ChatGPT answers, unedited

For a one-off technical SEO audit on a small ecommerce store, I would avoid paying for a full SEO suite unless you already know you’ll use it monthly. A good audit can be done with a mostly free stack. seeklab.io

My recommended tight-budget stack

seeklab.io

If I only had 2–3 hours, I’d do this

1. Google Search Console
   • Check:
     • Pages not indexed
     • “Crawled — currently not indexed”
     • Sitemap status
     • Manual actions/security issues
     • Core Web Vitals

2. Screaming Frog crawl

Export:

• 404 pages
• 301/302 redirects
• redirect chains
• duplicate titles/meta descriptions
• missing H1s
• canonical tags
• pages blocked by robots/noindex
• orphan-looking pages (compare against sitemap)

3. Test key ecommerce pages in PageSpeed Insights

Don’t just test the homepage:

• homepage
• top-selling product page
• category/collection page
• checkout/cart if accessible

4. Check ecommerce-specific SEO items
   • Product pages have unique titles/descriptions
   • Product schema is valid
   • Canonicals point correctly
   • Faceted navigation/filter URLs aren’t creating thousands of indexable pages
   • Out-of-stock products are handled intentionally
   • Internal links flow from categories → products

Optional paid spend (only if you want a nicer report)

For a one-month audit, consider:

• Semrush trial — easier dashboards and competitive comparisons
• Ahrefs trial/subscription — stronger backlink and competitor research

I would not start with these unless you need competitor data. For a small store, the free stack above usually finds the highest-impact technical problems. clickraven.com

If you tell me your ecommerce platform (Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, custom, etc.) and approximate number of products/pages, I can narrow the audit workflow and the exact checks to run.

For a one-off technical SEO audit on a small ecommerce store, I’d avoid expensive all-in-one SEO suites. You can get a solid audit for $0–$100 with a small toolkit. The key is combining tools, because no single free tool catches everything. SeekLab AlphansoLabs |

Recommended budget stack

1. Google Search Console — free (must-have)

Use it for:

• Indexing problems
• Pages excluded from Google
• Search queries and impressions
• Core Web Vitals
• Manual actions/security issues
• Sitemap status

This is the first place I’d look because it shows Google’s actual view of your site. AlphansoLabs |

2. Screaming Frog SEO Spider — free tier

Best technical crawler for a small store.

Use it to find:

• Broken links (404s)
• Redirect chains
• Missing/duplicate title tags
• Missing meta descriptions
• Duplicate pages
• Canonical tag issues
• Noindex mistakes
• Thin internal linking

The free version crawls up to 500 URLs, which is usually enough for small ecommerce sites. Rankture Lunchbox Hands

3. Google PageSpeed Insights — free

Run it on:

• Homepage
• Top category pages
• Best-selling product pages
• Checkout/cart pages if accessible

Focus on:

• LCP (loading speed)
• INP (interaction speed)
• CLS (layout shifts)
• Image optimization
• JavaScript issues

Don’t chase a perfect score; fix issues that affect real shoppers. AuditZap

4. Ahrefs Webmaster Tools — free (optional)

Useful if you want:

• Backlink overview
• Site health checks
• Some keyword visibility data

Good addition if competitors outrank you and you want clues why. SeekLab

5. Schema validation tools — free

For ecommerce, check:

• Product schema
• Review schema
• Price/availability markup
• Breadcrumb schema

Rich results errors can hurt your ability to get enhanced search listings. VisRank

If you can spend ~$100 once

I’d spend it on one month of a paid crawler/audit tool, run the audit, export everything, then cancel.

Good candidates:

• Semrush trial/monthly plan — useful for a broad SEO overview
• Ahrefs paid access — stronger for backlinks/content analysis
• Sitebulb — excellent audit visualizations and prioritization

For a purely technical ecommerce audit, a paid crawler is often more useful than a keyword tool. CrawlBudget

My suggested one-day audit workflow

1. Google Search Console

• Export indexing issues
• Check Core Web Vitals
• Look for pages with high impressions but low clicks
• Screaming Frog crawl

• Crawl the whole site
• Export: - 4xx errors
• 5xx errors
• Redirects
• Duplicate titles
• Duplicate descriptions
• Canonical issues
• Orphan pages (if connected to GSC)
• Speed checks

• Test 5–10 important URLs in PageSpeed Insights
• Manual ecommerce checks

• Are product pages indexable?
• Are discontinued products handled correctly?
• Are filters creating thousands of indexable URLs?
• Are category pages stronger than individual product pages?
• Is internal linking helping your best products?

Biggest ecommerce-specific SEO issues I’d look for

• Duplicate product descriptions from suppliers
• Faceted navigation creating crawl traps
• Product pages with no internal links
• Out-of-stock pages handled poorly
• Missing product structured data
• Slow images
• Thin category pages
• Canonical tags pointing to the wrong URLs
• Pagination/indexation problems

A realistic budget setup:

$0: Search Console + Screaming Frog free + PageSpeed Insights
$50–100: Add one paid crawler for a month and export reports
$300+: Usually unnecessary unless you have thousands of SKUs

For a small store, the free stack plus a careful prioritization pass will usually uncover the highest-impact technical issues.

For a one-off technical SEO audit on a tight budget, I’d avoid paying for an all-in-one platform. You can get most of what you need with a small free stack.

My recommended $0 stack

• search.google.com — your highest-priority tool. Check indexing, crawl issues, sitemap status, Core Web Vitals, search performance, and URL Inspection. Google also provides robots.txt and crawl-stat information here. Google Google Support
• screamingfrog.co.uk — use this as the main crawler. The free version handles up to 500 URLs per crawl and catches broken links, redirects, duplicate/missing metadata, canonicals, robots directives, hreflang, etc. Screaming Frog
• Google PageSpeed Insights — check representative product, category, homepage, and content pages for Core Web Vitals and performance issues.
• Google's Rich Results testing tools — validate product/schema markup rather than assuming your ecommerce platform has implemented it correctly.
• Google Analytics 4, if already installed — useful for finding important landing pages and spotting pages where organic traffic/conversions are unexpectedly weak.

For ecommerce, I'd audit these first

Don't spend equal time on every SEO warning. I'd prioritize:

1. Indexation

• Are product/category pages actually indexed?
• Are filters, internal search, parameters and duplicate URLs creating index bloat?
• Is the XML sitemap clean and complete?
• Are important pages accidentally noindexed?
• Crawlability

• Broken links and 4xx/5xx pages
• Redirect chains
• Robots.txt problems
• Canonical conflicts
• Orphaned products/categories
• Duplicate/near-duplicate pages

• Product variants
• Faceted navigation
• Pagination
• Sort/filter URLs
• Duplicate category paths
• Internal linking

• Can Google reach every important product?
• Are high-value categories getting enough internal links?
• Are discontinued products handled sensibly?
• Product structured data

• Product
• Offer/price
• Availability
• Reviews, where legitimately applicable
• Performance/mobile

• Especially category and product templates, since fixing a template can improve hundreds of pages at once.
• Titles/H1s/meta descriptions

• Look for template-level problems rather than manually optimizing 500 individual products.

A very cheap audit workflow

I'd do it in this order:

Search Console → Screaming Frog → PageSpeed → structured data → manual review.

Export Screaming Frog's findings into a spreadsheet and create four columns:

That turns a pile of SEO warnings into something you can actually act on.

What I wouldn't pay for

For a one-off audit, I'd skip Ahrefs/SEMrush-style subscriptions unless you specifically need backlink/competitor research. Their recurring cost isn't necessary for the technical portion of a small-store audit.

If your store has fewer than ~500 crawlable URLs, Screaming Frog's free tier is particularly useful because you can do the whole crawl without paying. Screaming Frog

If you tell me whether you're on Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, or something else, I can give you a step-by-step $0 audit checklist specifically for that platform.

For a one-off technical SEO audit on a tight budget, I’d avoid buying an expensive all-in-one SEO suite. You can get a very solid audit with mostly free tools.

My low-cost stack

Ahrefs' current free plan is particularly useful for a one-off audit: verified sites get 5,000 crawl credits/month and access to 170+ technical/on-page checks. ahrefs.com

Screaming Frog is worth running alongside it because its free version crawls up to 500 URLs per crawl and lets you inspect/export things like titles, meta descriptions, headings, canonicals, status codes and internal links. www.screamingfrog.co.uk

What I'd actually audit

For an ecommerce store, I'd prioritize these rather than obsessing over every warning:

1. Indexation

• Are important product/category pages indexed?
• Are faceted/filter URLs creating thousands of crawlable pages?
• Are noindex, canonical and robots.txt directives behaving correctly?
• Is the XML sitemap clean and actually submitted?
• Are discontinued products handled sensibly?

2. Crawlability & internal linking

• 404s and 5xx errors
• Redirect chains
• Orphan pages
• Important products buried several clicks deep
• Internal links pointing to redirected/non-canonical URLs

3. Ecommerce-specific duplication

• Product variants
• URL parameters
• Sort/filter URLs
• Duplicate category pages
• Products appearing in multiple category paths
• Manufacturer/product descriptions duplicated across the site

4. On-page technical SEO

• Missing/duplicate title tags
• Missing/duplicate meta descriptions
• Multiple or missing H1s
• Canonical problems
• Image alt attributes
• Thin/empty product pages

5. Structured data
Check that Product, Offer, Review/AggregateRating and Breadcrumb markup is valid where appropriate. Don't blindly add schema just because a tool reports that it's possible.

6. Performance
Use PageSpeed Insights on representative templates rather than every URL: homepage, category page, product page and perhaps cart/search. Pay particular attention to LCP, INP and CLS, plus oversized product images and JavaScript.

If you have $0

I'd do it in this order:

Search Console → Ahrefs Free → Screaming Frog → PageSpeed Insights → Rich Results Test

That gives you substantially more coverage than relying on one "SEO score" tool.

One important tip

Don't treat the output as a giant list of 200 things to fix. For a small store, turn the audit into a prioritized list of maybe 10–20 fixes, ranked roughly:

Critical indexing/crawl problems → revenue-generating category/product issues → sitewide technical problems → performance → minor metadata cleanup.

That makes the audit much more actionable and prevents spending hours fixing low-impact warnings while an important product category is accidentally noindex.

If you tell me what platform you're on (Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, etc.) and roughly how many products/URLs you have, I can give you a lean audit workflow tailored to it.

For a one-off technical SEO audit on a small ecommerce store, I would avoid paying for a full SEO suite unless you plan to keep using it. A good budget stack is mostly free, with maybe one short-term paid tool if your store is complex. No single tool catches everything, so combine a crawler, Google data, and performance checks. seeklab.io

My recommended low-budget stack

seeklab.io

If you spend a little money, spend it here

For a single serious audit, I would consider paying for one month of one of these:

• Semrush — easier reporting and lots of automated checks. www.semrush.com
• Ahrefs — stronger for backlinks and competitive research. clickraven.com
• Sitebulb — excellent for visualizing site architecture and crawl issues. seeklab.ioighenatt.es

For a small store, I would usually pick Screaming Frog + Search Console + PageSpeed before paying for anything.

Ecommerce-specific things I would audit

A normal SEO audit misses some store-specific problems. Pay extra attention to:

Indexing

• Are product pages indexed?
• Are category/filter URLs accidentally indexed?
• Are discontinued products handled correctly?
• Is the XML sitemap clean?

Product pages

• Unique title tags and meta descriptions
• Product schema validity
• Reviews markup
• Thin product descriptions
• Duplicate variants

Site architecture

• Important products reachable within a few clicks
• Category pages have internal links
• No dead-end pages
• No redirect chains

Performance

• Oversized product images
• Slow theme scripts
• App/plugin bloat (especially Shopify stores)
• Mobile Core Web Vitals

A simple audit workflow

1. Verify the store in Google Search Console.
2. Crawl the whole site with Screaming Frog.
3. Export:
   • 404 pages
   • 3xx redirects
   • duplicate titles/descriptions
   • missing canonicals
   • indexability issues
4. Check your top money pages in PageSpeed Insights.
5. Validate product schema.
6. Create a fix list ranked by:
   • revenue impact
   • SEO impact
   • difficulty

If your store is Shopify, WooCommerce, or another platform, the best tool choice changes slightly because the common technical problems differ.

For a one-off technical SEO audit on a tight budget, I wouldn’t buy an expensive all-in-one SEO platform. You can get most of what you need with a small free stack.

My recommended stack

Screaming Frog is particularly good value: the free version crawls up to 500 URLs and checks a large range of technical issues. www.screamingfrog.co.uk

For an ecommerce store, I'd audit in this order

1. Google Search Console first

Look at:

• Pages indexed vs. excluded
• Crawled/discovered but not indexed URLs
• 404s and other crawl errors
• Sitemap status
• Canonicalization
• Search queries/pages losing clicks
• Core Web Vitals
• Manual actions/security issues

Search Console is especially valuable because it tells you what Google actually knows about and does with your URLs, rather than merely what a crawler thinks might be wrong. support.google.com

2. Crawl the site with Screaming Frog

Pay particular attention to ecommerce-specific problems:

• Product pages returning 200 vs. 404/soft-404
• Duplicate product URLs
• Filter/faceted-navigation URLs creating crawl bloat
• Pagination
• Canonical tags
• noindex directives
• Redirect chains
• Orphan products
• Internal linking to important products/categories
• Duplicate/missing title tags and H1s
• Thin category pages
• XML sitemap URLs that aren't indexable

Don't obsess over every warning Screaming Frog produces. Prioritize things that affect crawlability, indexation, canonicalization and important commercial pages.

3. Test your important templates with PageSpeed Insights

You don't need to test every product page. Test representative:

• Homepage
• Main category page
• Subcategory
• Product page
• Cart/other important template if relevant

Look at mobile Core Web Vitals and the actual causes of poor performance, rather than chasing a perfect Lighthouse score.

4. Check structured data

For ecommerce, I'd specifically inspect:

• Product
• Offer
• AggregateRating/reviews, if legitimately applicable
• Breadcrumb
• Organization

Use Google's Rich Results Test for representative product pages.

5. Run Bing's Site Scan as a sanity check

It's free and provides another crawler's perspective on common technical problems. www.bing.com

What I would not pay for

For a single small-site audit, I'd skip buying Semrush/Ahrefs/SE Ranking/etc. unless you specifically need their backlink or competitive keyword databases.

If you need backlink information, you can use the free data available in Search Console first. support.google.com

If your site is >500 URLs

You can still use the free Screaming Frog strategically—crawl the most important sections/templates and supplement it with Search Console and Bing. I wouldn't automatically spend ~$200–300 on a one-off audit just because the store has more than 500 URLs.

Bottom line: for $0, I'd use Search Console + Screaming Frog + PageSpeed Insights + Rich Results Test + Bing Webmaster Tools. That's enough to produce a genuinely useful technical audit for most small ecommerce stores.

If you tell me what platform you're on (Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, custom, etc.) and roughly how many products/URLs you have, I can give you a prioritized audit workflow tailored to it.

For a one-off ecommerce technical SEO audit on a tight budget, I would not buy a $100+/month SEO suite. You can get a very solid audit from a mostly-free stack.

My recommended stack

1. Start with Google Search Console.
This is the most important source because it shows what Google itself knows about your site—indexing problems, search queries, clicks/impressions, sitemap status, and Core Web Vitals. search.google.com

Pay particular attention to:

• Pages marked Crawled – currently not indexed
• Pages marked Discovered – currently not indexed
• Unexpected noindex
• Canonical conflicts
• Sitemap errors
• Core Web Vitals
• Product/rich-result issues

Google Search Console

2. Crawl the store with Screaming Frog.
For a small store, the free version is often enough—it can crawl up to 500 URLs. ighenatt.es

Export the crawl and check:

• 404s and other 4xx/5xx pages
• Redirect chains
• 301/302 redirects
• Duplicate title tags
• Missing/duplicate H1s
• Missing meta descriptions
• Canonical URLs
• Orphan pages
• Internal-link depth
• Pagination
• Images with huge file sizes
• Robots directives
• XML sitemap URLs

For ecommerce, I'd pay particular attention to faceted navigation/filter URLs. They can create thousands of near-duplicate URLs and crawl-budget problems.

Screaming Frog SEO Spider

3. Add Ahrefs Free.
If you verify ownership, Ahrefs currently provides a free Site Audit with 5,000 crawl credits/month, plus visibility into backlinks and organic keywords. Its audit covers 170+ technical/on-page issues. ahrefs.com

Ahrefs Free

This is particularly useful for answering questions Screaming Frog can't answer well, such as:

"Are there important product/category pages that have no backlinks or virtually no organic visibility?"

4. Run PageSpeed Insights on your money-making templates.

Don't just test the homepage. Test at least:

• Homepage
• Category/collection page
• Product page
• Cart
• One content/blog page, if applicable

Look at mobile performance especially. For ecommerce, don't blindly chase a 100/100 score—the goal is to identify problems that actually affect UX and Core Web Vitals.

PageSpeed Insights

If I had only 3 hours

I'd spend it roughly like this:

45 min — Search Console
→ indexing + sitemap + CWV + search performance

60 min — Screaming Frog
→ crawl + exports + identify duplicate/blocked/broken URLs

30 min — Ahrefs
→ backlinks + organic pages/keywords + second-opinion technical issues

30 min — manual ecommerce review
→ category → product architecture, filters, canonicals, internal links, structured data, mobile UX

15 min — prioritize

Put every finding into three buckets:

🔴 Fix now: indexation problems, broken important URLs, bad canonicals, accidental noindex, serious CWV problems

🟠 Fix next: duplicate metadata, redirect chains, orphan pages, weak internal linking, bloated filter URLs

🟢 Nice to have: minor metadata improvements, low-impact warnings, cosmetic issues

One important money-saving tip

For a one-off audit, don't subscribe to Semrush/Ahrefs/Sitebulb for months just because their dashboards look impressive. A combination of Search Console + Screaming Frog + Ahrefs Free + PageSpeed Insights gives a small ecommerce site a surprisingly comprehensive audit without a recurring bill. Sitebulb is worth considering if you want a more visual, polished audit; it currently offers a free trial and much deeper visualization/reporting. sitebulb.com

If you tell me what platform your store runs on (Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, etc.) and roughly how many products/URLs it has, I can give you a specific $0–$50 audit workflow and exactly what to check in each tool.

For a one-off technical SEO audit on a tight budget, I’d avoid paying for a big all-in-one SEO suite. You can get a surprisingly thorough audit with $0–$30.

My recommended stack

Screaming Frog is particularly good for a small ecommerce site: its free version crawls up to 500 URLs and exposes issues such as missing/duplicate titles, meta descriptions, headings, canonicals, redirects and broken URLs. www.screamingfrog.co.uk

Ahrefs Free is a nice complement rather than a replacement. For a verified site, its Site Audit currently checks 170+ technical/on-page issues and provides 5,000 crawl credits per project per month. It also gives you backlink and organic-keyword data. ahrefs.comhelp.ahrefs.com

What I'd actually do

1. Google Search Console
   • Check indexing/page indexing.
   • Look for excluded or unexpectedly non-indexed product/category pages.
   • Verify your XML sitemap.
   • Check Core Web Vitals.
   • Look at queries/pages losing clicks or impressions.

2. Screaming Frog
   • Crawl the whole site.
   • Export URLs with:
     • 4xx/5xx errors
     • redirect chains
     • missing/duplicate titles
     • missing/duplicate meta descriptions
     • missing H1s
     • canonical problems
     • orphan-like pages/internal-link issues
   • Pay special attention to product, category and faceted-filter URLs.

3. Ahrefs Free
   • Run Site Audit to catch things your crawl might miss.
   • Check backlinks to important product/category pages.
   • Check which pages/keywords already bring organic traffic. ahrefs.com

4. PageSpeed Insights
   • Test your homepage plus several representative product and category pages.
   • Don't just test the homepage—ecommerce templates are often where the problems live.

5. Rich Results Test
   • Test a product page.
   • Check Product/Offer/Review structured data and make sure Google can understand the important product information.

One important ecommerce-specific point

Don't let the audit become a giant list of 200 minor warnings. I'd prioritize:

P0: pages accidentally blocked/noindexed, bad canonicals, major indexing problems, 5xx errors
P1: broken internal links, redirect chains, duplicate product/category URLs, important pages poorly internally linked
P2: Core Web Vitals/performance, duplicate/missing metadata, structured-data problems
P3: minor warnings and cosmetic SEO improvements

If your store has fewer than ~500 URLs, you can probably do the entire crawl with Screaming Frog for free. If it's larger, Ahrefs Free's 5,000 monthly crawl credits may make the audit easier. ahrefs.comhelp.ahrefs.com

Bottom line: I'd spend $0 initially. GSC + Screaming Frog + Ahrefs Free + PageSpeed is enough for a solid one-off technical audit of a small ecommerce store.

For a one-off technical SEO audit on a small ecommerce store, I would avoid paying for a full SEO suite unless you plan to keep using it. A good low-budget stack is mostly free and gives you enough data to find the issues that actually affect rankings. seeklab.ioighenatt.es

Recommended budget stack

rankture.com

If you can spend a little money once

For a single audit, I’d consider paying for one month of a crawler/reporting tool rather than subscribing long-term:

• Sitebulb — excellent visual audit reports and site architecture analysis.
• Semrush or Ahrefs — useful if you also want competitor research, keyword gaps, and backlink analysis.

For a small store, though, GSC + Screaming Frog + PageSpeed usually covers the majority of technical problems. seeklab.ioighenatt.es

What I would audit first on an ecommerce site

1. Indexing
   • Are product/category pages indexed?
   • Are filters, search pages, and duplicate URLs accidentally indexed?
   • Are important pages blocked by robots.txt or marked noindex?

2. Product page issues
   • Missing/duplicate title tags
   • Missing meta descriptions
   • Duplicate product descriptions
   • Missing product schema
   • Thin category pages

3. Crawl efficiency
   • Broken links (404s)
   • Redirect chains
   • Incorrect canonicals
   • Orphan product pages
   • Excessive URL parameters

4. Performance
   • Large product images
   • Slow mobile pages
   • Too much JavaScript
   • Poor Core Web Vitals

5. Internal linking
   • Are best-selling products easy to reach?
   • Do category pages pass authority to products?
   • Are discontinued products handled properly?

A practical one-day workflow

1. Connect Google Search Console.
2. Run Screaming Frog on the whole site.
3. Export:
   • 4xx errors
   • 3xx redirects
   • duplicate titles/descriptions
   • missing canonicals
   • indexability problems
4. Test your homepage, top category pages, and top products in PageSpeed Insights.
5. Validate product schema.
6. Prioritize fixes by business impact, not by the number of warnings.

For an ecommerce store, I would especially avoid getting distracted by “SEO score” tools that produce hundreds of minor warnings. The high-value findings are usually indexing mistakes, duplicate URLs, slow templates, poor internal linking, and product schema problems.

For a one-off technical SEO audit on a tight budget, I’d avoid paying for an all-in-one platform. You can get a surprisingly good audit with $0–$50 total.

My budget stack

Screaming Frog is probably the single most useful paid-tool replacement. Its free version crawls up to 500 URLs and checks hundreds of SEO issues, including broken links, redirects, metadata, robots directives, duplicate pages, XML sitemaps and structured data. www.screamingfrog.co.uk

For an ecommerce store, audit these first

1. Indexing & crawlability

• Are important category/product pages indexed?
• Any accidental noindex?
• Are important pages blocked by robots.txt?
• Is the XML sitemap present, clean and submitted?
• Are there thousands of useless filter/faceted URLs being crawled?
• Do canonical tags point to the correct URL?

Search Console is particularly valuable here because it shows Google's indexing/crawling view rather than merely what a crawler thinks should happen. search.google.com

2. Crawl the site with Screaming Frog

Export and inspect:

• 4xx/5xx URLs
• redirect chains
• canonical URLs
• indexability
• duplicate titles/descriptions
• missing titles/H1s
• orphan-like pages you know should be linked
• internal links to redirected/broken URLs
• excessively deep pages

For a small store, the 500-URL limit is often enough. If you have more than 500 URLs, I'd prioritize crawling your category, product and important content sections rather than immediately buying the £199/year licence. www.screamingfrog.co.uk

3. Check ecommerce structured data

Test a representative sample:

• Homepage
• One category/collection page
• 3–5 product pages
• One informational/blog page

For products, pay particular attention to Product, price, availability, reviews/ratings where applicable, and breadcrumbs.

4. Check Core Web Vitals

Run PageSpeed Insights on:

• Homepage
• Top category page
• A typical product page
• Cart/other important template if relevant

Don't obsess over getting a perfect Lighthouse score. Focus on actual user experience, especially LCP, INP and CLS. PageSpeed Insights combines lab testing with real-world Chrome UX data when available. developers.google.com

One thing I'd not spend money on

For a one-off audit, I wouldn't buy Ahrefs/Semrush just for the technical crawl unless you also need backlink/keyword/competitor research. They're excellent products, but they're overkill if your immediate question is "is my store technically healthy?"

If you have ~$50 to spend

I'd still start with the free stack. If the store is large (thousands+ of URLs), spend the money on a short-term crawl tool/license rather than building a permanent subscription stack.

A good audit deliverable is ultimately not a 200-item export. I'd turn the findings into something like:

1. 🔴 Critical: pages Google can't index / major canonical problems
2. 🟠 High: crawl waste, broken internal links, bad redirects, duplicate product/category URLs
3. 🟡 Medium: metadata, headings, pagination/internal linking
4. 🟢 Nice-to-have: performance and minor markup improvements

That gives you a much more actionable audit than simply running an automated score.

If you tell me your ecommerce platform (Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, custom, etc.) and roughly how many products/URLs you have, I can give you a $0 audit workflow specifically for that platform, including exactly what to check in what order.

For a one-off technical SEO audit on a tight budget, I’d avoid buying a big all-in-one SEO subscription. You can get a surprisingly solid audit from a handful of free tools.

My budget stack

If you only use two: use Google Search Console + Ahrefs Free. Ahrefs' current free account allows verified site owners to run Site Audit with 5,000 crawl credits/month and checks 170+ technical/on-page issues. ahrefs.com

Ahrefs Free / Site Audit

What I'd actually audit

For an ecommerce store, I'd work through these in roughly this order:

1. Indexation
   • Are important category/product pages indexed?
   • Are discontinued/out-of-stock pages handled sensibly?
   • noindex, canonical and robots.txt conflicts
   • XML sitemap contents
   • Unexpected indexed URLs, parameters and filter pages

2. Crawlability
   • 404s and 5xx errors
   • Redirect chains/loops
   • Internal links to redirected or dead URLs
   • Orphaned products/categories
   • Excessive faceted-navigation URLs

3. Canonicalization & duplicate content
   • Product variants
   • Sort/filter URLs
   • Trailing-slash/HTTP/HTTPS variants
   • Duplicate product descriptions
   • Category pagination

4. On-page basics
   • Missing/duplicate title tags
   • Missing/duplicate meta descriptions
   • H1 problems
   • Thin category pages
   • Product pages with insufficient unique content

5. Ecommerce structured data
   • Product
   • Offer/price/availability
   • Review/rating markup where applicable
   • Breadcrumbs

6. Performance
   • Core Web Vitals
   • Huge product images
   • JavaScript/CSS bloat
   • Mobile performance

7. Internal linking
   • Important products/categories receiving enough internal links
   • Orphan pages
   • Poorly structured category → subcategory → product relationships

One particularly useful trick

Don't just run the automated audit and fix everything it calls an "error." Prioritize by business impact.

For example:

Product category generating $20k/month + accidentally noindexed = 🔴 urgent
300 product pages missing meta descriptions = 🟡 worthwhile
A few images missing alt text = 🟢 low priority

That prevents you from spending your limited time fixing SEO trivia.

If you want to spend ~$0–$50

I'd do:

$0: Search Console → Ahrefs Free → Screaming Frog → PageSpeed → Rich Results Test.

If your store has more than ~500 URLs, Ahrefs becomes especially attractive because its free Site Audit allowance is currently 5,000 crawl credits/month, whereas Screaming Frog's free crawler is limited to 500 URLs. ahrefs.com

Google Search Console
Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Google PageSpeed Insights

I wouldn't pay for Semrush/Ahrefs Pro/Sitebulb for a single audit unless your store is large or you specifically need competitor/backlink/keyword research. For a one-off technical audit, the free stack is enough to uncover the majority of issues worth fixing.

If you tell me what ecommerce platform you're on (Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, etc.) and roughly how many products/URLs you have, I can give you a lean audit workflow tailored to it.

For a one-off technical SEO audit on a tight budget, I wouldn’t buy a full $100+/month SEO suite. You can get a very solid audit for $0, or spend ~$30 for a little extra analysis.

My budget stack

1. Start with Google Search Console.
This is your source of truth for what Google actually knows about your store: indexed pages, excluded pages, sitemap status, crawl/indexing problems, and search performance. I’d inspect Page indexing, Sitemaps, Core Web Vitals, and a sample of important URLs.

2. Run Ahrefs Free.
This is probably the best free all-in-one crawler for your situation. Its free account can crawl up to 5,000 crawl credits per verified project/month and checks 170+ technical/on-page issues, including indexability, redirects, duplicate content, links, images, JavaScript, robots.txt, sitemaps and structured data. ahrefs.com

Ahrefs Free / Site Audit

3. Run a second crawl with Screaming Frog.
The free version handles up to 500 URLs per crawl, which is plenty for a small store. www.screamingfrog.co.uk Having two crawlers is useful because they surface different problems and gives you confidence that an issue isn't just a crawler quirk.

Screaming Frog SEO Spider

4. Check PageSpeed Insights on your money pages.
Don't test every URL. Test representative product, category/collection, homepage, and informational pages, especially on mobile. PSI combines real-user Chrome data with Lighthouse diagnostics and reports Core Web Vitals such as LCP, CLS and INP. developers.google.com

Google PageSpeed Insights

What I'd actually audit

For ecommerce, prioritize these rather than obsessing over an overall "SEO score":

1. Indexation
   • Are important category/product pages indexed?
   • Are thousands of filter/parameter URLs getting crawled?
   • Are valuable pages accidentally noindexed?
   • Is the XML sitemap clean?

2. Canonicalization
   • Product variants
   • URL parameters
   • Duplicate category paths
   • Trailing slash/case variations
   • HTTP → HTTPS and www/non-www

3. Crawling & internal links
   • 404s
   • 3xx chains
   • Orphan products
   • Products buried too many clicks deep
   • Internal links pointing to redirected URLs

4. Product/category SEO
   • Unique title tags
   • Unique H1s
   • Duplicate/thin category pages
   • Product pages that are missing useful indexable content
   • Proper canonical URLs

5. Structured data
   • Product
   • Offer/price
   • Availability
   • Review/rating markup where legitimately applicable
   • Breadcrumbs

6. Performance
   • Huge product images
   • Slow mobile pages
   • Excessive third-party scripts/apps
   • Core Web Vitals

7. Robots.txt + sitemap
   • Make sure you're blocking genuine crawl waste rather than accidentally blocking valuable pages.

If you can spend ~$30

For a one-off audit, I'd consider paying for one month of Ahrefs Starter rather than subscribing to an expensive SEO platform. Ahrefs currently lists Starter at $29/month, while the free tier already gives verified sites 5,000 Site Audit crawl credits. help.ahrefs.com

But honestly, I'd start free. For a small ecommerce store, Search Console + Ahrefs Free + Screaming Frog + PageSpeed Insights can uncover the majority of technical problems worth fixing.

If you tell me roughly how many URLs/products your store has and whether you're on Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, etc., I can give you a specific one-off audit workflow (including exactly what reports to export and what to check first).

For a one-off technical SEO audit on a tight budget, I’d avoid paying for a big all-in-one suite. You can get most of what matters with a handful of free tools.

My $0-ish toolkit

Ahrefs is particularly useful right now: its free account gives verified site owners 5,000 crawl credits/month and checks 170+ technical/on-page issues. help.ahrefs.com

The audit I'd actually do

For an ecommerce store, I'd prioritize these in order:

1. Indexability
   • Are important category/product pages indexed?
   • noindex, robots.txt and canonical problems
   • XML sitemap
   • Accidentally indexed filters/search/parameter URLs

2. Crawl & internal linking
   • 404s and broken links
   • Redirect chains
   • Orphan products/categories
   • Important pages buried too many clicks deep

3. Duplicate/near-duplicate URLs
   • Product variants
   • Faceted navigation
   • Sort/filter URLs
   • Trailing-slash/HTTP/HTTPS variations
   • Duplicate titles/descriptions

4. Ecommerce on-page SEO
   • Missing/duplicate title tags
   • Missing H1s
   • Weak category-page copy
   • Product pages with very little unique content
   • Image alt text
   • Product structured data

5. Performance
   • Check your homepage, a major category page, and 3–5 representative product pages in PageSpeed Insights.
   • Pay particular attention to mobile Core Web Vitals, rather than obsessing over the overall PageSpeed score.

6. Search Console reality check
   • Look at pages receiving impressions but few clicks.
   • Check indexing/excluded pages.
   • Look for sudden drops in clicks/impressions.
   • Compare your sitemap's URLs with Google's indexed URLs.

One important ecommerce caveat

Don't blindly "fix" every warning a crawler gives you. Ecommerce sites naturally generate lots of URLs through filters, variants, pagination, etc. The key question is:

Which URLs should Google crawl and index, and which should it ignore?

That's much more valuable than getting an SEO audit tool's health score from 72 → 95.

If you can spend ~$20–50

For a one-off audit, I'd actually spend the money on a month of a good crawler/SEO platform rather than maintaining a subscription indefinitely. But if your store is under ~5,000 crawlable pages, I'd first try the free Ahrefs + Search Console + Screaming Frog combination.

If you tell me what platform your store uses (Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, etc.) and roughly how many products/URLs you have, I can give you a very specific one-day, step-by-step audit checklist and tell you exactly which reports to pull.

For a one-off technical SEO audit on a tight budget, I’d avoid expensive all-in-one SEO suites. You can get a very solid audit with a small stack:

My recommended workflow

1. Start with Search Console
   • Indexing → pages excluded/errors
   • Sitemaps
   • Core Web Vitals
   • Manual actions/security
   • Search queries and pages losing impressions

2. Crawl the entire store with Screaming Frog

Check:

• 4xx/5xx pages
• redirect chains
• duplicate or missing title tags/meta descriptions
• canonical tags
• indexability
• orphan-like pages
• pagination/faceted navigation
• XML sitemap URLs
• internal linking
• excessive URL parameters

3. Run PageSpeed Insights on representative pages

Test at least:

• homepage
• category/collection page
• product page
• highest-value landing page

Don't obsess over getting a perfect score; prioritize actual Core Web Vitals problems.

4. Validate ecommerce structured data

Product pages are particularly important. Check Product, Offer, Review/AggregateRating where applicable, plus breadcrumbs.

5. Use Ahrefs Webmaster Tools as a second opinion

It can surface issues your manual crawl may miss and gives you useful backlink information without paying for a full Ahrefs subscription.

If you only want three tools

I'd use Google Search Console + Screaming Frog + PageSpeed Insights.

That combination is enough to identify most of the high-impact technical SEO problems on a small ecommerce site without committing to a monthly SEO platform.

If you tell me what platform you use (Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, custom, etc.) and roughly how many URLs/products you have, I can also give you a $0–$100 audit checklist specifically for that setup.

For a one-off technical SEO audit on a tight budget, you can get surprisingly far with free tools. I’d use this stack:

1. Google Search Console — free, essential. Check indexing, crawl issues, Core Web Vitals, sitemap status, and which pages Google actually indexes.
2. Screaming Frog SEO Spider — probably the best value for the audit itself. The free version crawls up to 500 URLs, which is enough for many small stores. Look for broken links, redirects, duplicate titles, canonicals, missing metadata, orphan-like pages, and indexability issues.
3. Google PageSpeed Insights — free. Test your homepage plus important product/category templates for Core Web Vitals and performance problems.
4. Google Rich Results Test — free. Check product, breadcrumb, organization, and other structured data.
5. Google's robots.txt Tester / Search documentation — useful for checking whether crawling is accidentally blocked.
6. Ahrefs Webmaster Tools — free for verified sites and useful for an additional crawl plus backlink/SEO diagnostics.

If I had $0–50 to spend

I'd spend $0 initially and do:

Search Console → Screaming Frog → PageSpeed Insights → Rich Results Test → Ahrefs Webmaster Tools

Then consolidate the findings into a spreadsheet with columns for:

One important ecommerce caveat: don't just crawl the site and fix everything Screaming Frog flags. Ecommerce sites legitimately have lots of parameters, filters, duplicate product URLs, pagination, out-of-stock products, variants, and faceted navigation. The audit should distinguish intentional architecture from actual SEO problems.

If you tell me what platform you use (Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, custom, etc.) and roughly how many products/URLs you have, I can give you a step-by-step $0 audit checklist tailored to it.

For a one-off technical SEO audit on a tight budget, you can get surprisingly far with free tools plus one inexpensive crawler.

My budget stack

Screaming Frog is probably the one I'd pay attention to most for a one-off audit. Its free crawler is often enough for a small store.

What I'd actually do

1. Start with Search Console.
Look at:

• Pages indexed vs. excluded
• Pages marked “Crawled — currently not indexed”
• 404/5xx errors
• Sitemap status
• Core Web Vitals
• Mobile usability, if reported
• Manual actions/security issues

2. Crawl the whole store with Screaming Frog.

Check:

• 4xx and 5xx pages
• Redirect chains/loops
• Canonical tags
• noindex directives
• Duplicate titles/descriptions
• Duplicate or near-duplicate URLs
• Orphaned pages
• Pagination/faceted-navigation URLs
• Internal linking
• XML sitemap URLs
• Robots.txt restrictions

For ecommerce, faceted navigation and duplicate product/category URLs deserve particular attention—they can create thousands of crawlable URLs from a relatively small catalog.

3. Run your important templates through PageSpeed Insights.

Don't just test the homepage. Test representative:

• Homepage
• Category/collection page
• Product page
• Cart or other important transactional page

Pay particular attention to LCP, INP, and CLS, rather than treating the overall performance score as the goal.

4. Check structured data.

For product pages, verify that your structured data is being detected correctly and that important properties such as price, availability, product name, images, and reviews are represented appropriately.

5. Compare your sitemap and crawl.

Your XML sitemap shouldn't simply contain every URL your platform happens to generate. Ideally, it should primarily expose canonical, indexable URLs that you actually want in search.

If you can spend ~$50–100

I wouldn't buy five SEO subscriptions. For a one-off audit, I'd spend the money on one month of a more capable crawler/SEO platform, if your store is too large for Screaming Frog's free 500-URL limit, and then cancel it.

The free stack above is enough to uncover many of the technical problems that actually matter for a small ecommerce site.

If you tell me what platform your store runs on (Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, custom, etc.) and roughly how many products/URLs you have, I can give you a specific $0–$100 audit workflow and checklist.

If you're doing a one-off technical SEO audit rather than ongoing SEO, you can get excellent results without paying for an expensive monthly subscription. I'd prioritize a combination of free tools plus a few low-cost options.

Here's a budget-friendly stack:

If your site has more than 500 pages, consider buying one month of Screaming Frog (it's inexpensive compared with enterprise SEO suites) and cancel afterward.

If you have around $50–100

I'd add one of these:

• Ahrefs Webmaster Tools — free for verified sites, excellent technical issue reporting.
• SE Ranking — affordable one-month subscription with site audits and rank tracking.
• Mangools — good if you also want keyword research.

If you have around $150

One month of:

• Semrush
• Ahrefs

Download everything you need during the month, then cancel. For a one-time audit, this is often more cost-effective than maintaining a subscription.

What I'd check for an ecommerce site

Technical:

• Crawl errors (404s, 5xx)
• Redirect chains and loops
• Canonical tags
• Duplicate product pages
• Noindex pages
• Robots.txt issues
• XML sitemap quality
• HTTPS issues
• Pagination
• Faceted navigation causing duplicate URLs

Performance:

• Core Web Vitals
• Image optimization
• JavaScript rendering
• Lazy loading
• Caching
• Compression

On-page:

• Duplicate title tags
• Missing meta descriptions
• Thin category pages
• Missing H1s
• Internal linking
• Orphan pages
• Breadcrumbs

Structured data:

• Product schema
• Review schema
• Organization schema
• Breadcrumb schema
• Availability
• Price
• GTIN/SKU

Ecommerce-specific:

• Out-of-stock product handling
• Variant URLs
• Filtered URLs being indexed
• Canonicalization of product variants
• Internal search pages
• Category depth
• Broken product images

Lowest-cost setup (my recommendation)

For most small ecommerce stores, I'd use:

• Free: Google Search Console
• Free: PageSpeed Insights
• Free: Google Rich Results Test
• Free (or paid if needed): Screaming Frog SEO Spider
• Free: Ahrefs Webmaster Tools

That combination covers the vast majority of technical SEO issues without requiring an expensive recurring subscription.

If your store runs on Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento, or another platform, I can also provide a platform-specific technical SEO checklist, since each has its own common pitfalls.

If your goal is a one-off technical SEO audit rather than an ongoing subscription, you can get surprisingly good coverage for under $50–100, and in some cases for free.

Here's a cost-effective stack:

If your store has fewer than 500 pages

You can do almost everything with the free version of Screaming Frog.

Check for:

• 404 pages
• Redirect chains
• Missing title tags
• Duplicate titles
• Missing meta descriptions
• Thin pages
• Canonical issues
• Images without alt text
• Oversized images
• Orphan pages (if you connect Analytics/Search Console)
• Pagination problems

For Shopify, WooCommerce, or similar stores

Pay special attention to:

• Duplicate category and filter URLs
• Product variants generating duplicate pages
• Canonical tags
• Faceted navigation
• XML sitemap quality
• Internal linking to important collections
• Noindex directives
• Crawl depth (important products shouldn't be 6+ clicks away)

Performance

Run your:

• Homepage
• Top collection/category page
• Top-selling product page
• Cart page

through PageSpeed Insights.

Look for:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
• JavaScript blocking rendering
• Large images
• Unused CSS/JS

Search Console

This is often where the highest-impact issues appear.

Review:

• Indexing report
• Pages excluded from indexing
• Core Web Vitals
• Crawl stats
• Manual actions
• Search queries losing impressions
• Sitemap status

If you have $20–50 to spend

A one-month subscription to one of these can uncover issues that free tools may miss:

• SE Ranking
• Sitechecker
• Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (free for verified sites with useful technical reports)

If you have around $200

One month of Ahrefs or Semrush can be worthwhile if you also want backlink analysis, keyword research, competitor insights, and a more comprehensive site audit. You can complete the audit and export reports before canceling.

Best value overall

For most small ecommerce stores, I'd recommend this combination:

1. Free: Google Search Console
2. Free: Google PageSpeed Insights
3. Free: Schema Markup Validator
4. Free (or paid if needed): Screaming Frog SEO Spider
5. Free: Ahrefs Webmaster Tools

That setup is enough to identify the vast majority of technical SEO issues affecting a typical ecommerce site without committing to an expensive recurring subscription.

If your goal is a one-off technical SEO audit rather than an ongoing subscription, you can get surprisingly comprehensive results for well under $100—and in some cases for free.

Here's a cost-effective stack:

If your site has fewer than 500 pages

You probably don't need to spend anything.

Use:

• Google Search Console
• Screaming Frog (free)
• PageSpeed Insights
• Ahrefs Webmaster Tools

That combination catches the vast majority of technical issues:

• broken links
• redirect chains
• duplicate titles/descriptions
• missing canonicals
• orphan pages (partially)
• robots.txt problems
• XML sitemap issues
• indexability
• Core Web Vitals
• image optimization
• structured data errors

If your store has 500–5,000 pages

I'd spend money on one month only of a premium crawler.

Good options:

• Sitebulb — excellent visual explanations and reports.
• SE Ranking — affordable monthly plans with technical audits.
• Semrush — powerful if you can complete everything within a single billing cycle.

If I only had $50

I'd do:

• Free: Google Search Console
• Free: PageSpeed Insights
• Free: Ahrefs Webmaster Tools
• Free: Rich Results Test
• One month of Sitebulb (or another crawler with a monthly option)

That's enough to produce a professional-quality audit.

What to check for an ecommerce store

Prioritize these issues because they tend to have the biggest impact:

1. Crawlability
   • robots.txt
   • XML sitemap
   • orphan pages
   • crawl depth

2. Indexation
   • pages accidentally marked noindex
   • canonical mistakes
   • duplicate category/product pages
   • faceted navigation creating duplicate URLs

3. Site architecture
   • click depth
   • internal linking
   • breadcrumb structure

4. Performance
   • Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
   • Interaction to Next Paint (INP)
   • Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
   • oversized images
   • unused JavaScript

5. Product pages
   • missing structured data
   • missing alt text
   • duplicate descriptions
   • broken images

6. Technical issues
   • 404s
   • redirect chains
   • mixed content
   • HTTPS problems
   • broken canonicals

Best value overall

If you're only doing this once, I'd rank the tools by value like this:

1. Google Search Console (free)
2. Screaming Frog (free for up to 500 URLs)
3. Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (free)
4. Google PageSpeed Insights (free)
5. Sitebulb (one-month subscription if your site is larger)

That combination covers nearly everything an SEO consultant would review in a technical audit without requiring an expensive annual subscription.

If you only need a one-off technical SEO audit rather than an ongoing subscription, you can get surprisingly far for under $100, and even for free if you're willing to spend a bit more time.

Here's a practical stack.

If your site has fewer than 500 pages

You may not need to spend anything.

Run:

• Screaming Frog crawl
• Google Search Console review
• PageSpeed Insights on:
  • homepage
  • category pages
  • top product pages
  • checkout/cart (if public)
• Rich Results Test

That will uncover most technical issues.

If your store is larger (500–10,000 pages)

A one-month subscription is often worthwhile.

Good options:

• Sitebulb (excellent visual reports)
• Ahrefs (one month if you also want keyword and backlink data)
• Semrush (one month for a broad SEO toolkit)

Cancel after exporting the reports.

What to check during the audit

For ecommerce, prioritize:

• Crawlability
  • broken links (404s)
  • redirect chains
  • orphan pages
  • crawl depth
• Indexing
  • pages accidentally blocked
  • duplicate product pages
  • duplicate category pages
  • canonical tags
  • noindex mistakes
• Metadata
  • duplicate title tags
  • missing meta descriptions
  • multiple H1s
  • missing image alt text
• Performance
  • Core Web Vitals
  • oversized images
  • render-blocking JavaScript
• Structured data
  • Product schema
  • Review schema
  • Breadcrumb schema
• Internal linking
  • weak product linking
  • category hierarchy
  • pagination
• XML sitemap
  • only indexable URLs included
  • submitted in Search Console
• HTTPS
  • mixed content
  • HTTP redirects correctly to HTTPS

Best value if you have around $50

I'd use:

• Free: Google Search Console
• Free: PageSpeed Insights
• Free: Rich Results Test
• Paid: Screaming Frog license (one year, relatively inexpensive if you'll use it again)

Screaming Frog is widely regarded as one of the best technical SEO crawlers and is often the only paid tool many consultants use for audits.

If you have around $100

For a single audit, I'd recommend:

1. Screaming Frog
2. Ahrefs (one month) or Sitebulb (one month)
3. Google Search Console
4. PageSpeed Insights

That combination covers nearly everything you'd expect in a professional technical audit without committing to expensive long-term subscriptions.

If you only need a one-off technical SEO audit rather than an ongoing subscription, you can get excellent coverage for well under $100, and in some cases completely free.

Here's a practical stack that gives the best value.

If your store has fewer than 500 pages

You can probably complete the audit entirely for free using:

• Google Search Console
• Screaming Frog (free version)
• PageSpeed Insights
• Ahrefs Webmaster Tools
• Rich Results Test

That combination catches most important technical issues.

If your store has more than 500 pages

Spend money only on Screaming Frog.

A license is relatively inexpensive compared to enterprise SEO tools and lets you crawl your whole site. It can identify:

• broken links (404s)
• redirect chains
• duplicate titles
• duplicate meta descriptions
• thin pages
• orphan URLs (when connected to Search Console)
• missing canonicals
• canonical conflicts
• indexability problems
• oversized images
• missing alt text
• JavaScript rendering issues
• XML sitemap problems

For a one-off audit, it's one of the highest-value purchases.

Optional one-month subscriptions

If you're willing to spend around $100–150 for one month, these can add deeper insights:

• Ahrefs — backlinks, keyword opportunities, content gap analysis.
• Semrush — comprehensive site audits, keyword tracking, and competitor research.

If you only need a single audit, cancel after exporting all reports.

For Shopify stores

Add these checks:

• Duplicate collection URLs
• Product variants creating duplicate content
• Canonical tags
• Pagination
• Faceted navigation
• XML sitemap coverage
• Robots.txt customization
• Product structured data
• Collection structured data
• Image optimization

A practical workflow (about 2–3 hours)

1. Review indexing, coverage, and performance in Google Search Console.
2. Crawl the entire site with Screaming Frog.
3. Run PageSpeed Insights on:
   • Homepage
   • Top collection page
   • Top product page
   • Cart page
4. Check structured data with the Rich Results Test.
5. Review Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for technical issues and backlinks.
6. Create a prioritized action list:
   • High priority: indexing problems, crawl errors, canonical issues, broken links, noindex mistakes.
   • Medium priority: duplicate metadata, missing alt text, redirect chains.
   • Low priority: title length, meta description improvements, image compression.

For a small ecommerce store, this approach covers the majority of technical SEO issues without requiring an expensive enterprise subscription. If your budget is around $50 or less, I'd recommend prioritizing the free tools plus a temporary Screaming Frog license if your site exceeds the free crawl limit.