In this case study, we're going to go through an audit we did for an ecommerce website using Shopify.
This client approached us with a website they had bought and wanted to identify all the quick wins they could implement from an SEO point of view.
We advised that they started off with an audit, as this is the easiest way to identify all the SEO issues holding a site back, as well as the low-hanging fruit they can implement quickly for organic traffic gains.
After conducting the audit, we found a total of 11 medium to high priority SEO issues, ranging from technical SEO issues to problems with content and on-page issues for them to fix.
How An Audit Works
We do audits for all of our clients regardless of size, and this usually involves a few key things:
- Identifying all technical issues using a combination of Screaming Frog, Google Search Console, and Ahrefs
- Keyword gap analysis with competitors
- Backlink gap analysis with competitors
- On page SEO analysis
- Manually checking all important URLs
The goal here is to get a map of all URLs along with changes for each, while categorizing the issues to deal with them one at a time.
The Major Problems We Found
Let's take a look at the major problems we found from the audit.
These consisted mostly of technical SEO issues, alongside content issues.
Technical Issues
Technical issues were the majority of problems that this Shopify site was facing.
Shopify tends to usually be quite solid from a technical SEO point of view, but the client let us know that they had purchased the site and let it sit for a while, so we knew there was a good chance of technical SEO issues.
Here is a quick overview of the technical issues we found and why they are an issue:
Sitemap Was Not Submitted To Search Console
This was one of the main technical issues we uncovered, as a sitemap is used by Google as a way to quickly and efficiently crawl a website.
Without submitting this to search console, it can lead to lots of issues relating to crawling and indexing.
Site Speed Was Very Low
Another issue we noticed straight away was site loading speed.
Page speed has long been a hot topic of discussion among SEOs, and while it isn't one of the main factors for ranking highly, it does help.
This website was loading extremely slowly, and it was clear they were using outdated Shopify apps.
Google Merchant Center Had Several Errors
Search console was showing a lot of errors for Google Merchant Center specifically, which can cause issues with products and how they are shown on the SERPs.
Images Had No Alt Text
Most of the images on the site had zero alt text.
Alt text is used to describe an image and should be included on all images, especially on ecommerce sites which rely on images heavily for products.
Significant Volume Of Orphan Pages
The last significant technical issue we found was a surprising amount of orphan pages, or pages with zero internal links pointing to them.
Pages with zero internal links are not only difficult for Google to crawl in the first place, but they have a lower chance of ranking highly if they are indexed due to a lack of relevant, internal links.
Content-Related Issues
The main content issues were around the collection pages, blog pages, and on page optimization of pages as well.
Collection Page Targeting & Content Issues
Collection pages on ecommerce websites should drive a large % of traffic and sales from the SEO channel.
This website had lots of collection pages, but they were not targeting any specific keywords. This meant they were not driving anywhere near as much traffic as they should be.
We went through each collection page and made recommendations for keywords, and also suggested tens of new collection pages they could add without introducing any new products, but rather using keyword variations of existing products.
Blog Posts Offered Zero Value
The last content issue we discovered was that the existing blog posts were very outdated and not actually generating any organic traffic.
This is a problem for many reasons, and we advised that they delete the existing content and start a regular schedule of high-intent, supporting blog content to boost their traffic and help their product pages rank more highly.
The Results
The client was extremely happy with the results of the audit, especially because we made it super clear how to fix every issue and get the website performing at its best once more.
If you need a white label SEO report for a client, don't hesitate to get in touch with our team.