{"id":4761,"date":"2025-02-19T11:12:38","date_gmt":"2025-02-19T11:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.adworld.si\/creating-or-optimizing-an-online-store-checklist\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T12:32:41","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T12:32:41","slug":"creating-or-optimizing-an-online-store-checklist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adworld.si\/en\/creating-or-optimizing-an-online-store-checklist\/","title":{"rendered":"Online store optimization checklist: what to fix before you advertise"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"4761\" class=\"elementor elementor-4761 elementor-4441\" data-elementor-post-type=\"post\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-d16b9e5 e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"d16b9e5\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-e-type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-e8ead59 elementor-widget elementor-widget-heading\" data-id=\"e8ead59\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"heading.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<h1 class=\"elementor-heading-title elementor-size-default\">Online store optimization checklist: what to fix before you advertise<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-1bccd88 e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"1bccd88\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-e-type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-2b03c0e elementor-widget elementor-widget-html\" data-id=\"2b03c0e\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"html.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"awb\">\n<div class=\"awb-meta\"><span class=\"pill\">SEO and websites<\/span><span>Updated: 26 October 2026<\/span><span class=\"dot\"><\/span><span>9 min read<\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"lead\">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.<\/p>\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"keybox\"><p class=\"kb-h\">In short<\/p><ul><li>Start with <strong>tracking and checkout<\/strong>, not design. Without tracking you can't tell what you've improved.<\/li><li>Google's thresholds for a good page experience are <strong>LCP up to 2.5 s, INP up to 200 ms and CLS up to 0.1<\/strong>. Measure category and product pages on a phone.<\/li><li>Each EU market has its own expected payment method: iDEAL in the Netherlands, Bancontact in Belgium, BLIK in Poland, invoice and PayPal in Germany.<\/li><li>Since <strong>19 June 2026<\/strong> EU shops selling to consumers need an online withdrawal function in addition to the withdrawal form.<\/li><li>The EU ODR platform closed on 20 July 2025. If your footer still links to it, the link leads nowhere.<\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n<nav class=\"toc\" aria-label=\"Contents\"><p class=\"toc-h\">Contents<\/p><ol><li><a href=\"#awb-tracking-without-it-you-can-t\">Tracking: without it you can&#x27;t tell what you improved<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#awb-page-speed-google-s-three-thresholds\">Page speed: Google&#x27;s three thresholds<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#awb-category-and-product-pages-for-search\">Category and product pages for search<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#awb-a-product-page-that-answers-the\">A product page that answers the questions<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#awb-checkout-and-payment-methods-by-market\">Checkout and payment methods by market<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#awb-eu-rules-every-store-has-to\">EU rules every store has to meet<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#awb-before-you-pay-for-the-first\">Before you pay for the first ad<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#awb-faq\">Frequently asked questions<\/a><\/li><\/ol><\/nav>\n<h2 id=\"awb-tracking-without-it-you-can-t\">Tracking: without it you can't tell what you improved<\/h2>\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n<ul class=\"check\">\n  <li>Google Analytics 4 records the ecommerce events view_item, add_to_cart, begin_checkout and purchase, with value and currency.<\/li>\n  <li>The purchase event fires once per order, not every time someone reloads the thank-you page.<\/li>\n  <li>Purchase value excludes shipping and treats VAT consistently (always with, or always without).<\/li>\n  <li>Consent Mode v2 is set up, because Google has required it for ads in the EEA since March 2024.<\/li>\n  <li>The conversion in Google Ads and Meta is set to purchase, not page view or add to cart.<\/li>\n  <li>If you sell in several currencies, each order is reported in its own currency, so Google can convert it correctly.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n<h2 id=\"awb-page-speed-google-s-three-thresholds\">Page speed: Google's three thresholds<\/h2>\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n<figure>\n  <div class=\"frame\">\n    <div class=\"meter\">\n      <div class=\"meter-row\">\n        <b>LCP \u2013 when the main content appears<\/b>\n        <div class=\"bar\"><i class=\"max\" style=\"width:100%\"><\/i><i class=\"rec\" style=\"width:62%\"><\/i><\/div>\n        <div class=\"scale\"><span>0 s<\/span><span>good up to 2.5 s<\/span><span>4 s or more is poor<\/span><\/div>\n      <\/div>\n      <div class=\"meter-row\">\n        <b>INP \u2013 how fast the page responds to a tap<\/b>\n        <div class=\"bar\"><i class=\"max\" style=\"width:100%\"><\/i><i class=\"rec\" style=\"width:40%\"><\/i><\/div>\n        <div class=\"scale\"><span>0 ms<\/span><span>good up to 200 ms<\/span><span>500 ms or more is poor<\/span><\/div>\n      <\/div>\n      <div class=\"meter-row\">\n        <b>CLS \u2013 how much content shifts while loading<\/b>\n        <div class=\"bar\"><i class=\"max\" style=\"width:100%\"><\/i><i class=\"rec\" style=\"width:40%\"><\/i><\/div>\n        <div class=\"scale\"><span>0<\/span><span>good up to 0.1<\/span><span>0.25 or more is poor<\/span><\/div>\n      <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n  <\/div>\n  <figcaption>Thresholds from Google's documentation on web.dev. The darker part of each bar is the \"good\" range.<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n<ol class=\"steps\">\n  <li><b>Measure five pages<\/b><p>The homepage, your two most visited categories and your two best-selling products. On a phone.<\/p><\/li>\n  <li><b>Fix the images<\/b><p>Modern formats (WebP or AVIF), the right size for the screen and lazy loading for images below the first screen.<\/p><\/li>\n  <li><b>Count plugins or apps<\/b><p>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.<\/p><\/li>\n  <li><b>Reserve space<\/b><p>Images, banners and the cookie banner need fixed dimensions, so content doesn't jump while the page loads.<\/p><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n<h2 id=\"awb-category-and-product-pages-for-search\">Category and product pages for search<\/h2>\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n<ul class=\"check\">\n  <li>Every category has a short text that helps shoppers choose (what to look for, differences between types), not a list of keywords.<\/li>\n  <li>Filters (colour, size, price) don't create thousands of indexed URLs. Google's guide to faceted navigation recommends limiting them with canonical tags or robots.txt.<\/li>\n  <li>The page title and description for Google are written separately for each main category.<\/li>\n  <li>Products carry Product structured data with an Offer (price, availability, currency), so Google can show the price in results.<\/li>\n  <li>A sold-out product stays at its URL, marked \"out of stock\" with similar items suggested, instead of returning a 404 error.<\/li>\n  <li>The product description isn't the manufacturer's copy that ten other shops also use.<\/li>\n  <li>If you sell in several languages, each language has its own URL and hreflang tags, so Google shows the right version in each country.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<div class=\"note\">\n  <span class=\"lbl\">From practice<\/span>\n  <p>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 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.adworld.si\/en\/services\/seo\/\">SEO page<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<h2 id=\"awb-a-product-page-that-answers-the\">A product page that answers the questions<\/h2>\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"tbl-wrap\">\n<table>\n  <thead><tr><th scope=\"col\">Shopper's question<\/th><th scope=\"col\">Where the answer belongs<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>\n  <tbody>\n    <tr><th scope=\"row\">What does delivery cost?<\/th><td>On the product page, before the shopper reaches checkout. If delivery is free above an amount, state the threshold.<\/td><\/tr>\n    <tr><th scope=\"row\">When will it arrive?<\/th><td>Next to the buy button: delivery time for items in stock, and separately for items on order. For cross-border sales, per country.<\/td><\/tr>\n    <tr><th scope=\"row\">Will it fit?<\/th><td>Size chart, measurements in centimetres, a photo of the product in use.<\/td><\/tr>\n    <tr><th scope=\"row\">What if it's wrong?<\/th><td>A short returns summary next to the button and a link to the full terms.<\/td><\/tr>\n    <tr><th scope=\"row\">Is this shop reliable?<\/th><td>Genuine customer reviews, company details in the footer, a contact that actually replies.<\/td><\/tr>\n  <\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"tbl-note\">Reviews must be genuine. Under EU rules you also have to say whether and how you check that reviews come from real buyers.<\/p>\n\n<h2 id=\"awb-checkout-and-payment-methods-by-market\">Checkout and payment methods by market<\/h2>\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n<ul class=\"check\">\n  <li>Guest checkout. Offer an account after the purchase, with one click.<\/li>\n  <li>Delivery costs are known before the last step.<\/li>\n  <li>Only the fields you really need for delivery and the invoice. VAT number only for business buyers.<\/li>\n  <li>Apple Pay or Google Pay on mobile, if your payment provider supports them.<\/li>\n  <li>Form errors are shown next to the field, not as a general message at the top.<\/li>\n  <li>The final button says clearly that the order involves payment. EU consumer rules require wording such as \"order with obligation to pay\"; \"Continue\" isn't enough.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"tbl-wrap\">\n<table>\n  <thead><tr><th scope=\"col\">Market<\/th><th scope=\"col\">Methods shoppers commonly expect besides cards<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>\n  <tbody>\n    <tr><th scope=\"row\">Germany, Austria<\/th><td>PayPal, buy now and pay by invoice (Klarna or similar), bank transfer<\/td><\/tr>\n    <tr><th scope=\"row\">Switzerland<\/th><td>TWINT, invoice, PayPal<\/td><\/tr>\n    <tr><th scope=\"row\">Netherlands<\/th><td>iDEAL<\/td><\/tr>\n    <tr><th scope=\"row\">Belgium<\/th><td>Bancontact<\/td><\/tr>\n    <tr><th scope=\"row\">Poland<\/th><td>BLIK, fast bank transfers<\/td><\/tr>\n    <tr><th scope=\"row\">Sweden<\/th><td>Swish, Klarna<\/td><\/tr>\n    <tr><th scope=\"row\">Slovenia<\/th><td>PayPal, cash on delivery, instalments<\/td><\/tr>\n  <\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"tbl-note\">A starting point, not market research. Check your payment provider's data for the countries you sell to.<\/p>\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n<h2 id=\"awb-eu-rules-every-store-has-to\">EU rules every store has to meet<\/h2>\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n<ul class=\"check\">\n  <li>Company details: legal name, registered address, company and VAT number, an email address and other contact.<\/li>\n  <li>Prices are final, including VAT; delivery costs are stated separately before the order.<\/li>\n  <li>Information about the 14-day right of withdrawal and a model withdrawal form, under the Consumer Rights Directive.<\/li>\n  <li>From 19 June 2026, an online withdrawal function: a clearly labelled button such as \"withdraw from contract here\", a short form, a confirmation step and an acknowledgment sent on a durable medium such as email. Directive (EU) 2023\/2673 introduced it, and an email link alone doesn't meet it.<\/li>\n  <li>Price reductions show the lowest price of the previous 30 days as the reference price, under the Price Indication Directive as amended by the Omnibus Directive.<\/li>\n  <li>The cookie banner sets no analytics or advertising cookies before consent.<\/li>\n  <li>Terms and conditions and the privacy policy are available before the order is placed.<\/li>\n  <li>The old link to the EU online dispute resolution (ODR) platform is removed. The platform closed on 20 July 2025.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<div class=\"note warn\">\n  <span class=\"lbl\">Not legal advice<\/span>\n  <p>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 \u20ac10,000 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<h2 id=\"awb-before-you-pay-for-the-first\">Before you pay for the first ad<\/h2>\n\n<p>Once the sections above are in order, the store is ready for advertising. This is the order we recommend:<\/p>\n\n<ol class=\"steps\">\n  <li><b>Pick products with margin and stock<\/b><p>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 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.adworld.si\/en\/ppc-advertising\/\">PPC advertising<\/a>.<\/p><\/li>\n  <li><b>Clean up the product feed<\/b><p>Titles, images, GTINs, categories. Without them Google Shopping doesn't work, and neither does a Meta catalogue.<\/p><\/li>\n  <li><b>Start with one campaign and a clear goal<\/b><p>The goal is the return your margin can carry, not the number of clicks.<\/p><\/li>\n  <li><b>Check the checkout after four weeks<\/b><p>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.<\/p><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n<p>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 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.adworld.si\/en\/why-is-a-good-website-the-key-to-successful-google-ads\/\">the Google Ads landing page<\/a>, and how we run campaigns is on our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.adworld.si\/en\/google-ads\/\">Google Ads page<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"awb-faq\">Frequently asked questions<\/h2><div class=\"faq\"><details><summary>WooCommerce or Shopify?<span class=\"sign\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/span><\/summary><div class=\"body\"><p>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.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details><summary>How fast does my shop need to be?<span class=\"sign\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/span><\/summary><div class=\"body\"><p>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.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details><summary>Do I need a cookie banner?<span class=\"sign\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/span><\/summary><div class=\"body\"><p>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.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details><summary>Does the European Accessibility Act apply to my shop?<span class=\"sign\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/span><\/summary><div class=\"body\"><p>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 \u20ac2 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.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details><summary>SEO or ads first?<span class=\"sign\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/span><\/summary><div class=\"body\"><p>Tracking and checkout first, because both channels depend on them. Then ads for products that already sell, and SEO for category pages in parallel.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details><summary>When do I have to charge VAT of the customer&#x27;s country?<span class=\"sign\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/span><\/summary><div class=\"body\"><p>Once your cross-border B2C sales to other EU countries exceed \u20ac10,000 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.<\/p><\/div><\/details><\/div>\n<div class=\"cta-box\"><h2>More enquiries from the same visits?<\/h2><p>We review landing pages, speed and the path to enquiry.<\/p><div class=\"btns\"><a class=\"btn\" href=\"https:\/\/www.adworld.si\/en\/contact\/\">Free analysis<\/a><a class=\"btn ghost\" href=\"https:\/\/www.adworld.si\/en\/contact\/\">Contact<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n<h2 class=\"rel-h\" id=\"awb-rel\">Read next<\/h2><ul class=\"related\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.adworld.si\/en\/why-is-a-good-website-the-key-to-successful-google-ads\/\">Google Ads landing page: what it needs to turn a click into an enquiry<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.adworld.si\/en\/google-ads-and-seo-optimization-how-they-work-together-to-deliver-the-best-results\/\">Google Ads and SEO together: where they help each other (and where they don&#x27;t)<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.adworld.si\/en\/ppc-advertising\/\">PPC Advertising: What It Is and When It Pays Off<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n<div class=\"author\"><span class=\"av\" aria-hidden=\"true\">AW<\/span><div><p class=\"name\">Adworld, Kranj<\/p><p>Google Ads, Meta and SEO agency. We run client accounts directly, without handing them to juniors.<\/p><p style=\"font-size:14px;color:#6b7480;\">This article was produced with the help of AI tools. Facts and platform rules were checked against the sources named in the text, as of October 2026.<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\": \"https:\/\/schema.org\", \"@graph\": [{\"@type\": \"BlogPosting\", \"@id\": \"https:\/\/www.adworld.si\/en\/creating-or-optimizing-an-online-store-checklist\/#article\", \"headline\": \"Online store optimization checklist: what to fix before you advertise\", \"description\": \"An online store optimization checklist for EU shops: tracking, page speed, category and product pages, checkout, payment methods and the EU rules for 2026.\", \"inLanguage\": \"en\", \"dateModified\": \"2026-10-26\", \"mainEntityOfPage\": \"https:\/\/www.adworld.si\/en\/creating-or-optimizing-an-online-store-checklist\/\", \"author\": {\"@type\": \"Organization\", \"name\": \"Adworld\", \"url\": \"https:\/\/www.adworld.si\/\"}, \"publisher\": {\"@type\": \"Organization\", \"name\": \"Adworld\", \"url\": \"https:\/\/www.adworld.si\/\"}}, {\"@type\": \"FAQPage\", \"@id\": \"https:\/\/www.adworld.si\/en\/creating-or-optimizing-an-online-store-checklist\/#faq\", \"mainEntity\": [{\"@type\": \"Question\", \"name\": \"WooCommerce or Shopify?\", \"acceptedAnswer\": {\"@type\": \"Answer\", \"text\": \"For a smaller shop that wants to start quickly and has no developer, Shopify is simpler. 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