A beautiful store that loads slowly or has broken links is like a Ferrari with a flat tire. It looks great, but it won't get you anywhere. This technical audit checklist covers the exact process I use when auditing 7 and 8-figure Shopify brands.

Phase 1: Performance & Speed (Core Web Vitals)

Google doesn't just want your site to be fast; they want it to represent a good user experience. Since March 2024, INP (Interaction to Next Paint) replaced FID, so if you haven't audited your site recently, you're likely failing.

Phase 2: Technical SEO Audit

It doesn't matter how good your content is if Google can't crawl it efficiently.

1. Canonical Structure

Shopify creates duplicate URLs by default (e.g., /collections/all/products/product-name vs /products/product-name). Ensure your theme is editing the canonical tags correctly to point to the root product URL.

2. Structured Data (Schema Markup)

Use the Schema Validator. You should have valid JSON-LD for:

• Product (with Price, Availability, and AggregateRating)
• Organization
• BreadcrumbList
• Article (for blog posts)

3. Sitemap & Robots.txt

Verify that your sitemap.xml is submitted to Google Search Console and that your robots.txt isn't blocking critical resources.

Phase 3: Codebase & Theme Health

Over time, Shopify themes accumulate "code rot" from installed and uninstalled apps.

Phase 4: App Audit (The Silent Killer)

Every app you install adds JavaScript execution time. Be ruthless.

• Redundant Apps: Do you have three different apps for popups, rewards, and reviews? Consolidate them.
• Frontend vs. Backend: Backend apps (like order management) usually don't slow down your site. Frontend apps (page builders, sliders) do.
• Theme App Extensions: Ensure apps are using modern Theme App Extensions, which are faster and cleaner than old script tag injections.

Phase 5: User Experience (UX) & Accessibility

You can be sued for having an inaccessible website. Plus, accessibility improves SEO.

• Alt Text: Do all images have descriptive alt text?
• Keyboard Navigation: Can you tab through the entire checkout process?
• Contrast Ratios: Is your grey text on a white background readable?
• Broken Links: Use a crawler to find and fix 404 errors.

Ready to Scale?

If you went through this list and found more red flags than green checks, it might be time for a professional audit. I offer deep-dive technical audits that identify every bottleneck holding your sales back.