Magento Website Audit Checklist to Level up Your Website

If the idea of conducting a well-planned Magento website audit has struck your mind, but you are unsure where to begin, then this blog is for you.

Here with the help of our Magento experts, we have listed out an entire Magento website audit checklist that will help you conduct this process in-depth. We have covered every aspect of this process, so you don’t miss anything.

At the end of this blog, you will have a clear idea on:

• What is a Magento Website Audit?
• Magento SEO Audit
• Magento Code Audit
• Magento Security Audit
• Magento Performance Audit

So, let’s get into it! 🚀

What is a Magento Website Audit?

A Magento website audit is an inspection of your website to ensure it works optimally. During this process, you analyze and review your entire site and find out issues that can affect your store’s performance.

Your job as a Magento store owner is undone till the very end. You need to put in continuous effort even after creating your website, as a timely website audit is necessary to double-check if your website is functioning smoothly and doesn’t hinder the user experience.  

A complete Magento website audit helps you to:

• Listed out some critical issues on your website.
• Help you distinguish what’s working and what’s not.
• Gives you actionable steps to improve your website performance.
• Improve your website performance leading to better engagement and user experience.

Magento Website Audit Checklist 2023

There are different types of audits that you can perform on your Magento website. The following are the four important ones that need much time and focus:

• Magento SEO Audit
• Magento Code Audit
• Magento Security Audit
• Magento Performance Audit

Let’s discuss each one in detail.

1. Magento SEO Audit

After successfully creating your website, your site needs to rank for interested users to find it while searching. SEO plays a vital role in this process.

👉This audit will help: To analyze areas in your SEO efforts that are not achieving your website’s desired results.

👉Things to consider while conducting this audit: Your on-page and off-page technique, content strategy, and website UI/UX.

a. Check Your On-page & Off-page SEO Techniques 

On-page and off-page SEO are different techniques, and both play an important role in ranking your website.

While on-page SEO focuses on the content part of your website (meta description, title, page content, and more). Off-page SEO focuses on building authority and promoting your site across the web (link building, reviews & rating, GMB profile, and more).

While conducting this audit, you need to analyze these SEO techniques carefully.

Checkout the guide here to know the actionable steps you can take: Magento 2 SEO Guide (Tips, Tricks, and Best Practices)

b. Go through Your Content Strategy

The content you add to your site is the backbone of building relationships with visitors and search engines. You must have a solid content strategy based on your target keyword and build your content around it.

We have noticed most of the store owner stuff keywords on their web page that can come across as spammy and don’t reap any benefits in the search results.

Check if your content efforts align with your main business goal and if you have over-used/under-used a specific keyword.

c. Your Website’s UI/UX

Your website UI/UX speaks to your visitors as they navigate through your website. And the better your UI/UX, the better will be your user experience.

Here we suggest you go through your website from your visitor’s eyes and look for loopholes that can affect their experience. Make a list of non-responsive banners, buttons, and design elements that can edit later.

 

2. Magento Code Audit

A Magento code audit is a technical audit to review your entire codebase and ensure the code-related files or any third-party extension you might be using doesn’t baffle your store’s performance.

👉This audit will help: To analyze bugs, errors, and any other vulnerability issues for your codes to run smoothly.

👉Things to consider while conducting this audit: Magento Core Integrity Review, Database Integration, Bugs and glitches, and Browser compatibility.

a. Database Integration

You need to inspect your database and check its efficiency, security, and possible vulnerability issues that might be open to attackers. You need to conduct this audit not only on-site but also on the third-party extension that you might be using. Here are some of the factors to consider while conducting this audit:

• Check if your store is using the latest version of Magento.
• Run a security check and know the potential areas that can be sensitive for shoppers.
• Check the index

b. Bugs and glitches

Bugs and glitches are an inevitable part of a store that is one of the main reasons it needs your attention. This part might not be very interesting, but the efforts you invest here saves you from the embracement in front of your visitors.

Find and list bugs and glitches in your site, and especially look closely at the pages with the most traffic. Once you have the entire list in hand, apply these changes.

c. Magento Core Integrity Review

The core integrity review can help you understand the core that might affect your site. This part can get complicated if you do yourself; here, you can use the help of a professional to conduct this process smoothly.

We recommended that you check your core integrity whenever you update to a new Magento version. As the new version can change some functionalities in your store.

d. Browser compatibility

In this audit, you consider how your store manages different web browsers from where your visitors can manage. Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Safari are the most used browsers.

Here you find out if users are facing any issues while accessing your store from different browsers and find a way to fix the issues that can create a better user experience.

3. Magento Security Audit

A Magento security audit is a way to ensure your website is safe from the eyes of attackers. A timely audit will help you keep a check on minor or major code issues, code logic, and more.

👉This audit will help: To analyze any vulnerability issues that can catch the hacker’s attention.

👉Things to consider while conducting this audit: Server and database security, vulnerability assessment, and user permission.

a. Server and database security

Here you have to consider different files and folders in your server. This issue generally keeps happening in the server. Here are a few things you can consider after finishing your Magento security audit:

• Keep a regular backup of your data.
• Keep your database server different.

b. Vulnerability assessment

This audit is an assessment to check for broken links or sources. Consider various factors here, like the version of your website(make sure you are using the latest version of Magento), using strong passwords, and if the shared hosting is causing any errors.

c. Use Two-Factor Authentication for Magento

This is an optimal way to keep the security of your store intact. Using such an authentication adds a second level of security to your store. The Magento 2 store doesn’t offer any specific feature for two-factor authentication. Here you must install two-factor authentication to keep your site safe and secure.
Learn here: How to Install Magento 2 Two Factor Authentication

 

 

4. Magento Performance Audit

Analyzing and optimizing the performance of your website is imperative to keep getting quality conversions. Your website speed, load time, images, and other elements impact how visitors view your store.

👉This audit will help: To list out elements that can be causing slow load time, leading to poor user experience.

👉Things to consider while conducting this audit: Mobile page speed, Desktop page speed, Image optimization, Cache implementation, Minify and Merge CSS and JS.

a. Speed optimization

Your load time determines if your visitors will stay long enough in your store. 40% of the users abandon a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.

Here you need to audit the page speed on desktop and mobile devices as mobile searches are at a growth trajectory, especially for e-commerce stores. It also recommends you check if any third-party extension is impacting your page speed.

Learn here: 10 best steps to speed up your Magento 2 store.

b. Image optimization

Here you need to audit the size of images as they can silently impact your website performance. Check the file size of each image you have uploaded. If the file size is too big, you compress them and upload them with minimum file size without compromising quality.

c. Minify and Merge CSS and JS

This is one of the techniques to reduce the size of your file. All unnecessary details gets removed here, like white spacing, extra characters, and more. The good part of this extension is that it doesn’t
affect any other functionality in your store.

d. Cache implementation

Caches is the easiest and the most effective way to optimize your website performance if it takes a lot of time to load. Implementing a cache strategy can help you solve the problem from the backend.

You can enable or disable the cache for your Magento admin panel and upgrade your store’s performance.

e. Check your CDN

A content delivery network is an advanced way of improving your website’s loading speed. If your shopper visits your store from any far away location, the site will take much time to load.

Using CDN, you can solve this issue. You can create multiple copies of your server and reduce the load whenever a search triggers.

Conclusion

And now it is over to you. We hope this checklist helped you get a clear idea of the Magento website audit checklist. You instantly put them into action and see visible changes in your website performance.

If you liked what you read, do share this checklist with your Magento friends and community.