**SEO title:** E-commerce SEO Checklist 2026: 150 Points to Audit
**Meta description:** The complete e-commerce SEO checklist for 2026: 150 numbered points across technical, on-page, off-page, content, and CRO.
## Most e-commerce SEO audits cover 40-60 points. This one covers 150. If your store is bigger than 50 SKUs, you need every single one.
We’ve audited 100+ e-commerce stores across the UK and EU. Every single one had at least 30% of these 150 checkpoints failing. The top quartile of stores in terms of organic revenue had 85%+ checked. The bottom quartile had under 50%.
This checklist isn’t an outline — it’s the actual list, in priority order. Print it. Tick it. Fix what’s broken. Then read it again every quarter. The Google algorithm changes weekly; your checklist shouldn’t.
By Josh Weir, founder of Weir Digital Media.
## Quick Answer (100 words)
E-commerce SEO has five domains: technical (site speed, crawl, indexation, schema, mobile), on-page (titles, meta, headings, content, internal links), off-page (backlinks, citations, brand mentions), content (category, product, blog, supporting), and CRO (UX signals Google now reads). For 2026, the highest-impact items are: Core Web Vitals (LCP under 2.5s), product schema with offers and reviews, category page content over 800 words, internal linking from category to top products, and faceted navigation handling (canonical or noindex on filter URLs). Most stores fix 30 points and gain 40%+ organic. The checklist below covers all 150.
## Technical SEO (40 points)
### Site speed and Core Web Vitals
1. LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) under 2.5 seconds on mobile.
2. CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) under 0.1.
3. INP (Interaction to Next Paint) under 200ms.
4. TTFB (Time to First Byte) under 600ms.
5. Hero image preloaded with ``.
6. Hero image served as WebP with fallback.
7. Images lazy-loaded below the fold with `loading=”lazy”`.
8. CSS critical path inlined (under 14kb).
9. Non-critical CSS deferred.
10. JavaScript deferred or async on non-critical scripts.
11. Third-party scripts audited; remove anything below 80% utilisation.
12. Font preloaded with ``.
13. Font display set to `swap` to avoid blocking render.
14. Compression enabled (Brotli or gzip).
15. HTTP/3 enabled on hosting.
### Crawl and indexation
16. XML sitemap auto-generated and submitted to Google Search Console.
17. Robots.txt audited; nothing critical blocked.
18. Internal links pass authority correctly (no nofollow internally).
19. Canonical tags on every page (self-referencing or pointing to canonical).
20. No duplicate canonicals on paginated series.
21. Hreflang tags on multilingual stores.
22. 404 pages have noindex and return correct 404 status.
23. Redirect chains under 2 hops.
24. No orphan pages (pages without internal links).
25. Crawl budget allocated to revenue-generating pages first.
### Mobile-first
26. Mobile-friendly test passes for all template types.
27. Tap targets at least 48x48px.
28. Viewport meta tag set correctly.
29. No horizontal scroll on mobile.
30. Forms usable with mobile keyboard.
### Schema markup
31. Product schema on every PDP with `name`, `image`, `description`, `offers`, `aggregateRating`.
32. BreadcrumbList schema on every category page.
33. Organization schema on homepage and footer.
34. WebSite schema with sitelinks search box.
35. Review schema on UGC review pages.
36. FAQ schema on category and product pages where relevant.
37. Article schema on blog posts.
38. VideoObject schema on product videos.
39. Schema validated in Google Rich Results Test.
40. No conflicting schema (same product marked up in multiple types).
## On-page SEO (35 points)
### Title tags
41. Every page has a unique title under 60 characters.
42. Primary keyword in first 30 characters of title.
43. Brand name at the end (or removed for thin product titles).
44. Category page titles include “[category] | [brand]” pattern.
45. Product page titles include `[product] | [size] | [colour] | [brand]`.
### Meta descriptions
46. Every page has a unique meta description under 155 characters.
47. Primary keyword in first 100 characters.
48. CTA in last 50 characters (e.g., “Free UK delivery”).
49. No truncation on mobile preview.
### Headings
50. One and only one H1 per page.
51. H1 contains primary keyword and matches user intent.
52. H2/H3 hierarchy logical (no H3 without parent H2).
53. Keywords distributed naturally across H2s.
### Content
54. Category page content over 800 words.
55. Product description over 300 words, unique per SKU (no manufacturer copy-paste).
56. FAQ section on every category page.
57. FAQ section on every product page.
58. Content above the fold answers the user’s intent in under 5 seconds.
59. No keyword stuffing (keyword density under 2.5%).
60. Long-tail keyword variants used naturally (LSI).
### Internal linking
61. Every page reachable in under 3 clicks from homepage.
62. Top 20 revenue products linked from homepage or top-level category.
63. Category pages link to top-selling products in the category.
64. Product pages link to related products (algorithmic or curated).
65. Blog posts link to relevant product/category pages with descriptive anchor text.
66. Footer contains links to key category pages (not just legal).
67. Breadcrumbs on every page.
### URLs
68. URLs use hyphens not underscores.
69. URLs short (under 75 characters).
70. URLs descriptive (include category and product).
71. No URL parameters on canonical URLs.
72. Trailing slash consistent across the site.
### Images
73. All images have descriptive alt text.
74. Filenames descriptive (not IMG_2031.jpg).
75. Images compressed (under 200kb each, ideally under 100kb).
## Off-page SEO (20 points)
### Backlinks
76. Domain Rating (DR) tracked monthly in Ahrefs or Moz.
77. Referring domains tracked monthly.
78. Top 20 competitor backlinks audited quarterly; gap-fill targets identified.
79. Digital PR campaigns running quarterly minimum.
80. Guest posts on relevant industry publications.
81. Manufacturer/supplier link relationships in place.
82. HARO/Qwoted/SourceBottle responses sent weekly.
83. Broken backlinks identified and 301-redirected.
84. Spammy backlinks disavowed via Search Console.
85. No paid link schemes (anything triggering manual action).
### Brand mentions
86. Brand monitoring set up (Google Alerts, Mention, Brand24).
87. Unlinked brand mentions reclaimed monthly.
88. Branded search volume tracked monthly.
### Citations and reviews
89. Trustpilot or Reviews.io integrated with product schema.
90. Google reviews actively requested post-purchase.
91. Trustpilot reviews actively requested post-purchase.
92. Industry directories listed (top 20 for category).
93. Comparison sites listed (Google Shopping, Idealo, PriceRunner, etc.).
94. Affiliate partnerships tracked for backlink value.
95. Social profiles complete, linked from site footer.
## Content marketing (20 points)
### Blog content
96. Blog publishing at least 2 high-quality posts per month.
97. Blog covers buyer-journey topics (top, middle, bottom of funnel).
98. Each blog post over 1,200 words.
99. Blog posts updated annually with fresh data.
100. Internal links from blog posts to relevant categories/products.
101. Blog post images all unique (no stock photos in featured image).
102. Author bylines on every blog post.
### Buyer guides
103. Buyer guide for every major product category.
104. Buyer guides over 2,000 words.
105. Buyer guides include comparison tables.
106. Buyer guides earn backlinks (track via Search Console).
### Supporting content
107. Glossary or term-definitions page for category-specific jargon.
108. Size guides on every relevant product category.
109. Care/maintenance guides on appropriate categories.
110. How-to videos embedded on relevant product pages.
### Content audits
111. All content audited quarterly for refresh opportunities.
112. Underperforming content (low traffic, low rank) consolidated or removed.
113. Cannibalising content identified and merged.
114. New keyword opportunities researched monthly.
115. Topic clusters mapped to product categories.
## E-commerce CRO/UX signals (15 points)
### User experience
116. Page-load wait under 3 seconds throughout funnel.
117. Search bar prominently visible.
118. Filter and sort options on all category pages.
119. “Free shipping over £X” banner visible site-wide.
120. Returns policy linked from footer and product pages.
121. Live chat or chatbot available (without slowing page load).
### Trust signals
122. SSL certificate active, no mixed-content warnings.
123. Trustpilot/Reviews.io widget on homepage.
124. Payment provider logos visible (Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Apple Pay, Klarna).
125. Security badges below the fold on checkout.
126. UK address and phone number visible in footer.
127. About page with founder story and team photos.
### Checkout
128. Guest checkout enabled.
129. Multiple payment methods (cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, Klarna).
130. Address autocomplete (Google Places or Loqate).
## E-commerce-specific issues (20 points)
### Faceted navigation
131. Filter URLs canonicalised to parent category.
132. Filter URLs noindex if generating thin/duplicate pages.
133. Useful filter combinations (e.g., “red dresses size 12”) indexed with unique content.
134. Pagination handled with rel=prev/next or self-referencing canonicals.
### Out-of-stock
135. OOS products kept indexable if returning to stock.
136. OOS products with no return: 301 redirect to category.
137. Permanent OOS products: noindex and removed from sitemap.
### Variants
138. Colour/size variants on single URL (preferred) or canonical to primary variant.
139. No duplicate URLs for the same variant.
### Reviews
140. UGC reviews on PDPs above the fold.
141. Aggregate review rating in schema and visible on page.
142. Review snippets shown in SERPs.
### Seasonal pages
143. Christmas/Black Friday/seasonal category pages live year-round (don’t delete).
144. Seasonal pages 301-redirected to current year or made evergreen.
### Inventory
145. Out-of-stock variants greyed out, not removed.
146. Restock notifications offered for OOS.
147. Estimated restock date shown where possible.
### International
148. Country-specific subfolder/subdomain structure consistent.
149. Currency switcher works without breaking URLs or canonicals.
150. Localised content for top 3 markets (not just auto-translated).
## What to do this week
You won’t fix 150 points this week. Aim for the 25 highest-ROI:
1. Audit Core Web Vitals (points 1-15). Anything red — fix.
2. Audit product schema (points 31, 33, 34, 35). Add where missing.
3. Audit category page content length (point 54). Anything under 500 words — expand.
4. Audit internal links to top 20 revenue products (point 62). Add from homepage if missing.
5. Audit faceted navigation (points 131-134). Fix any thin filter pages.
That’s 5-15 hours of work. Expect a 15-30% organic uplift over the following 60-90 days.
Want us to audit your full 150 points? We do a free 30-minute e-commerce SEO consultation where we run through the top 50 live on screen. Book at [/contact/](/contact/) or grab the printable checklist at [/resources/?download=programmatic-seo-playbook](/resources/).
*By Josh Weir, founder of Weir Digital Media. We run e-commerce SEO programmes for UK and EU retailers doing £500k-£10m revenue.*
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