How Ghost Revenue audits a Shopify store

What gets reviewed

• The home page, a collection, a product page, the cart, and the header, footer and policies.
• Google's phone speed test.
• Your Shopify sales data (sessions, orders, conversion), when there's enough of it.

How each page is reviewed

1. First impression, on a phone first, then desktop. Can a first-time visitor tell what this is, why they should care, and what to do next?
2. The page, top to bottom. Every section in order, the job it does in the buying journey, and a verdict: works, weak or hurts.
3. Buying questions. For each question a first-time buyer is likely to ask on this page: answered, partly or not answered, where, and the exact words. Closed tabs count.
4. Best practices. Every check on the page's list gets a result, with the evidence it rests on.
5. Issues. Each failed check that costs sales, plus at most two problems no check covers, written for your brand.
6. What's working, so you know what not to change.
7. Recommended structure. The page from top to bottom as it should be, built from your own sections and proof.

Eight lenses

Copy

Does the wording say something specific and true about the brand, in its voice, when the shopper needs it?

Structure

The order of sections, what's hidden in closed tabs, and what repeats.

Trust

Proof and reassurance where decisions happen.

Branding

Does it look and sound like this brand, or like a template?

Friction

Extra taps, dropdowns, hidden buttons and waiting.

Bounce

Anything that pulls the visitor away or gives them a reason to leave.

Missed opportunity

Proof the brand already has that the page doesn't use.

Hook

What draws a first-time visitor in and keeps them going.

Six principles behind every fix

The 3 Second Window

A visitor decides to stay or leave in about three seconds. The first screen has to say what you sell, show you're worth the time, and say what to do next.

Build to the Purchase

Buying is a sequence: awareness, education, trust, authority, desire, action. Education, trust and authority have to come before the product and the price.

Justify the Premium Before the Price

On price alone, a premium product loses to a cheaper one. Show why it's worth it before the shopper sees the price.

Friction Points Kill Conversion

Anything that makes a visitor pause, think or work is a chance to leave: a long form, a confusing option picker, a broken link.

Decision Fatigue Is Real

Every decision uses up attention. Remove the ones that aren't about buying.

Cold Traffic Has No Trust

Returning customers already trust you. Visitors from ads need that same confidence from education, proof and a site that looks the part.

Rules every finding follows

1. Evidence on everything. Each statement about your store rests on something captured: a screenshot, a measured page fact, your admin, your theme, Google's speed test or the page text.
2. No unsupported claims. No statistics, industry averages or "most shoppers" claims unless your own data holds the figure. Instead, the finding explains what the shopper is doing at that moment and what the gap makes them do.
3. Quotes are verbatim. Anything in quotation marks is your store's exact words.
4. Absence is verified. Before a finding says something is missing, the screenshots, page text and measured page facts are checked.
5. Suggested copy uses only your facts. Anything your store hasn't stated goes in brackets, like [your return window], and offers are copied with their conditions word for word.
6. Inferences are labeled. "A first-time buyer is likely to ask…" is marked as an inference, never stated as fact.
7. Judgment calls give the reason. Where good practice depends on the store, like a preselected subscription or a popup on arrival, the call is made for your store with the reason, never as a rule for every store.

How fixes are ranked

Plan ranks open fixes by what the latest audit confirmed on your store, then severity, then estimated impact, then effort. Start here is the top-ranked quick win: the fix to do first.

Severity

• Critical blocks or badly damages conversion for many visitors.
• High meaningfully holds back conversion for a large share of visitors.
• Medium costs some conversions, or affects a narrower group.
• Low is polish that adds up but won't move the number alone.

Effort

• A quick win takes under an hour for a non-technical owner.
• Medium takes a few hours.
• Large is a real project.

How results are checked

• Mark a fix done and Ghost Revenue re-checks your live store. A passed re-check reads "Verified fixed". If it can't check yet, it says so.
• Product descriptions and policies you approve show as "Applied by Ghost Revenue".
• Shipped keeps every fix and what Shopify's numbers say about it.

Where the numbers come from

• Sales, orders, sessions and conversion come from Shopify's own analytics for your store.
• Speed comes from Google's phone test. That's a lab test, not what your shoppers experience. When Google has it, field data from real Chrome visitors at the 75th percentile is shown too.
• Estimates are built from your store's own sessions, conversion and order value, and always marked "est."