates make measurable improvements before continuing to work on the next updates.

Onto the Next Steps

When you have the right audit tools for e-commerce websites, you can find the silent elements that kill your revenue. The audits can also reveal opportunities for you to scale. Once you have identified the right ways to optimize your online store to maximize sales, you apply this to your ongoing operating workflow. Ensure you apply the right methods when uploading a new product to your online store.

Auditing does not only happen once. Despite applying the right improvements and incorporating them daily, updates on search engines and other related platforms are happening. Ensure you never miss out on the right ways to maintain the visibility of your online stores.