Shopify audit checklist: the 25 points that matter.

Performance points (1-5) · Core Web Vitals and theme architecture

Performance is measured against Google's Core Web Vitals thresholds, which feed both the user experience and Google's ranking signals. Each point is a yes-or-no test on the live mobile experience, not the desktop one.

1. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) under 2.5 seconds on mobile.Tested in Google PageSpeed Insights mobile profile. Above 4.0 seconds is a "Poor" classification and a real friction point on paid traffic that lands cold. Common causes: unoptimized hero images, render-blocking apps, slow theme.
2. Interaction to Next Paint (INP) under 200ms.Replaced First Input Delay in March 2024. Above 500ms is "Poor." Heavy theme JavaScript, third-party app stacking, and unoptimized review widgets are the usual causes on Shopify.
3. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) under 0.1.Layout shifts during load create accidental clicks and abandonment. Sources: late-loading banners, font swaps without size-adjust, images without explicit width/height, dynamic announcement bars.
4. Theme follows Online Store 2.0 architecture.Shopify's theme architecture documentation defines section groups, app blocks, and JSON templates. Stores still on Vintage themes (pre-2.0) typically carry technical debt that compounds with every new app installation.
5. App stack under 12 active apps with no duplicate functions.Each app adds CSS, JS, and database calls. Stacks above 20 active apps consistently produce LCP regressions and theme conflicts. Duplicate functions (two review apps, two upsell apps) are a sign of accumulated experimentation without cleanup.

Conversion points (6-12) · funnel, cart, checkout, trust

Conversion is measured against the funnel stage rates the Shopify Analytics dashboard and Google Analytics 4 expose. Baymard Institute's cart-abandonment research sets the industry baseline at approximately 70 percent across studies. Stores significantly above that have fixable structural friction; stores significantly below have either great UX or a measurement issue.

1. Add-to-cart rate above 5 percent on paid traffic.Below 3 percent on paid traffic typically signals message-match failure: the ad promised one thing, the landing page delivered another. Above 8 percent is strong; the constraint moves downstream.
2. Cart-to-checkout rate above 50 percent.Cart abandonment is different from checkout abandonment. Cart abandonment is "I added to cart but never opened checkout." The cause is usually price discovery (shipping cost shown only at checkout, surprise tax, account-creation gate).
3. Checkout completion rate above 30 percent of opens.Once the buyer is in checkout, the failures shift: forced account creation, payment-method limits, slow checkout load on mobile, lack of guest checkout. Below 25 percent is a structural issue.
4. Trust signals above the fold on product pages.Reviews count, star rating, payment-method icons, and shipping/return policy summary visible without scroll on mobile. Cold paid traffic does not scroll past hero content searching for trust; if it isn't visible, it isn't counted.
5. Reviews integrated and structured (rating + count + recent text).Aggregate count plus actual review text on the product page. Reviews behind a tab or below the fold do not produce the trust lift, even if the count is high. Schema markup of reviews enables rich-snippet eligibility in Google search results.
6. Message match between ad copy and landing page above the fold.If the ad says "free shipping over $50," the landing page hero confirms it. If the ad says "20% off your first order," the page hero confirms it. Mismatch between ad promise and page promise is the single most common conversion failure on Shopify paid traffic.
7. Email capture without dark-pattern friction.Pop-up timing, exit-intent placement, and offer specificity. A 10-percent welcome discount with a clear close button is acceptable. An aggressive timed pop-up on every page load that fights with mobile UX hurts more than it helps; the email capture rate looks fine on the report and the conversion rate quietly suffers.

Organic search points (13-17) · canonical, sitemap, schema, internal links

Organic search points test whether Google can index the store cleanly and surface it for the right queries. These are not traffic-volume points; they are precondition points for any organic acquisition strategy to function.

1. Canonical URL set on every product page.Shopify themes set canonical by default, but app installations and custom theme edits frequently introduce duplicate-URL canonical drift. Verify with View Source on three random product pages: the canonical should match the URL the user is on.
2. Sitemap.xml clean and submitted to Search Console.Shopify auto-generates sitemap.xml. Verify in Google Search Console that the sitemap is submitted, error-free, and reports the expected URL count. Discrepancies above 10 percent (sitemap claims 1000 URLs, Search Console indexes 700) signal indexing issues.
3. Product schema (Product + Offer + AggregateRating) on every product page.Required for rich snippets in Google search. Most Shopify themes ship with basic Product schema; review apps usually add AggregateRating. Verify with Google's Rich Results Test on three random product pages.
4. Title tags and meta descriptions unique per page.Auto-generated boilerplate titles ("Shop Name | Product Name | Shop Name") are common on neglected stores. Each high-value product and collection page should have a unique, query-aligned title and a compelling meta description.
5. Internal link structure connects collections to products to related products.Three-click depth max from homepage to any product. Orphan products (no internal link except sitemap) signal navigation gaps. Related-products modules and collection cross-linking carry organic equity through the site.

Tracking points (18-21) · Shopify, GA4, Pixel, CAPI, attribution

Tracking is the foundation that everything else depends on. A store can pass every other audit point and still operate blind if the tracking layer is broken or misaligned. Each point fails or passes against the platform's own documented expected behavior.

1. Shopify Customer Events / Web Pixels firing on all key events.Page view, view item, add to cart, begin checkout, purchase. Verified via Shopify's Web Pixels API documentation and the Customer Events admin tab. Missing events break downstream platforms (Meta, Google) silently.
2. GA4 conversions match Shopify orders within 5 percent.Per GA4 conversion documentation, expect some loss to ad blockers and consent declines, but a delta above 15 percent signals tracking implementation issues, not user behavior.
3. Server-side conversion (Conversion API) configured for Meta and Google.Browser-side pixels alone are increasingly lossy due to ITP, ad blockers, and privacy modes. Server-side via Google Tag Manager server-side tagging or Shopify's native Meta CAPI integration recovers signal that browser-only setups lose.
4. Conversion definitions match across platforms.Same conversion event in Google Ads, Meta, and GA4. Different definitions ("purchase" in one tool, "checkout completed" in another) produce conflicting reports and make optimization impossible. Per Google Ads Conversion Tracking documentation, deduplicate conversions across import sources.

UX points (22-25) · navigation, message match, mobile, trust above fold

UX is the closing layer. A store can have perfect tracking, schema, and Core Web Vitals, and still lose conversions to navigation friction, mobile layout breaks, or trust gaps. Each point is tested on the live mobile experience by walking the user journey from cold ad click through to checkout.

1. Mobile navigation reachable in one tap from any page.Hamburger menu present, opens reliably, includes search and major collections. Buried navigation is a top mobile friction point on neglected Shopify themes.
2. Above-the-fold content delivers the value proposition in 5 seconds or less.What the store sells, who it is for, why it is different, and what the next action is. If the cold visitor has to scroll or hunt, conversion math suffers.
3. Mobile layout passes the thumb-zone test.Primary CTAs (Add to Cart, Buy Now, Checkout) reachable with the thumb on standard phones (iPhone 14, Pixel 7). CTAs that require two-handed reach lose conversions silently on the largest traffic segment.
4. Trust placement consistent across category, product, and checkout.Reviews, payment icons, return policy, and shipping policy visible at every conversion-critical screen, not just on the homepage. Buyers escalate trust questions as they move down-funnel; if the trust signals disappear after the homepage, conversion drops disappear with them.

"Each of the 25 points fails or passes against a published threshold, not against an opinion. The audit is not subjective. The fix sequence is."Stan Tscherenkow, Stan Consulting LLC

The scorecard · what each result means

The audit is self-runnable. The diagnostic that produces the prioritized fix list, ranked by revenue impact, is the Conversion Second Opinion. The 25-point audit identifies which Shopify points fail; the diagnostic identifies why, what to fix first, and what to ignore. For the broader Shopify revenue-leak diagnostic that goes deeper into financial impact per failure, see Shopify Revenue Leak Diagnosis. For the agency-side decision about whether to fix in-house, hire local, or commission a diagnostic, see Before Hiring a Shopify Agency.