Guide
The Shopify conversion checklist
A 31-point manual audit covering the same growth domains istovibe scores automatically — speed, technical SEO, product pages, cart and checkout, trust, and lifecycle email. Work through it yourself, or run the scan and skip to the ranked fixes.
How to use this
Audit in the order money is lost
The groups below are sequenced deliberately. A store with a three-second mobile product page will not benefit from copy testing, so fix the earlier groups before the later ones.
1. Speed & technical performance
Mobile speed is the single biggest silent killer of Shopify revenue. Measure with Google PageSpeed Insights on a real product page, not the homepage.
5 checks
2. Technical SEO & discoverability
Shopify generates a lot of URLs automatically. Most stores lose crawl efficiency and duplicate their own product pages without realising.
5 checks
3. Product page conversion
The product page is where most Shopify conversion rate is won or lost. Review it on a 375px-wide screen, above the fold only.
6 checks
4. Cart & checkout
Every extra field, step and surprise between the buy button and the confirmation page compounds. Walk the full flow on a phone with a real card.
5 checks
5. Trust, clarity & mobile experience
Trust checks are cheap to fix and disproportionately affect first-time buyers who have never heard of the brand.
5 checks
6. Email, retention & lifecycle
Most Shopify stores have the flows installed but never audited. Check the flow is live, sending, and worth reading.
5 checks
5 checks
1. Speed & technical performance
Mobile speed is the single biggest silent killer of Shopify revenue. Measure with Google PageSpeed Insights on a real product page, not the homepage.
01Largest Contentful Paint under 2.5s on mobile
Check your best-selling product page. Oversized hero images and hero sliders are the usual cause. Serve WebP, size images to their rendered dimensions and drop the slider to a single image.
02Interaction to Next Paint under 200ms
Heavy app scripts block the main thread. Audit every installed app and remove anything not tied to revenue in the last 90 days.
03Cumulative Layout Shift under 0.1
Reserve height for banners, review widgets and cookie bars so the buy button never jumps under a thumb mid-tap.
04Third-party app and pixel load audited
List every script in the theme. Each chat widget, popup, upsell and analytics tag costs speed — keep the ones you can attribute revenue to.
05Theme and asset hygiene
Remove unused sections, legacy app leftovers in theme.liquid, and jQuery duplicates left behind by removed apps.
5 checks
2. Technical SEO & discoverability
Shopify generates a lot of URLs automatically. Most stores lose crawl efficiency and duplicate their own product pages without realising.
06Collection and product titles are unique and intent-led
Titles should read like a search, not a SKU. Under 60 characters, main term first, brand last.
07Meta descriptions written for every money page
Shopify auto-truncates product copy when the field is empty. Write descriptions for your top 20 pages by traffic.
08Canonical and duplicate collection paths controlled
Products reachable via /collections/*/products/* should canonical to /products/*. Confirm in the rendered source, not the theme editor.
09Faceted filter URLs kept out of the index
Filter and sort parameters create near-infinite duplicates. Keep them noindex or blocked, and keep real category intent on a proper collection page.
10Product structured data valid
Price, availability, rating and review count should validate in Google's Rich Results Test. Broken schema silently drops rich snippets.
6 checks
3. Product page conversion
The product page is where most Shopify conversion rate is won or lost. Review it on a 375px-wide screen, above the fold only.
11Price, variant and add-to-cart visible without scrolling
On mobile, the buy box should be reachable in the first screen. Push long-form storytelling below it.
12Variant selection is unambiguous
Out-of-stock variants should be visibly disabled, not silently missing, and the image should change with the variant.
13Delivery cost and date shown before the cart
Unexpected shipping cost is the most cited reason for abandonment. Say the threshold and the expected date on the product page.
14Returns and guarantee stated in plain language
One line near the buy button beats a policy page nobody opens.
15Image set answers the objection, not just the aesthetic
Scale shot, in-use shot, detail shot, and size or spec graphic. Add zoom on mobile.
16Reviews present, recent and specific
Volume matters less than recency. A review from last month outperforms 400 from two years ago.
5 checks
4. Cart & checkout
Every extra field, step and surprise between the buy button and the confirmation page compounds. Walk the full flow on a phone with a real card.
17Cart shows totals, shipping threshold and next step clearly
Progress toward free shipping lifts average order value when it is specific — show the remaining amount, not a vague nudge.
18Express payment options above the fold
Shop Pay, Apple Pay and Google Pay remove the largest friction point on mobile. Confirm they render on both cart and product pages.
19Guest checkout available
Forced account creation is a pure loss on first orders. Offer the account after purchase instead.
20Discount field does not send buyers hunting
A prominent empty code box sends people to coupon sites. Collapse it, or pre-apply codes from the link.
21Checkout errors are recoverable
Test a declined card, an invalid postcode and an out-of-stock item mid-checkout. Each should explain the fix inline.
5 checks
5. Trust, clarity & mobile experience
Trust checks are cheap to fix and disproportionately affect first-time buyers who have never heard of the brand.
22Value proposition understandable in five seconds
Above the fold on the homepage, a stranger should be able to say what you sell and who it is for.
23Contact route and business identity visible
Real address, real email, real response time. Absence of these is a measurable conversion drag.
24Tap targets, font size and forms usable one-handed
44px minimum targets, 16px inputs to stop iOS zoom, correct keyboard types on email and phone fields.
25Popups do not block the first interaction
Delay the email capture until scroll or exit intent, and never stack it with a cookie bar and a chat widget.
26Search returns useful results
Site search users convert far higher than average. Test misspellings, synonyms and your top five category terms.
5 checks
6. Email, retention & lifecycle
Most Shopify stores have the flows installed but never audited. Check the flow is live, sending, and worth reading.
27Welcome, abandoned cart, abandoned checkout and browse abandonment all live
Confirm each flow is switched on, not in draft, and that the delays are sensible for your price point.
28Post-purchase and winback flows earning their place
A review request, a replenishment reminder and a lapsed-buyer offer cover most of the retention upside.
29Email capture offer is worth an address
Generic 10% off underperforms a specific, useful reason to subscribe.
30Deliverability and list health checked
Authenticated sending domain, suppressed unengaged profiles, and a segment strategy beyond the single master list.
31Repeat purchase rate tracked as a first-class metric
If you only track conversion rate, you are optimising acquisition and ignoring the cheaper half of growth.
Questions
Shopify conversion audit FAQ
How long the audit takes, what good looks like, and when to automate it.
How long does a manual Shopify conversion audit take?
Working through all 26 checks properly takes about half a day for a single store — roughly two hours on speed and technical items, and the rest on product page, checkout and lifecycle review.
What is a good Shopify conversion rate?
Most Shopify stores sit between 1% and 3%. Rather than chase a benchmark, compare your mobile rate against your desktop rate — a large gap almost always points at speed, the product page buy box or checkout friction.
Do I need the automated scan if I use this checklist?
No. The checklist covers the same ground manually. The automated audit is faster, pulls live Google PageSpeed data and models the revenue at stake per issue, so it is mainly a shortcut and a way to prioritise.
Does this checklist only apply to Shopify?
The structure applies to any ecommerce platform. The specifics — Shop Pay, collection URL patterns, theme.liquid, app scripts — are written for Shopify stores.
Skip the half day
istovibe runs the same checks automatically, pulls live Google PageSpeed data and ranks every fix by the revenue at stake.