We use this list before we launch the first ad for an online store. Each point is a yes-or-no question. Where the answer is no, the ad will almost certainly not pay for itself.
Store optimization often starts with a new design. That's rarely the right first step. A shopper who arrives from Google on a product page doesn't look at colours. They check whether the item is in stock, what delivery costs, whether they can pay the way they're used to, and whether the page works on their phone. The list has seven parts, ordered from the ones that affect sales most to the ones you set up once and then only check.
In short
Tracking comes first because every other change stays guesswork without it. When you change the checkout, you want to see whether more people completed a purchase. Without correctly set up events, you won't know.
For stores with high order volumes, server-side tracking is worth the effort. Some of the data the browser doesn't send, because of declined cookies or blockers, still reaches your analytics and ad platforms.
Google tracks three page experience metrics. For each, it publishes a threshold at which a page counts as good, measured at the 75th percentile of visits.
Check them in Google Search Console or in PageSpeed Insights, and be careful about what you measure. The homepage is often the fastest page in a store, because everyone optimizes it. Shoppers from ads and search land on categories and products.
On WooCommerce, the same three culprits usually take most of the time: images that aren't resized for phones, too many plugins loading their scripts on every page, and sliders at the top of the page that push the main content down. On Shopify, a common cause is apps the shop once tried and never removed. Uninstalling an app doesn't always remove the code it added to the theme, so check the theme files too.
The homepage, your two most visited categories and your two best-selling products. On a phone.
Modern formats (WebP or AVIF), the right size for the screen and lazy loading for images below the first screen.
For each, ask what would happen if you switched it off. If the answer is "I don't know", switch it off on a staging copy and check.
Images, banners and the cookie banner need fixed dimensions, so content doesn't jump while the page loads.
Most ecommerce searches aren't for an exact model but for a category: "women's hiking boots", "isofix child car seat". Those searches land on a category page, so for SEO it's often more important than any single product.
The fastest SEO gain in a store with a few hundred products is often the text on the ten most important categories. That's a day's work, not a six-month project. How we approach it more broadly is described on our SEO page.
A product page has to answer the questions the shopper would otherwise ask by phone. If it doesn't, they leave to compare elsewhere, often through Google, where your competitors are waiting.
| Shopper's question | Where the answer belongs |
|---|---|
| What does delivery cost? | On the product page, before the shopper reaches checkout. If delivery is free above an amount, state the threshold. |
| When will it arrive? | Next to the buy button: delivery time for items in stock, and separately for items on order. For cross-border sales, per country. |
| Will it fit? | Size chart, measurements in centimetres, a photo of the product in use. |
| What if it's wrong? | A short returns summary next to the button and a link to the full terms. |
| Is this shop reliable? | Genuine customer reviews, company details in the footer, a contact that actually replies. |
Reviews must be genuine. Under EU rules you also have to say whether and how you check that reviews come from real buyers.
The checkout is where a store loses a shopper who has already decided. Every extra field and every unexpected cost is a chance to change their mind.
Payment methods matter more in Europe than most shop owners expect, because each market has its own habit. A card-only checkout loses Dutch or Polish shoppers before they reach the last step.
| Market | Methods shoppers commonly expect besides cards |
|---|---|
| Germany, Austria | PayPal, buy now and pay by invoice (Klarna or similar), bank transfer |
| Switzerland | TWINT, invoice, PayPal |
| Netherlands | iDEAL |
| Belgium | Bancontact |
| Poland | BLIK, fast bank transfers |
| Sweden | Swish, Klarna |
| Slovenia | PayPal, cash on delivery, instalments |
A starting point, not market research. Check your payment provider's data for the countries you sell to.
Then place a test order on your phone, on mobile data rather than office Wi-Fi. Time it from "Add to cart" to the confirmation. Most store owners haven't done this since launch and are surprised how many steps have crept in.
EU consumer law sets out what an online store must tell shoppers before they buy. Each country transposes the directives into its own law, so details vary, but the core is the same. Google Merchant Center also rejects stores that lack this information, on grounds of misrepresentation, so the rules affect your ads as well.
The list covers common obligations, not all of them. Accessibility rules under the European Accessibility Act apply to consumer e-commerce from 28 June 2025, with an exemption for microenterprises. Once your cross-border B2C sales in the EU pass €10,000 a year, you charge the customer's local VAT and can report it through the One-Stop Shop. Special products (food supplements, cosmetics, alcohol, children's products) have extra rules. Check with a lawyer or tax adviser in your country.
Once the sections above are in order, the store is ready for advertising. This is the order we recommend:
The first ads should go to products that already sell and that you have enough of. An ad for a product with a 10% margin doesn't pay off in most sectors. The arithmetic is in our article on PPC advertising.
Titles, images, GTINs, categories. Without them Google Shopping doesn't work, and neither does a Meta catalogue.
The goal is the return your margin can carry, not the number of clicks.
How many ad visitors reach the cart and how many buy. A big drop-off at checkout is a job for the store, not for the ads.
Shopping ads are the best first channel for most stores, but Google doesn't run them in every country, so check its list of supported countries before you plan a campaign for a smaller market. What the page itself needs to turn ad clicks into orders is covered in our guide to the Google Ads landing page, and how we run campaigns is on our Google Ads page.
For a smaller shop that wants to start quickly and has no developer, Shopify is simpler. For a shop that relies on content, has unusual delivery rules or needs ERP integrations, and has someone to maintain it, WooCommerce is more flexible. Compare total cost over three years, not monthly subscriptions.
Google describes a good experience as LCP up to 2.5 seconds, INP up to 200 milliseconds and CLS up to 0.1, measured at the 75th percentile of visits. Test category and product pages on a phone; the homepage alone tells you little.
Yes, if you use analytics or advertising cookies. EU rules require consent before those are set. For Google Ads in the EEA you also need Consent Mode v2.
It applies to e-commerce services aimed at consumers from 28 June 2025. Microenterprises, meaning fewer than 10 employees and annual turnover or balance sheet total of no more than €2 million, are exempt from the service requirements. Check how your country transposed it, because national details differ, and remember that an accessible checkout also sells better to everyone.
Tracking and checkout first, because both channels depend on them. Then ads for products that already sell, and SEO for category pages in parallel.
Once your cross-border B2C sales to other EU countries exceed €10,000 a year in total. Above that, you charge each customer's local VAT rate and can declare it through the One-Stop Shop (OSS) in your home country.
We review landing pages, speed and the path to enquiry.