The store audit an operator would actually run.
Paste your store URL. In under a minute you get a scored teardown across six pillars: technical foundation, search visibility, AI search visibility, conversion, speed, and trust. Then a prioritized fix list, written like I am sitting next to you, not a generic checklist.
Paste a store URL and the audit fetches the public pages, runs about 35 checks, and grades each one pass, partial, or fail. Checks roll up into six pillars, the pillars combine into one weighted score out of 100, and the fix list is ordered by what a failed check actually costs. Nothing is written to the store: it reads what a crawler or a first-time shopper would see. Most checks go past whether something exists to grade how well it is implemented, because on a real storefront the answer to "do you have reviews" is almost always yes, and the answer to "can Google read them" often is not. Two of the pillars are written up in full: how to audit a Shopify product page covers the conversion checks, and store speed and conversion covers the speed ones.
- Scoring: each check scores 1 for a pass, 0.25 for a partial, 0 for a fail, multiplied by its weight. Most checks weigh 1; the ones that move real money, such as Product schema, reviews, and email capture, weigh 2 or 3.
- Pillar score = weighted points earned divided by weighted points available, x 100. The pillars are then combined on a weighted average, not a flat one: conversion counts most, then AI search visibility, then performance, then search visibility, then technical foundation, then trust.
- The six pillars: technical foundation, search visibility, AI search visibility, conversion and merchandising, performance, trust and credibility.
- Performance is measured by Google PageSpeed on a throttled mobile connection, which is why that pillar lands up to a minute after the rest and why your score is marked provisional until it does. It is graded against what DTC storefronts achieve in practice, instead of a lab ideal almost no store meets.
- Bands: 80 and up means the fundamentals are working, 62 to 79 is solid with real gaps, 45 to 61 is leaking on several fronts, 28 to 44 is leaving a lot on the table, under 28 means the basics come before more traffic.
- If the store renders entirely in the browser, the audit says so instead of scoring it. A number built on a page the crawler could not read would be measuring the fetch, not the store.
- Common mistake: chasing the overall number. An 85 with a 40 on AI search visibility is one weak pillar carried by five strong ones, and the pillar is where the work is.
The scan read your page. It cannot read your situation, your margins, or what you have already tried. One line is enough.
A scan cannot see your traffic or your basket. Give it those two and it will size what a point of conversion is actually worth on your numbers.
This scan reads one page. A real engagement looks at your analytics, your margins, and your roadmap. If the findings hit a nerve, let's talk about what's actually capping growth.
Start a conversation →The deeper look is The Read: two weeks, fixed fee from $5,000, across your analytics, margins and roadmap, credited back if you sign a tier within 30 days.
What a store audit actually measures
Most "free website graders" check a dozen technical boxes and hand you a number. That number is useless on its own, because a store does not fail for one reason: it leaks. Traffic arrives, and somewhere between the click and the checkout it drains away through a slow first paint, a missing review widget, no email capture, or a page that AI engines cannot read. This audit looks at all of those at once and tells you which leak is costing you the most.
It scores six pillars. Technical foundation is whether the basics are in place: title, meta description, one clean H1, a mobile viewport, a canonical tag. Search visibility is whether Google can find, crawl, and understand you: robots.txt, an XML sitemap, indexability, Open Graph tags, image alt text, enough real content to rank. AI search visibility is the newest and most under-built: structured data, FAQ and Product schema, and an llms.txt file, the signals that get a brand cited inside ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews. Conversion and merchandising is the commercial layer: social proof, shipping and returns messaging, email capture, a clear call to action, honest urgency. Performance uses real mobile data from Google PageSpeed, because on a phone every second of load time costs orders. Trust is what makes a first-time buyer believe you: HTTPS, guarantees, a reachable contact path, a real social presence.
How the recommendations are written
The checks produce raw signals, and the recommendations are the useful part. This audit ranks findings by leverage, biggest revenue or visibility impact first, and writes them in the voice of someone who has run stores at scale instead of a tool reciting best practice. Order matters as much as the list: fixing your AI schema before you have a single review widget is rearranging furniture in a house with a leaking roof. The plan tells you what to do first and why.
What one URL can and cannot see
A single-page scan sees everything in the HTML your browser already downloads, plus real performance data and your robots, sitemap, and llms files. What it cannot see is your analytics, your real conversion rate, your margins, or what happens inside checkout. Treat this as a fast first read that tells you where to point a deeper look. When you want that deeper look, the tools below go further on the numbers, and you can always start a conversation.
If you are at an earlier stage and want to know which growth wall you are about to hit, run the DTC Growth Scorecard. When this audit flags a conversion gap, the Conversion Revenue Leak calculator puts a dollar figure on it. The full set of free DTC and Shopify app calculators is here.
Shopify store audit FAQ
What is a Shopify store audit?
A store audit is a structured review of everything between your traffic and your revenue: the technical foundation, how findable you are in search and AI engines, how well the page converts, how fast it loads, and whether it earns trust. This tool runs roughly 35 checks from a single URL and scores each area, then ranks the fixes by leverage so you know what to do first.
How can an audit work from just a URL?
A surprising amount is visible in the page a browser already downloads: the title and meta tags, headings, structured data, schema, Open Graph tags, review and trust signals, email capture, calls to action, and the platform itself. The tool reads all of that, pulls real mobile performance data from Google PageSpeed, checks for robots.txt, sitemap and llms.txt, then has an AI layer prioritize the findings in plain language. It cannot see your analytics or checkout, so it is a fast first read, not a replacement for a full engagement.
Does it only work on Shopify stores?
No. It detects the platform automatically and tailors the conversion and merchandising checks for stores. Any public website can be scanned, but the conversion lens is built for DTC commerce, which is where the audit is most useful.
Is the audit really free?
Yes, free. You see your overall score with no signup. Your email gets you the findings, the full prioritized report and the emailed copy. The newsletter is a separate, optional tick box on that form; leave it unticked and you still get the report.
Who built this and why should I trust the recommendations?
Taylor Sicard, an early Shopify employee who helped build and scale the Partner Program, founded and sold a SaaS company to Tiny, and has built portfolios of consumer brands to mid nine figures in annual revenue. The recommendations are written from operating experience, not generic best-practice checklists.