Audit Checklist for a Roaster Website With Scoring
You roast coffee, you sell it online, and you have never once had anyone tell you plainly what your website is missing versus what it is doing fine. This checklist is built to fix that, without needing to hire anyone or spend anything to run it.
Short answer: a roaster website audit works best across six groups, pages a customer actually needs, place and hours where a cafe location exists, product page basics, structured data, speed and technical fundamentals, and proof of trust. Each item below gets one or two points, checkable by view page, view source, or a free tool. Add up your score, read the band it falls into, and start with the three fixes that matter most. This is Hillcane's own scoring tool, built from Google's documented guidance and hands on testing, and it is a separate scale from the nationwide cafe census this post also cites for context. Do not compare a score from this checklist against a census /40 number. They measure different things.
By the end, you should have a scored picture of your own roaster site and a clear, ordered list of what to fix first.
Group One: Pages
A customer landing on your site needs to find a handful of things fast, and this group checks whether they can. Does your site have a clear homepage that states plainly what you sell and where. Score two for yes, zero for no. Does a dedicated about or story page exist, describing who roasts your coffee and why. Does a contact page exist with a real way to reach you, not just a form that vanishes into nothing.
If you have a physical cafe alongside your roasting operation, does that location have its own clear page, distinct from your online shop pages. Does your site have any blog or content section at all, even a small one. Among the roasters in Hillcane's nationwide census, filtered for the word roast in their business description, checked September 21, 2026, 714 of 882 had a blog post count of zero, a pattern worth noting as context for how common this gap is, not as a judgment of any single site.
Score each item zero, one or two, and total the group. A site scoring high here gives a new visitor everything they need to understand what you sell and trust that a real business is behind it, within the first page or two they look at.
This group deliberately avoids anything requiring a tool. Every item here is checkable just by browsing your own site the way a new customer would.
It is worth clicking through your own site on a phone as part of this group, not just on a desktop screen. A roaster site built and checked only on a laptop can hide navigation problems that only show up on a smaller screen, where a menu that seemed obvious on a wide monitor turns into something a visitor has to hunt for.
Group Two: Place and Hours
If your roaster has any physical presence, a cafe, a pickup location, a retail counter, this group matters. Does your site state your physical address in plain, readable text, not only inside an image. Does it state current hours, checked against what is actually posted at your location right now. Is your phone number listed as plain text, not only inside a contact form.
Does your website's stated address and hours match what is listed on your Google Business Profile. A mismatch between the two is a common, fixable gap, and it is worth checking directly rather than assuming the two already agree.
If you have no physical location at all and operate purely online, this group scores based on shipping and fulfillment information instead: does your site clearly state where you ship, roughly how long fulfillment takes, and how a customer can reach you with an order question.
Score each item zero, one or two. This group tends to be quick, since most of it is confirming information you already know is true is reflected correctly on the page itself.
A mismatch between your website and your Google Business Profile is worth catching here specifically because it is invisible to you as the owner until you compare the two side by side. You know your real hours. A visitor comparing your site against your profile does not, and a disagreement between the two erodes trust in whichever one they happen to check first.
Group Three: Product Pages
Does each product page state the coffee's origin or region, not just a marketing name for the blend. Does it state roast level in plain language. Does it include a real price, clearly displayed, not hidden behind an add to cart click. Does the product image show the product being sold, not just a generic stock photo of coffee beans.
Does the page include enough description for a customer unfamiliar with your specific coffee to understand what they are buying, flavor notes, process, something beyond a name alone. Does checkout work cleanly, meaning you have tested adding an item to cart and completing a test purchase recently.
Score each item zero, one or two. A roaster selling coffee online lives or dies somewhat on whether a stranger, landing on a single product page with no other context, can understand enough to decide to buy. This group checks exactly that.
None of these items require a tool. They require you to look at your own product pages the way someone who has never tasted your coffee would.
A useful exercise here is to hand a single product page to someone who has genuinely never bought from you, a friend, a family member, and ask them to describe back to you what they think they would be buying and for how much. If their answer is missing or wrong on any basic point, origin, roast, price, that product page has a real gap this checklist is built to catch.
Group Four: Schema
Does your site have any structured data markup at all, checkable with the free Rich Results Test. Score zero if none is found. Does it declare a correct business or product type, following the guidance on schema.org's own type pages, accessed September 21, 2026. Among census roasters checked September 21, 2026, structured data was fully present on only 245 of 882 sites, partial on 320 and absent on 292, a pattern that shows this gap is genuinely common, not unusual.
Does your product pages include structured data specific to the product itself, price, availability, and a name matching what is visually on the page. Does your location or contact page, if you have one, include LocalBusiness structured data with your address and hours correctly formatted.
Score each item zero, one or two. Google's own introduction to structured data, accessed September 21, 2026, explains this markup exists to help machines read information a human visitor can already see, not as a guaranteed ranking lever, and this post is not claiming a higher schema score here predicts better rankings.
Ten minutes with a free testing tool will tell you exactly where your site currently stands on this entire group, more precisely than guessing from how the page looks.
If your product pages were generated automatically by your ecommerce platform's own template system, it is worth checking specifically whether that automatic generation included complete structured data or only a partial version of it. Platform defaults vary, and assuming a template handled this correctly without testing it is exactly the kind of assumption this checklist exists to replace with a real answer.
Group Five: Speed and Technical Basics
Run your homepage through a free speed testing tool such as PageSpeed Insights and note the result honestly. Does the page load in a reasonable time on a mobile connection, not just on your own office wifi. A photo heavy roaster site, showcasing beautiful product and packaging shots, is especially prone to slow load times if those images were never compressed before upload.
Does your site use a secure connection, indicated by the padlock in a browser's address bar. Does the site display correctly on a phone screen, with buttons and text large enough to use without zooming in. Do your product images have any compression applied, or are they uploaded at full camera resolution, which can meaningfully slow a page down.
Score each item zero, one or two. This group is the most technical of the six, but every item here is checkable with a free tool in a few minutes, no coding knowledge required.
A sibling piece on speeding up a photo heavy roaster site specifically covers image compression and app bloat in more depth than this checklist item alone can, worth reading if this group scores low for your site.
Test your speed score from a phone on a normal cellular connection, not just your office wifi, since that gap between the two is often larger than an owner expects and it is the cellular experience most actual customers are having when they land on your site while out running errands.
Group Six: Proof of Trust
Does your site show any real customer reviews, either embedded from a platform like Google or displayed directly. Does it state anything specific and verifiable about how you source your coffee, a relationship, a region, a practice, rather than a vague, unverifiable claim. Does the site show your actual roasting operation in some way, photos, a description of your process, something that makes clear a real roasting business exists behind the site.
Does the site include any third party mention or press coverage, if one exists, linked directly rather than just claimed in text. Does the about page name real people, not just an anonymous we behind every sentence.
Score each item zero, one or two. This final group checks whether a stranger to your brand has any reason, beyond your own marketing copy, to believe a real, credible business is behind the coffee they are considering buying.
Add your six group subtotals for a final score. A low total suggests the basics need work across multiple groups. A middle total suggests a generally functional site with specific, identifiable gaps. A high total suggests a site doing its job across every group this checklist covers, with any remaining work being refinement rather than repair. Remember, this scale is Hillcane's own tool, never to be compared against the nationwide cafe census /40 score, which measures a different thing on a different scale entirely.
Run this checklist again after any significant change to your site, a redesign, a new product line, a move to a different ecommerce platform. A score that was strong before a redesign is not automatically still strong afterward, and a short recheck across all six groups catches anything the redesign process may have quietly broken along the way, before a customer finds the gap for you.
Related Reading
More from Hillcane on this topic, plus the pages on the site that sit next to the work.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is this roaster checklist different from Hillcane's cafe visibility score?
This checklist is Hillcane's own scoring tool for roaster and ecommerce sites, with six groups: pages, place and hours, product pages, schema, speed and technical basics, and proof of trust, each item worth zero, one, or two points. The nationwide cafe census uses a separate /40 scale built for cafe visibility broadly. The two measure different things, so never read a checklist total against a census score. The census figures quoted here, such as the 882 roaster subset, are context only.
Do I need any paid tools to run this audit?
No. Every item can be checked by browsing your own site the way a customer would, by viewing the page source, or with free tools. The Rich Results Test covers the schema group, including whether product pages carry price and availability markup, and PageSpeed Insights covers load time in the speed group. Run the speed test from a phone on cellular data, not just office wifi. Most of the six groups take a few minutes each, and nothing in the audit requires paid software.
How common is it for roaster sites to have no blog at all?
Very common. Among roasters in Hillcane's nationwide census, filtered for the word roast in their business description and checked September 21, 2026, 714 of 882 had a blog post count of zero, roughly four in five. That figure is context for how widespread the gap is, not a judgment of any single site. In this checklist, a blog or content section is one item in the pages group, scored zero, one, or two alongside the homepage, about page, and contact page.
How common is missing or incomplete schema among roaster sites?
Very common. Among the 882 census businesses with roast in their description, checked September 21, 2026, structured data was fully present on only 245 sites, partial on 320 and absent on 292. That means well over half of the roaster sites in the set had either no markup or an incomplete version, which is why group four of this checklist starts with a free Rich Results Test.
Does a higher score on this checklist mean better search rankings?
No. The checklist scores whether a roaster site is complete and working against Google's documented guidance and hands on testing, not where it will appear in results. Google's own introduction to structured data, accessed September 21, 2026, describes markup as helping machines read what a visitor can already see, not as a guaranteed ranking lever. So a higher total, even in the schema group, carries no promise of better placement. Read the total as a repair list ordered by what matters most.
What should a roaster with no physical location check in the place and hours group?
Score the group on shipping and fulfillment instead. Check three things: whether your site clearly states where you ship, roughly how long fulfillment takes, and how a customer can reach you with an order question, each scored zero, one, or two. If you do have a cafe, pickup spot, or retail counter, score the usual items: address and hours in plain text rather than an image, a plain text phone number, and a match with your Google Business Profile.
Why does product page detail matter so much for a roaster?
Because a stranger landing on one product page with no other context has to decide from that page alone. The product group checks for the origin or region, roast level in plain language, a real price visible without an add to cart click, a photo of the actual product, a description beyond the blend name, and a recently tested checkout. A quick test: show one product page to a friend who has never bought from you and ask what they would be buying, and for how much.
What is the fastest group in this checklist to complete?
The pages group is usually fastest, because every item is checked just by browsing your own site like a new visitor, with no tools at all. It asks whether you have a clear homepage stating what you sell and where, an about or story page, a contact page with a real way to reach you, a separate page for any cafe location, and a blog or content section. Click through it on a phone too, since a menu obvious on a laptop can hide on a small screen.
Should I compare my checklist score with another roaster's site?
No, score your own site. The checklist is built for an honest self assessment, and no real roaster site is scored as an example anywhere in this post. Comparing totals between specific named businesses is outside what the tool is for, and a single number cannot capture why two sites differ. What helps more is comparing your own score over time: rerun all six groups after a redesign, a new product line, or a move to a different ecommerce platform.
Can Hillcane help run this audit on my roaster website?
Yes. Hillcane can walk through all six groups against your own site, including the free Rich Results Test and PageSpeed Insights checks, a comparison of your website hours and address with your Google Business Profile, and a test purchase through checkout. We then order the fixes by weight, starting with the three that matter most for your score, and can rerun the audit after any redesign. Reach out at hillcane.co/contact or call (256) 384-2449.
Work with Hillcane
You roast the coffee. Nobody has ever told you plainly what your website is missing. Here is a six group scored checklist you can run yourself, no tools required for most of it.
Want help scoring and fixing your roaster website? Reach Hillcane at hillcane.co/contact or call (256) 384-2449.
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