Free Shopify store audit

Your homepage answers none of the questions that stop a first order

Delivery, returns and whether they can get their money back are the three things a shopper wants settled before they trust a store they've never bought from. Having the policies published on their own pages isn't the same as answering them where people land — nobody reads a returns policy before they've decided they want the thing.

Nothing on your homepage leads to something you sell

Every visitor this store gets has to reach a product from here. When the homepage links to no product and no collection, the only way in is the search box or the menu — and a shopper who has to go looking usually doesn't.

Product pages don't mention delivery

Not knowing when something arrives, or what delivery costs, is one of the most common reasons a shopper leaves a product page and doesn't come back. Having the policy published elsewhere doesn't help if the page they're standing on doesn't say it.

Product pages don't mention returns

For a brand a shopper hasn't bought from before, 'can I send this back' is the question that decides the sale. A returns policy buried in the footer is not the same as reassurance at the point of decision.

Product pages give no measurements or specifications

Without dimensions, sizing or specifications the shopper has to guess whether the thing fits their body, their shelf or their setup. Guessing produces two outcomes: no sale, or a return.

Product pages offer no guarantee or reassurance

A guarantee moves the risk of being wrong from the shopper to you. For a store without an established name, it's often the cheapest conversion improvement available.

Your star rating isn't published anywhere Google can read it

Reviews are the strongest trust signal a product page has, and the star rating is also what Google puts next to your link in search — the little row of gold stars. If the rating only exists inside your review app and never gets published in a form search engines read, you get the benefit on the page and none of it anywhere else.

Published products with every option sold out

These pages still take traffic from search and ads, and every visitor who lands on one can't buy. Some stores keep sold-out pages deliberately to hold their search ranking, which is a legitimate choice — but only if the page offers a back-in-stock signup instead of a dead end.

Pinch-to-zoom is switched off on phones

Most Shopify traffic is on a phone. Your theme is stopping people pinching to enlarge your product photos or read the small print, which is also an accessibility failure. It's almost always a leftover theme default rather than something anyone chose.

Products with no description at all

A product page with no description gives shoppers nothing to read and Google nothing to index. It's the single most common reason a product page fails to convert or rank.

Products with very short descriptions

Short descriptions leave buying questions unanswered — sizing, materials, fit, what's included — and give search engines almost no text to rank.

Products sharing identical descriptions

Identical text across products competes with itself in search results, and Google may choose to index none of them. It also reads as low-effort to shoppers comparing variants.

Products with no image

Almost nobody buys a product they can't see. A product with no image is effectively unsellable and looks broken on collection pages.

Products with only one image

Shoppers who can't see a product from multiple angles hesitate, and hesitation costs sales — especially for anything worn, assembled, or sized.

Product titles too long for search results

Google truncates titles past roughly 70 characters, so the end of the name is cut off in results — often the part that identifies the product.

Products with no product type set

Product type drives collection filters, search refinement and Google Shopping categorisation. Without it, filtering and feeds work poorly.

Products don't say who makes them

An assistant lining up three similar products has to be able to say who makes each one. A product that never states its brand is hard to recommend by name, and impossible to connect to reviews or press about you anywhere else.

Products carry no product code or barcode

A product code is how one system works out that your listing and a review on some other site are the same physical thing. Without one your product is an island — it can be shown to someone, but never price-compared, never backed up by reviews from elsewhere.

The machine-readable copy of your description is missing

Your description is on the page for shoppers, but the hidden copy an assistant reads is empty. So it has to go hunting through the page layout instead, and it often grabs the wrong text — a shipping banner, a cookie notice, the newsletter box.

Pages don't say what category the product is in

This is the trail that says a jacket lives under Outerwear rather than Accessories. It's how you get suggested when somebody asks for a type of thing, instead of only when they already know the product's exact name.

No questions and answers on your product pages

People ask assistants in questions — "is this good for wide feet", "does it work outdoors". A page that publishes the question and its answer as a matched pair can be quoted back word for word. A page that only has paragraphs has to be interpreted, and usually gets skipped in favour of one that didn't.

Your homepage's H1 heading is just your brand name

The H1 is the one heading search engines and screen readers treat as the subject of the page. When it contains only your brand name, the machines reading your homepage learn who you are and nothing about what you sell. This is a statement about the markup, not about your marketing — the sentence that sells may well be on the page in another element.

Product pages with no search description

This is the short blurb that shows under your link in Google. When a page doesn't have one, Google writes it for you out of whatever text it finds first — usually a shipping banner or your menu links. It reads badly, and fewer people click it.

Search descriptions that are too short or too long

Google gives you a fixed amount of room under your link. Under 70 characters you're leaving most of it empty; over 160 the sentence gets chopped off mid-word.

Search engines can't see your price or stock

Shoppers don't see it, but every product page is supposed to carry a hidden block of text stating the price, whether it's in stock, and the star rating, in a format Google reads directly. That block is what puts the price and the stars into the search result. Without it your listing is a plain blue link sitting next to competitors showing both.

The hidden product details leave out the price

The block Google reads is on these pages, but it doesn't contain the price or whether the item is in stock — which is most of the reason to have it. Google can only show what's in there.

Page titles too long for search results

Google cuts the blue headline off at around 60 characters. Anything past that is simply never seen.

Product pages with no main heading

The main heading is how a search engine works out, in one line, what a page is for. A product page without one leaves Google to guess the product's name from the rest of the code.

Product pages with no social share image

When somebody pastes one of these links into Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook or iMessage, no photo comes with it — just a line of grey text. Almost nobody taps that.

Pages don't tell Google which web address is the real one

Shopify serves the same product at several different addresses — one through each collection it sits in, plus any with filters or ad tracking on the end. Pages are meant to carry a tag naming which address is the real one. Without it Google sees several near-identical pages competing against each other.

Images on product pages with no written description

Every image can carry a short written description of what it shows. It's what a blind shopper's screen reader reads out, and it's how Google Images works out what the photo is. Missing it costs you both the customer and the image search traffic.

No sitemap found

A sitemap is the list a store hands search engines saying "here is every page I have". Without one they have to find your products by following links, and a new product can take a lot longer to start showing up.

No refund policy published

Shoppers look for the returns policy before buying anything they might send back, and payment providers expect one to be published. Its absence is one of the fastest ways to lose a first-time customer.

No privacy policy published

A published privacy policy is expected by payment providers and required under consumer privacy law in most markets where you'll be selling.

No shipping policy published

Unclear delivery times and costs are among the most common reasons carts get abandoned at checkout.

No terms of service published

Terms of service set out what a customer is agreeing to when they buy, and are the document you rely on in a dispute.

No contact page found

A store with no visible way to get in touch reads as untrustworthy, and it's one of the first things a shopper checks before buying from a brand they don't know.

No about page found

The about page is where a shopper decides whether you're a real brand. For small stores competing on trust rather than price, it's often the page that closes the sale.