Magento 2 SEO Audit Checklist: Boost Your Site’s Search Performance

SEO
May 1, 2025
10 mins
magento seo audit
Content

You have an eСommerce website on Magento 2 and wish to enhance your site's search performance? Stay with us and discover how to do it.

No matter how good your store is, if it’s hard to find, there will be no sales. 

A regular Magento SEO audit will help to uncover why you might have problems with organic traffic and what to fix to get better results. In this post, you'll find out what a Magento 2 SEO audit is, why it matters, and how to do it right. We also created a Magento SEO check-list for you.

What is a Magento Website Audit?

It is a check-up for your online store. Just as you need to check on your physical health every now and then to ensure everything is fine, your website SEO health also needs to be tested periodically.

When you audit SEO on a Magento store, you look at every facet of your site—technical setup, content, performance, and so on to determine what's contributing to or taking away from your search engine visibility.

Audits can uncover a variety of underlying problems, including broken links, slow page loading, duplicated content, or malfunctioning meta tags.

A Magento SEO audit helps you pick up on all these early on, so you can fix them before they start costing you traffic and conversions, which are what you need to keep high if you want to make sales that can then be converted into profits.

Magento eCommerce SEO Audit Checklist

The following is an easy-to-use checklist to assist your Magento 2 SEO audit. Copy and paste it into a blank sheet and keep it nearby for easy access when you need to run your audits.

☐ Set Up and Verify SEO-Friendly Store Configuration 🔍

Magento offers deep backend SEO controls, but misconfigurations are common. Start here:

  •  Enable Search Engine Friendly URLs:
    Stores > Configuration > Web > Search Engine Optimization > Use Web Server Rewrites = Yes

  • Avoid Duplicate Content:
    Disable category paths in product URLs:
    Stores > Config > Catalog > Search Engine Optimization > Use Categories Path for Product URLs = No

  • Canonical Tags for Products and Categories:
    Prevent internal duplicate URLs using built-in canonical tags:
    Stores > Config > Catalog > SEO > Use Canonical Link Meta Tag = Yes

  • Redirect to Preferred Domain (non-www vs www):
    Set 301 redirects for consistency under Stores > Configuration > Web

☐ Optimize Magento URL Structure and Navigation 🗂️ 

Magento URLs can become unnecessarily complex. Keep them clean and keyword-optimized.

  • Use hyphens instead of underscores in URLs

  • Keep URLs short, readable, and relevant to target keywords

  • Avoid stop words like “and,” “the,” “of” in URL slugs

  • Remove store codes from URLs unless multi-language support requires it

  • Create HTML and XML sitemaps — Magento supports this via Marketing > SEO & Search > Site Map

☐ Audit Technical SEO for Magento 🔧

Magento sites are often performance-intensive, which can hurt your SEO if not monitored closely.

  • Check Site Speed: Use tools like GTmetrix and Google PageSpeed Insights. Pay close attention to TTFB (Time to First Byte). Here are the TTFB benchmarks to compare your figures to:
Performance Level TTFB Time What It Means
Excellent < 200 ms Lightning-fast server response, ideal for SEO
Good 200–500 ms Acceptable range; most well-optimized Magento stores fall here
Needs Improvement 500–800 ms May indicate caching or server inefficiencies
Poor > 800 ms Likely causing SEO and UX issues, needs urgent attention

  • Leverage Full Page Caching (FPC): Built-in in Magento 2 — ensure it’s configured correctly.
  • Use a CDN: Speed up content delivery using Cloudflare, Fastly, or Adobe Commerce CDN.

  • Enable Flat Catalog (for Magento 2.3 and below): Helps with faster product and category page loads.

  • Monitor Crawl Errors: Integrate Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.

  • Check Robots.txt: Ensure it doesn’t block essential content like product pages, JS, or CSS.

  • Audit 404 Pages: Set up custom 404 pages with helpful links and search functionality.

☐ Product & Category Page Optimization 🏷️

Magento stores can have thousands of SKUs — optimizing these at scale is key.

  • Unique Meta Titles and Descriptions: Auto-generate templates but customize high-priority items

  • H1 Tags: Only one per page — usually the product or category name

  • Product Descriptions: Avoid boilerplate text; create unique, keyword-rich content

  • Rich Snippets with Schema Markup: Implement JSON-LD or use Magento extensions like Mageworx SEO Suite

  • Breadcrumbs Navigation: Must be clean, crawlable, and visible on all product pages

  • Alt Attributes for Product Images: Ensure every product image has relevant alt text

☐ Mobile & Core Web Vitals for Magento 🧩

Google’s mobile-first indexing makes responsiveness and loading performance critical.

  • Use a PWA (Progressive Web App) or Magento-responsive theme: Like Hyvä or Luma

  • Optimize CLS, LCP, and FID: Target scores above 90 in PageSpeed

  • Lazy Load Images & Minify CSS/JS using built-in tools or 3rd-party optimizers

  • Test across devices — not all Magento themes behave consistently on iOS and Android

☐ Internal Linking & Navigation Logic 🔗

Strong internal links improve crawlability and distribute link equity across key pages.

  • Include links from homepage to main categories

  • Use cross-sell and up-sell blocks with internal links

  • Link product descriptions to blog posts or FAQs

  • Avoid orphan pages — ideally, every page should be accessible within 3 clicks from the homepage

☐Content Strategy & Blog Integration 📊

Unlike Shopify, Magento doesn’t include a built-in blog. Content still matters — here’s what to do:

  • Install a blog extension (AheadWorks, Magefan Blog)

  • Publish buying guides, tutorials, and brand stories with internal links

  • Create seasonal landing pages (e.g., "Best Back-to-School Tech 2025")

  • Add a Q&A or FAQ section for long-tail keyword targeting

☐ Off-Page SEO and Backlink Monitoring 🔄

Magento SEO doesn’t stop at your domain — off-page factors matter too.

  • Track backlink profiles using Ahrefs or SEMrush

  • Disavow toxic backlinks via Google Search Console

  • List your Magento store in relevant directories

  • Encourage customer reviews on Google and niche platforms

  • Partner with influencers or bloggers for natural backlinks

☐ Regular Magento SEO Health Checks 🔁

Maintenance is key with a dynamic platform like Magento.

  • Run monthly crawl audits with Screaming Frog or Sitebulb

  • Monitor search rankings and CTR in Google Search Console

  • Check canonical tag health and indexing status

  • Test checkout flow and page speed after every major update

  • Keep Magento and extensions updated to avoid security or performance drops

Why Regular Magento SEO Audits Are Essential

Magento is a powerful tool, but that makes it complex. Over time, product stock changes, extension updates, or base updates can occur without inadvertently compromising SEO.

Regularly running Magento 2 audits prevents you from letting:

  • You fall behind Google's evolving algorithms
  • Your site becomes slow and unstable
  • Your content continues to meet user and search engine needs
  • You avoid technical mistakes that impact rankings
Think of audits as maintenance. A little effort up front spares you major headaches later.

Must-Have Tools for Magento SEO Audits and Maintenance

You don’t need to be an SEO expert to perform a basic Magento 2 SEO audit—there are plenty of tools to help. Here are the most effective of them:

  • Google Search Console – Monitor crawl errors and performance
  • Google Analytics – Track traffic behavior
  • Screaming Frog – Great for full-site crawls and finding technical issues
  • Ahrefs / SEMrush – Comprehensive keyword and backlink analysis
  • GTmetrix / PageSpeed Insights – Measure and improve site speed
  • Magento SEO Extensions – Like Mageworx or Amasty for enhanced control

With these tools at your fingertips, you can gain real, actionable insights to detect and fix issues quickly and efficiently.

We have a detailed article about Magento extensions, if you’re looking for more marketing integrations for your store.

You might also find these blogs helpful:

Magento SEO Tips: Boosting Your E-Commerce Success
Magento Marketing: Strategies for Unmatched Success

Magento Meta Keywords: Essential Tips for Enhancing Your SEO

Your First Step to Advanced Rankings or Why You Should Ask For A Technical SEO Audit

Enhance Your Magento SEO with Promodo's Expertise

Do you need a hand with your Magento SEO audits or want to take your Magento store to the next level? We are happy to take the job over.

With years of experience in eCommerce SEO and deep Magento expertise, we can help you to:

  • Run comprehensive SEO audits
  • Optimize your product pages and categories
  • Implement technical fixes without harming your site
  • Develop a content strategy tailored to your customers.

We also have access to all the professional SEO tools, so you don’t have to pay extra fees. 

Let us handle the heavy lifting, so you can focus on running your business, catering to your customers' needs, and strategizing for your next entrepreneurial endeavor.

Grow Your Business Revenue and Sales
with Promodo Digital Marketing Experts!

FAQs

[[FAQ-START]]

Are Magento SEO Audits Worth It?

You can be sure they are. Primarily, if you're relying on organic search traffic. As wonderful as Magento's versatility is, it does have the potential for minor technical or content issues to sneak in without you realizing it. A regular Magento SEO audit ensures that these problems are caught early, you're better ranked, and you have higher-quality traffic visiting your store as a result. Think of it as regular maintenance to ensure your site is running optimally.

How Can Canonical Tags and Breadcrumbs be Implemented in Magento 2?

Well, it takes brains, not brawn. Magento 2 makes it relatively simple to implement both of them, and here is the way:

  • Canonical Tags: Go to Stores, then Configuration, then Catalog, then Search Engine Optimization, and look for enabling the canonical tag options for products and categories. This will help you eliminate duplicate content problems by notifying search engines of your preferred page.
  • Breadcrumbs: Follow this path in this case: Stores > Configuration > Web > Default Pages. Once you reach there, set "Show Breadcrumbs for CMS Pages" to "Yes." Even though the majority of themes have breadcrumbs for category and product pages, you can further customize them via layout files or extensions.

What Tools Do You Use to Check Your Magento 2 Site's Speed?

There are many tools available for this purpose, which will contribute to your journey of measuring and optimizing the velocity of your Magento site. Their benefit is that they can reveal load time bottlenecks, which is valuable to both SEO and end users. These are the most used and most favored of them:

  • Google PageSpeed Insights – Choose it if you want actionable insights for both desktop and mobile performance.
  • GTmetrix – Go for it for detailed performance reports and waterfall analysis.
  • WebPageTest – Opt for it if you want real-world testing from different global locations.
  • Lighthouse (in Chrome DevTools) – Ideal for quick checks on performance, accessibility, and SEO.
  • Magento Performance Toolkit – Specially designed for load testing Magento environments.

How Should One Properly Formulate Alt Text For Images?

By following the core function of alt texts, that is to inform visually impaired users and search engines about what the image is really about. To do that, keep in mind these guidelines:

  • A good alt text will be an accurate and concise description of the image
  • It employs keywords, but only when they come naturally.
  • It will be focused on how the image contributes to the content without keyword stuffing.

[[FAQ-END]]

Written by
Anastasia Marchyshak

Content Marketing Manager at Promodo

Immersing myself fully in any topic I explore and my appreciation for simplicity are the driving forces behind my work.

Published:
May 1, 2025
Updated:
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