executive website audit

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Documented by

Gaelim Holland

Site Audit

wExecutive Website Audit

www. shopback.com

Site Audit of Shopback.com

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TABLE OF CONTENTS ......................................................................................................................... 1

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...................................................................................................................... 3

BREAKDOWN OF ISSUES .................................................................................................................... 5

1.0 Content ................................................................................................................................................5

1.1 Issues ............................................................................................................................................................5

1.2 Recommendations .......................................................................................................................................7

2.0 Crawl ...................................................................................................................................................8

2.2 Recommendations .................................................................................................................................... 10

3.0 Sitemap ............................................................................................................................................. 11

3.1 Issues ......................................................................................................................................................... 11

4.0 Robots.txt .......................................................................................................................................... 12

4.1 Issues ......................................................................................................................................................... 12


5.0 Canonicalization ................................................................................................................................. 13

5.1 Issues ......................................................................................................................................................... 13


6.0 Architecture ....................................................................................................................................... 14

6.1 Issues ......................................................................................................................................................... 15


7.0 Internal Links ..................................................................................................................................... 17


8.0 Inbound Links ..................................................................................................................................... 18

8.1 Issues ......................................................................................................................................................... 18


9.0 Images ............................................................................................................................................... 20

9.1 Issues ......................................................................................................................................................... 20


10.0 Titles ................................................................................................................................................ 22

10.1 Issues....................................................................................................................................................... 22

10.2 Recommendations .................................................................................................................................. 23

11.0 Meta Descriptions ............................................................................................................................ 24

11.1 Issues....................................................................................................................................................... 24


12.0 Site Speed ........................................................................................................................................ 26

12.1 Issues....................................................................................................................................................... 26


13.0 Conclusions ...................................................................................................................................... 29


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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Shopback.com is a website with a business goal of attracting users who are interested in using online

coupons and discount codes. It's onsite and offsite elements should reflect this ambition. The website

architecture should be structured from category to subcategory to lead users to a discount code reveal

or to an offsite partner.

At present , the website architecture lacks depth; it does not lead users from category to subcategory

pages which creates a very flat architecture. This is not ideal for both users and search engines to

maneuver Additionally, users enter the website from different pages. They will not all fall on the

homepage. Therefore, it's important to have good navigational strategy to lead them through the

website. Using breadcrumbs and organizing the website in logical fashion is necessary. See Site

Architecture and Site Map section for more information and Internal Links section for insights and

recommendations.

A website must be informative and have relevant content for the user and the search engine. Without

these factors, the users will leave the page immediately and the search engine will devalue the

website. More detailed keyword rich content must be added to the website to overcome these

shortcomings and signal context to the search engine. The content that is produced by Shopback.com

must remain unique. All pages should have unique titles, descriptions, URLs and content. With recent

algorithm changes, this has become a critical factor. Both manual and technical steps need to be

taken to make sure that duplicate information is not being released on the web and that the source of

this information is linked to shopback.com or its pages. There are several issues on Shopback.com that

may lead to duplicate content penalties and confusion. Please see Canonicalization section

Meta data is comprised of the website's title, description and URL of the website. Both users and

search engines use this to classify the website. These elements should reflect the keyword strategy to

drive the right type of traffic to the website and attract users' clicks from the search engine result

pages . Optimizing these elements will ultimately lead to better ranking and more click throughs.

Shopback.com has a few issues in this area see Meta Data

All data and information should not be available to search engines. Steps need to be taken to stop

Google or any search engine from indexing all pages. This needs to be done to preserve confidential


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data and not waste the website link equity on low search content. Shopback.com has not taken steps

to avoid indexing all its pages. See Robots.txt

Search engines weigh technical issues and speed in the ranking algorithm, the website must have

optimized images and coding to avoid slow loading speeds. A fast site leads to a better user experience

and will increase conversion and time on the website. Shopback.com has several issues affecting its

speed. See Site Speed.


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BREAKDOWN OF ISSUES

1.0 Content

The content on the webpage is the most important element to the website. It not only informs users

but also informs the search engines. Content must be well written and optimized for search engines

using adequate length and judicious use of targeted keywords.

Tools used: Screaming Frog, Raven Tools

1.1 Issues

Site contains “thin” pages

The content on this website is severely lacking. Thin content will ultimately lead to issues with Google's

Panda Algorithm. It is important to provide sufficient information to the users. Search engines can

interpret thin pages as non-informative.


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Limited Keywords in Content

The main page has targeted keywords in the content such as "cashback" which is an important keyword for the company's business goal of the website. This keyword can be found 27 times in the body and in a H1 tag.

However, "online vouchers" and "online discount codes" cannot be found anywhere on the page. All

other pages do not have keyword specific content. If the keywords are not in the content of the pages,

it will difficult for search engines to classify and rank these pages. These keywords should be used

judiciously throughout the website's content and in a natural conversational manner.

Pages with missing H1 tags

There is over 25% of H1 Titles missing from the website's pages.

.

Search engines use the H1 tag to interpret what a page is about, much in the same way readers of a

magazine use article titles to get an idea of what an article is about. When pages are missing H1 tags,

it’s harder for both visitors and search engines to decipher what the page is about. The H1 tag should

contain a judicious use of the keyword(s) you’re targeting the page for. Be careful to make the

language natural and not keyword stuffed. If you have to decide between user experience and SEO, go

with user experience.

Pages duplicate H2 tags

Over 99% of the H2 Titles are duplicate.


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Code to Text Ratio

Thin content can also be measured by code to text. There should be a high amount of text to code. The

search engines will ultimately see high code to text as very thin content. Recent, algorithm changes

award websites with good informative content.

1.2 Recommendations

It is important that pages have enough content to for search engine's to consider informative. I

recommend that pages be expanded to at least 300 words.

H1 tags should be added to indicate to search engines what the pages are about. Keywords

should be added judiciously in the content, the H1 and H2 tags to aid in ranking for these

terms..


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2.0 Crawl

Search engines use automated programs to find, review and index web pages. These programs are

known "crawlers". It's important to have an organized accessible architecture which allows crawlers to

enter, evaluate, and index each web page.

Tools Used: Google Webmasters Tool

2.1 Issues

Crawl Errors

The website has 22 Crawl Errors in Google Webmasters Tools. These errors are mostly generated due

to 404 pages. This code indicates that a page has been removed or doesn't exist.

Often when pages are deleted. It's best practice that we review the missing URL and either redirect

them to the new updated URL or create a custom 404 page that allows for the user to find what

existing content they are looking for.


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No custom 404 page

Often when pages are deleted, it's best practice that we review the missing URL and either redirect

them to the new updated URL or create a custom 404 page that allows for the user to find what

existing content they are looking for. At present, the 404 page is redirected to the homepage.

Site uses nofollow tags ineffectively

There are no no-follow directives on the sites. No-follow directives should be used to tell search

engines not to include content. Best practices suggest we use these to stop blog comments, user-

generated content and paid links from receiving credit from your website.

Navigation uses Javascript

Navigation is fully functional even when Java script is disabled. Search engines have limited ability to

crawl javascript technology. Java script is used to make drop-down menus among other website

functions. It's important for crawlers to be able to reach the navigation links. However, some

elements of the site that are used for navigation purposes cannot be used when Javascript is enabled.


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2.2 Recommendations

Create a custom 404 page with links to drive users into the website. At present, 404 signals

redirect users to homepage. While this is better than an blank 404 page, it's better to customize

these pages.

Use a 301 Redirect to send users to pages than have been replaced with new related web pages.


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3.0 Sitemap

3.1 Issues

A sitemap is as it suggests a map. It details to the users how to navigate through your website

homepage to deeper levels of your website. Think of it as the table of contents of your website. It

shows the search engines how to crawl your website. Without a site map, your website's content may

be difficult to classify in the search engines.

There are two types of sitemaps that should exist. HTML and XML sitemaps. Both of these sitemaps

help search engines crawlers classify your content. However, HTML is just a organization of all the links

on your website. A user would find this extremely beneficial. On the other hand, an XML sitemap

contains extra data that is specifically geared towards the search engines.

Simply typing the URL: www.shopback.com/sitemap.xml will reveal the XML sitemap

No HTML Sitemap

There is no HTML Sitemap. This is a beneficial component to the user and search engine. The HTML site

map will allow search engine crawlers to find your new content and web pages quicker. Simply typing

:www.shopback.com/sitemap.xml into the search bar reveals a 404 page and redirects the user back to

the homepage

Recommendation

Add an HTML Site Map in order to improve website's user and crawler navigation.

This also helps crawlers discover pages faster.


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4.0 Robots.txt

Robots.txt file should be utilized to instruct search engines on what not to index. It's best practices to

not index content that will bring little or no search volume . This file should be also be used to block

search engines from indexing private or sensitive information. A valid robots.txt file does exist.

4.1 Issues

Pages that should be in robots.txt

There are pages on the site that should be included in the robots.txt file such as "Terms of Use" and

"Privacy Policy" page.

4.2 Recommendations

Add "terms of use" and "privacy policy" pages to the robots.txt file


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5.0 Canonicalization

Canonicalization is used to avoid duplicate versions of a website or webpage from being indexed in

search engines. When duplicate version of website exist in search engines the link credit gets split.

Tools Used: SEO Site Checkup ad Screaming Frog

5.1 Issues

Homepage not canonicalized properly

Although the www. and non www. version of the homepage are canonicalized. The

www.shopback.com/index.html and www.shopback.com/home pages have been redirected with

302 redirect which does not give all link power to the main URL.

Site doesn’t canonicalize print pages

The site is not using CSS for these or unique URLs. The image shows all the css files the print pages css

does not exist.


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5.2 Recommendations

Properly canonicalize "www.shopback.com/home" and www.shopback.com/index" pages by

using a 301 redirect

Use CSS for print pages for proper canonicalization.

6.0

Architecture

Site Architecture is extremely important to search engine optimization. Site architecture and URLs

should be clean and well organized for both users and search engines. The site architecture also

provides context and relevance to pages and URLs. The architecture must communicate to the user

and search engines the context of each page. The website's depth signals to search engines the

importance of each page. The homepage is the most powerful page on the website. Pages directly

linked to home page are 2nd in importance and so on.

Tools Used: Screaming Frog


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6.1 Issues

Breadcrumb Issues

Breadcrumbs are used to show the user where they are in the website's architecture. Users have the

ability to enter the website from different URLs based on searchable keywords. Breadcrumbs will

show users where they are within the site's architecture and allow them to easily navigate the website.

The website does not have breadcrumbs structure in the website. This reduces bounce rate by

allowing the user to see higher level pages they may be interested in . Here is a good example of how

breadcrumbs should be utilized.

Main keyword (link to home) > Main keyword + word (category link) – Main keyword + word

Food > Food Vouchers > Food Panda Vouchers

Site Depth and Orginaztion.

Although the site architecture is simple and easy to follow. There should be a logical flow from

homepage to category to subcategory. All pages are currently connected to the homepage in a tier 1

structure. This is an extremely flat architecture that is difficult to navigate and doesn't utilize site depth

properly.

For example, If I click the category fashion from the homepage, this URL will be displayed:

http://www.shopback.com/fashion

This page has brand subcategories to choose from. One such brand is MissGuidedUs. Clicking this link

should award me with URL that looks like this:

http://www.shopback.com/fashion/missguidedus-voucher

However the existing URL structure is as such:

http://www.shopback.com/missguidedus

This also creates a confusing site map for both the users and the search engines.

Currently all pages are either r at level 1 or level 2 by the search engines. This indicates the number of

steps from the start page. A good structure should push less important pages deeper into the

architecture and raise more important pages.


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6.2 Recommendations

Below are the recommendations to remedy these issues:

Create a plan to incorporate bread crumbs into the website's architecture to allow users to

navigate the website easier and reduce bounce rate. The breadcrumbs should reflect the

category to subcategory flow structure.

Create a deeper site architecture that allows the user to move from a logical category to

subcategory flow. This will provide more organization to the search engine and user.


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7.0 Internal Links

Internal links are an essential part of your website navigation. The user experience is completely

dependent upon the website ability to lead the user from one area of the website to the another.

Tools Used: MOZ Site Explorer

7.1 Issues

Pages with too many links

http://www.shopback.com/fashion 123 Links

http://www.shopback.com/accessories 102 links

These pages have more than 100 links. It's best to keep pages under 100 links.

7.2 Recommendations

Reduce the amount of links on the page to under a 100. It would best to better categorize the

content on the fashion and accessories pages to give users a better experience and reduce the

amount of links.


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8.0 Inbound Links

Inbound links are like votes to a candidate. However, it not so much about the amount of links.

Although, this does play a role in ranking, the quality of the link is also extremely important. Search

engines use links as a metric to gauge the popularity of website. With new algorithmic changes, search

engines can determine the quality of a website's link profile. If you have a large amount of spammy or

unnatural inbound links. You will be categorized as such.

Tools used: Ahrefs, SEO Site Checkup, MOZ site Explorer

8.1 Issues

Overly optimized and repetitive anchor text

One of most influential indicators that search use in rankings is anchor text. This is the clickable link on

a web page. If there are a lot of links pointing to page with the right keywords in the anchor text, that

page has a very good probability of ranking well for the targeted phrase in that anchor text.

15-30% of a link profile should originate from exact or near-match anchor text links. The rest should be

a variety of anchor text. In this property, 100% of the anchor text is a variation of the brand name


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Linkable assets aren’t top organic landing pages

The majority of inbound links are to a landing page that laments the end of the Great Singapore Sale.

However, this was a seasonal event. According to the marketing team, the zalora cash page is their

best asset due to the popularity of the brand in this country.

8.2 Recommendations

Use the website key words to create deep links to website. Look for links opportunities using

competitive analysis and social media. Acquire anchor text that will lead users to relevant pages

and send ranking signals to Google.

Avoid linking users to one singular page. Determine the greatest asset pages use these as

linkable assets. At present the client, considers their home page as their most linkable asset.

Therefore, using more anchor text with website defining keywords is needed.

Create a better conversion strategy for the GSS is Over Page. Users will land on this page and

need to be persuaded to navigate deeper into the website. At present, there is only a form, this

is hard sell. Using more relevant content and persuasive content to could help click through

rates.


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9.0 Images

Images are an essential part of SEO. In order for search engines to classify or list pictures in the search

engine result pages, there must be text to describe the picture. This is called ALT Text which is added to

the picture file to adequately describe the images.

Tools Used: Raven Tools, Screaming Frog

9.1 Issues

Large images

With SEO being inextricably tied to user experience, search engines are trying to motivate webmasters

to make their sites easier to use by adding page load time as a ranking factor. One factor that can bloat

page load times is large images. In the rush to publish, it’s easy to overlook image size. However, great

care should be taken to make sure images are under 100KB

Images with no or irrelevant ALT text

There are quite a severe number of images that are missing their ALT-Text and Title Text


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There will be very low visibitly for these images if there is no accompanying ALT TEXT.

9.2 Recommendations

Add descriptive and keyword specific description to all images using the ALT TEXT and title text.


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10.0 Titles

Ultimately the page title is a key ingredient in your meta data to capture users attention. The title

should clearly indicate what the page is about and find some way to utilize relevant keywords.

Tools Used: Screaming Frog

10.1 Issues

Pages with missing titles

The following URL is missing a title:

http://www.shopback.com/elf-cosmetics

Pages with long titles

Best practices suggest that titles fall under 65 characters with an ideal length of 55 characters. The

following titles exceed this practice.

Duplicate page titles

There are few instances of duplicate titles. This a bad practice due to the fact that this sends a duplicate content

message to the search engines which can have your website removed from the results.


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Pages with repetitive titles

Although each page technically has a unique title. They are repetitious. Since the title is one of the

most important elements to the search engine and user, it is important to have compelling and unique

titles that increase click through.

As seen in the image, there is a page that addresses technical issues. This title also includes the terms

"coupons & promotions". This has no connection to the term "technical issue".

10.2 Recommendations

Remove the "Coupon & Promotions" tag from pages that do not specifically provide this.

Unique titles should be keyword specific and fall under the most relevant keyword. Keyword

research would help to come up with the best title.

Rewrite page titles to ensure that they fall under 65 characters and above 30 characters.


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11.0 Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions provide concise explanations of the contents of web pages. These descriptions are

used to provide users with enough information to stimulate a click through from the search engine

results.

11.1 Issues

Pages with missing meta descriptions

The following pages are missing meta descriptions.

Pages with long meta descriptions

There are a number of long meta descriptions. Over 23 percent of the meta descriptions are too long.

It's best practices to keep these descriptions under 156 characters.

Pages with short meta descriptions

Over 13 percent of the websites meta descriptions are two short. It best to keep meta descriptions

over 70 characters.


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Odd capitalizations in descriptions

Meta descriptions should be written with a conversational tone that follows standard sentence case to

aid readability. However, there are a few capitalizations that seem unnatural. The URL below has a

meta description which seems "salesy" and unnatural


Ensure that descriptions are over 70 characters and below 156 characters.

Eliminate unnatural text and keep the descriptions conversational with good call to action

statements.


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12.0 Site Speed

Website speed is ultimately tied to user experience. If pages do not load within the users'

expectations, they will ultimately hit the back button and leave your site. Elements of the website must

be optimized for speed.

Tools Used: Google Page Speed Insights and Web Page Test

http://www.webpagetest.org/

12.1 Issues

High Page Load time

The overall website's loading time is slow due to Javascript and CSS above the fold content.


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Site uses inline CSS

Inline styles are CSS styles that are specified within the page code itself, as opposed to inside an

external style sheet. Repeated use of inline styles leads to unnecessary code bloat and slower page

loading. Using an external CSS stylesheet that references these styles will lead to smaller code and

faster page loading.

Site uses inline Javascript

If your site is using the same Javascript code across multiple pages, you should consider using an

external Javascript file so that it will be cached by the user's browser for each of those page views. This

will reduce your page's HTML size, as well as make your code easier to maintain.

Site doesn’t minify all JavaScript or CSS

Shopback.com does minify some of its JavaScript or CSS files. Although there are some files that are

not minified. Minifying these files removes unnecessary bytes on the wire. While it's great to put

comments, tabs and whitespace in code to improve readability and maintenance, these are bytes that

take up space on the wire and that a browser has to parse unnecessarily.

http://www.seositecheckup.com/articles/107


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Minify all javascript and CSS for a decreased loading time of 6%

Use external Java Script and CSS files to decrease unnecessary loading time. There are several

online tools that can be used to perform this. YUI Compressor is one of them.

http://refresh-sf.com/yui/


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13.0 Conclusions

Overall Shopback.com has done many things correctly. However, there are many elements that need

to be properly optimized for the search engines.

Organizing the site architecture according to a keyword strategy is a major importance. This keyword

research will ultimately tie to the business strategy and influence offsite factors such as link building

and anchor text choices. Optimizing the website for user experience and search engine crawlers is

needed. Without this measure, search engines will not be able to properly analyze your content and

users will be confused. Sitemap and breadcrumbs will be an important tools in informing search

engines and users about how to navigate your website. Therefore, a well organized HTML and XML site

map is needed

Unique and sufficient content needs to be added to the site to avoid new algorithm penalties. A

website's content should be keyword specific, informative in nature and persuade users to flow

through a predefined conversion funnel which can be established with good architectural choices. Thin

content and high code will ultimately classify a website a low or thin content. Good content practices

are not limited to just what's on the page. Without well defined and concise meta data strategy

search engines will not be able to categorize our pages and users will not click our results in the search

engine pages. We can control our choice of indexed pages into the search engine with several

strategies discussed above such as Robots.txt. Moreover, duplicate content needs to be handled with

proper canonicalization.

Some web technology such as javascript that limits navigation and site speed should be addressed on

the development side and proper steps to eliminate unnecessary code, excessive image size and

JavaScript bloat. Ultimately , we want a fast website to deliver exquisite unique content to users. In

the end, we have two masters, the search engine crawlers and our users. If you need to make a choice

between the two, always choose the user. However, we are all playing Google's house so let's follow

the rules and play nice.

executive website audit

Documents

breakdown of issues

site audit of

g e table of contents

internal links

executive summary