Alexandra Melo-Mora

Introduction to Web Publishing

SEO Analysis & Recommendations for SimplyEyeglasses.com

I. Keyword Recommendations (Cr)

a. Keyword Performance on SERPs for Recommended Keywords:

1. Prescription Sunglasses

2. Corrective Sunglasses

3. Prescription Shades

b. Current rankings of my 3 keywords:

Ranking for Recommended Keywords on SimplyEyeglasses.com

Keyword Google Bing Yahoo!Prescription Sunglasses No No NoCorrective Sunglasses No No NoPrescription Shades No No No

Ranking for Recommended Keywords on FramesDirect.com

Keyword Google Bing Yahoo!Prescription Sunglasses No No NoCorrective Sunglasses No No NoPrescription Shades No No No

c. Explanation of my choices:

1. Prescription Sunglasses: This is the keyword focus given to me by the client.

2. Corrective Sunglasses: I chose this keyword, because

3. Prescription Shades: I chose this keyword, because

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II. Current Traffic

SimplyEyeglasses.com Monthly Unique Visitors: [26,797]

FramesDirect.com Monthly Unique Visitors: [292,372]

Analysis: As you can see FramesDirect.com drives quite a bit more traffic. If we delve more

into SimplyEyeglasses.com we can see it has about 2,045 daily page views and 893 daily

visitors. Their monthly revenue is $177.90. Based on these three statistics alone you can tell

that the site does not drive a lot of traffic and that not many purchases are made monthly. I

believe this, because while looking through pages for prescription sunglasses I see

sunglasses for generally around $100 give or take. From these sites I found that most traffic

to SimplyEyeglasses.com comes from general portals and search. So most people discover

this site by searching some form of keywords dealing with eye glasses. Below you will see

two similar screenshots. The first for SimplyEyeglasses.com and the second for

FramesDirect.com. This is to show the instability in SimplyEyeglasses.com traffic.

FramesDirect.com on the other hand has found ways to improve traffic and have only gone

up since last year.

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III. Content Analysis

a. Overall Quality (Cq,Vt, Va):

SimplyEyeglasses.com Score: [5-6]

FramesDirect.com Score: [8]

Analysis: While checking if the client has quality content I noticed that there would be

multiple sites that had the same information. This could be because when a site gets

merchandise from another retailer they are also given information on each of the

products. If there is a lot of product acquired from the retailer than a site may not have

the time to rewrite all the information on each product to make it unique. An SEO could

consider this content lacking due to the fact it is the same as multiple other sites.

Something that may not mean a lot to some people is the simple fact that while reading

the description of a few sunglasses I noticed some of them would bold the title of the

glasses every time they were mentioned, but sometimes this was inconsistent. You will

see this underlined in the screen shot below. For customers that do not order glasses

online some of the content in the glasses description can be confusing. For example

bridge and temple. In the description it says, “The bridge is Universal. The temple is

Skull.” This is information that manufactures will understand, but customers may not

know. The most important information for a viewer is the description of the glasses and

comments on the glasses. As you may notice on the screen shot below, the comments

are “Selected Reviews.” Each comment that was chosen has five stars. This can be

misleading, because there are no dates to show if the comment was from a recent

purchase as well as the fact that there are no reviews with four stars or lower or

criticism that a possible customer may want to know. These are some reasons

SimplyEyeglasses.com is lacking points in the score I gave them.

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Recommendations for improvements: The first thing I noticed between the two

competing sites was the layout of FramesDirect.com. While looking at other sites I

noticed that the layouts were much cleaner than the clients. As a major improvement I

feel like for product specific pages the client could get rid of unnecessary items and

display the product, information on the product, and the needed information for sizing

and prescriptions. Below is a screenshot of WarbyParker.com which shows a great

example of a clean layout. The navigation menu is available, the product shown,

information on the prescription to the left, and below the fold is information on the

sunglasses. This is an example of what the client should strive for.

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Continuing recommendations, during the clean up on the layout the client can go over

all the product information to make sure they are consistent as well as providing more

than the standard brochure information. The client should also get rid of the program

that selects reviews and should post reviews based on most recent with a dropdown of

more reviews if there are a lot of them. Another suggest is to add a virtual try on such as

WarbyParker.com. This can help customers to see what the glasses may look like rather

than buy a pair of glasses only to regret their purchase and leave a bad review.

b. Engaging (Ce):

SimplyEyeglasses.com Score: [6]

FramesDirect.com Score: [10]

Site Bounce Rate

Page Views/Visito

r

Daily Time on Site

Product-level share

tools

Product-level

ratings

Product-level

reviewsMy Client 61% 2.4 2:18 Yes Yes Yes

Competitor 35.8% 5.05 4:47 Yes Yes Yes

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Analysis: I gave the client a 6, because their bounce rate is 61% while the competitors

bounce rate is 35.8% and the average bounce rate is 58%. Their page views per visitor

and daily time on site is half of the competitors which is why I took off more points. Both

sites have product-level share tools, ratings, and reviews which was very good, but

SimplyEyeglasses.com’s product-level share tool was not easily found. Looking at

FramesDirect.com I saw the share tools in the upper left hand of the page, the client’s

on the other hand was below the fold and thrown in with the information. While the

blue Facebook button sticks out, it is surrounded by clutter and not easily noticed.

Recommendations for improvements: Once again I think that simplifying the layout for

product-level pages will help the bounce rate and therefore the page views per visitor

and daily time on site. I think that customers look at the page and are overcome by

words and reviews that they do not know if they can trust, because they are all five

stars. Even FramesDirect.com had a two star review. Any product I have viewed on the

client’s site has no less than five star reviews.

IV. Social Analysis

a. Social Signals: Reputation (Sr):

SimplyEyeglasses.com Score: [4]

FramesDirect.com Score: [9]

Facebook

Likes Talking About Year Joined Most Recent Post

Comments/Likes on Post

Client 1,123 1 2010 January, 15th 0-2Competitor 10K 631 2008 11 Hours Ago 100’s

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Twitter

Tweets Followers/ Following

Most Recent Tweet

Comments, Favorites, Retweets

Client 99 141/276 Aug. 6, 2012 0-1Competitor 3,895 3,879/1,084 8 Hours Ago 0-2

Analysis: SimplyEyeglasses.com does not seem to use their social media outlets to their

advantage. Not only did they join two years later on Facebook, they barely use their

Facebook and have not used their Twitter in three years. Their competitor,

FramesDirect.com, posts regularly on both Facebook and Twitter and maintain their

social media outlets.

Recommendations for improvements: To start off I recommend that

SimplyEyeglasses.com begin to use their social media on a regular basis. Something

small that could make a huge difference is using a common logo. If you look at the

screenshots below you will see that FramesDirect.com uses a full photo that displays

sunglasses they sell while advertising that they are the #1 online retailer for premium

eyewear. They also use their logo, the “F” and “D” that are combined, as their profile

picture. Then looking at the client’s Facebook page you see a full photo promoting Ray

Ban and their profile photo looks like a picture taken off of Google. I suggest that

SimplyEyeglasses.com use a common logo such as the eye in their logo on the bottom

screenshot. This eye could be their profile photo on Facebook and other social media. I

also suggest that rather than promoting one brand of glasses on their full photo that

they promote their site.

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b. Social Signals: Shares (Ss):

SimplyEyeglasses.com Score: [5]

FramesDirect.com Score: [10]

Analysis: While clicking through multiple product-category and product-level pages I

noticed that SimplyEyeglasses.com had no social media sharing above the fold. There

are three screenshots on the next page. The first shows the Facebook and Twitter share

buttons from the client. These were consistently shown on product-category and

product-level pages which is good, but like I mentioned before they were below the

fold. The second screenshot is also from the client and was only shown on product-level

pages. This share button was also below the fold and as mentioned in a previous section

it is mixed in with clutter about the product. The third screenshot is of the navigation

bar for FramesDirect.com. I attached the whole navigation bar to show that the three

share buttons were consistently in the same place whether it was a product-category or

a product-level page. The share buttons were also always above the fold and were not

repeated in a random spot on a product-level page.

1.

2.

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3.

Recommendations for improvements: For SimplyEyeglasses.com to improve this area

they could go to AddThis.com and look at their sharing section. There they can get share

buttons such as the ones on FramesDirect.com or other options such as the ones in the

screenshot to the left. This can help the client to keep consistent share buttons with less

hassle of having to upkeep them. With a site like AddThis.com they can also include a

counter like the one shown below. The counter can be beneficial to show that their

social media is in use and that others enjoy the products offered by the site.

V. HTML: Current Keyword Location Analysis (Ht, Hd, Hh)

a. Title Tags

SimplyEyeglasses.com Product Category Page: <title>Designer Brands | Designer

Frames, Designer Eyewear, Prescription Eyeglasses</title>

FramesDirect.com Product Category Page:

<title>

Prescription Sunglasses Online: Designer RX Shades for Men, Women

</title>

Explanation: I chose the page that shows the full list of brands for prescription

sunglasses for both sites. I did this, because the pages are similar in content, have

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photos, and would be good to compare. When looking at the title tags for both sites and

Google’s SEO Starter Guide I notice that FramesDirect.com creates their title tag as

more of a headline. It is easier to read and tell what is on the page. The competitor’s

title tag is also shorter while still easily describing what is on the page. The first few

words from the competitors site are important, “Prescription Sunglasses,” and the last

words are not as important, “Men, Women.” The clients is in the opposite order. The

less important phrase is first and the more important is last. The title tag is important,

because it users and search engines what the page is about. I went to Google and

pasted SimplyEyeglasses.com title tag and the below screenshot shows what appeared. I

found the competitor showed up as well as a few other competing sites first.

SimplyEyeglasses.com did not show up till the bottom of the page.

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Recommendation for improvements: To improve this area the client should start from

scratch and begin with what the page is about, Prescription Sunglasses, and from these

two words avoid using the same words as to keep the title tag unique as well as to not

stuff the title tag. The title tag could then continue with, Prescription Sunglasses: All

Brands | Men, Women, to identify that the page shows a full list of brands that are

available for prescription sunglasses and that they are for men and women. This keeps

the title tag short and sweet while giving all the information needed to know what you

will find on that page.

b. Description meta tag

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SimplyEyeglasses.com Product Category Page: <meta name="description"

content="Your eyes need protection from the sun and a pair of D&G Sunglasses from

Simply Eyeglasses, are just what the doctor ordered. Call us today to hear about our low

prices!">

FramesDirect.com Product Category Page: <meta name="description" content="Shop

our wide selection of Designer Dolce & Gabbana Prescription Sunglasses. Easy Returns.

100% Rx Lens Accuracy & Price-Match Guaranteed. Free Shipping!" />

Explanation: I notice that SimplyEyeglasses.com uses “D&G” for short unlike

FramesDirect.com who spells out “Dolce & Gabbana.” The competitor also has more

advertising that could convince a customer to go to their site. The client just suggest low

prices and it makes you think that you have to call to find out prices. Meta tags are

important, because they go into more depth than a title tag on what a page contains

and can be used as the description on SERP’s. Below are two screenshots of how the

meta tags appear in SERP’s. For the client’s meta tag a few blogs show up, but nothing

selling eyeglasses. For the competitors meta tag Google attempts to correct

“Guaranteed” to “Guarantee.” Besides that the competitors meta tag gives actual sites

that sell eyeglasses. Neither meta tag gives the site that it originally came from.

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Above is SimplyEyeglasses.com meta tag and on the next page is FramesDirect.com meta tag.

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Recommendation for improvements: I think that the client can take away their cheesy

line about needing protection from the sun. I think they should be more direct about

what is on the page while saying it in a way that sells the product or the site. If the site

has a normal starting price like WarbyParker.com promoting that their glasses start at

$95 then they could add something along those lines. The client should incorporate

keywords to drive traffic as well attempt to create a unique meta tag so if something

close to it is searched than it will show up in a SERP.

c. IMG names and ALT text

<img id="color_image_img" alt="" src="/images/spacer.gif" width="498" height="249">

Explanation: This was the only important image on the page in my opinion, because it

shows the product. The only other image I would have chosen was the logo and that

was not coded as an img. I find it very strange that there is no alternative text for the

image. I also think it is odd that all the images were saved in a subfolder called “spacer.”

Recommendation for improvements: To improve the client could add an alternative

text. Not only does this become useful for a reader to tell a user what the image is, it

helps Google Image Search better understand what the image is.

VI. Architecture: Speed (As)

a. Speed (As):

SimplyEyeglasses.com Score: [4.046s]

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FramesDirect.com Score: [5.385s]

Analysis: While SimplyEyeglasses.com was slightly faster to load initially, I noticed on

the reload that the client took 3 seconds to load and FramesDirect.com took only 2

seconds to load. As I looked at a breakdown, which you can see in the screenshots

below, I noticed SimplyEyeglasses.com consisted mostly of images which if you looked

at the html more closely you would notice that images were used as spacers. I also

noticed there were no fonts on the page. I found this to be a little strange.

FramesDirect.com on the other hand looks as though the site was correctly put

together. What I mean by that is they used images as images and html as html. Not

using an image as a spacer and using &nbsp (non-breaking space).

On the left is SimplyEyeglasses.com and the right is FramesDirect.com

Recommendations for improvements: I recommend that SimplyEyeglasses.com hire a

person trained in coding to correctly do the html for the site. This could possibly cut

back loading time as well as make the coding easier to read and understand which in

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turn is better for SEO’s reading the code. According to Steve Lohr, “People will visit a

Web site less often if it is slower than a close competitor by more than 250

milliseconds.” So if the client were to code things correctly and possibly save time they

could continue to load faster than their competitor. Advance in speed, which they

already are faster, before the competitor notices and then the client will always be a

step ahead.

b. Architecture: URLs (Au):

SimplyEyeglasses.com Score: [4]

http://www.simplyeyeglasses.com/eyeglasses-sunglasses/frames.php?

product=Sunglasses&rx=1&manf=Gucci&title=Gucci%20Sunglasses

FramesDirect.com Score: [8]

http://www.framesdirect.com/RayBan-Prescription-RX-prescsgp/rxsgp-lamhrg-s-l-k-k-

tcqaoi.html

Analysis: Above with the score for the URLs I included an example URL from each site.

For the client I see a lot of characters and what seems nonsense to me and most

consumers. While FramesDirect.com has more English and the folders make sense there

are some URLs like the one I included above that have a few things that do not make

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any sense. URLs are important, because they are displayed in SEO’s. Consumers may

then look at the URL for many sites and decide based on that aspect if they will choose

to look at the site. A site with a more direct and clear URL that users can understand is

more likely to be chosen.

Recommendations for improvements: The client should try to avoid complicated URLs

with information that they do not understand. According to Google’s SEO Starter Guide,

users can be intimidated by long and cryptic URLs. The client can do so by creating a

simple directory structure and avoid nesting. The client should also name the folders in

the directory using English and avoiding characters such as “&.” I saw a lot of that in

some of SimplyEyeglasses.com URLs. The only time I advise using a character is if it is a

dash and if it separates words that can be misconstrued. For example, nineties-hits,

without the dash SEO’s could misinterpret what is on the site.

c. Architecture: Mobile (Am):

SimplyEyeglasses.com Score: [6]

FramesDirect.com Score: [10]

Explanation: Both sites have responsive design. SimplyEyeglasses.com though needs

some work on theirs, because photos will be missing and elements on the pages will

overlap. FramesDirect.com does a good job of converting from computer to phone or

tablet. They have a menu button that if tapped then opens up a side panel while still

showing the page you are on.

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Recommendations for improvements: I suggest that SimplyEyeglasses.com put a huge

focus on becoming more mobile-friendly. Consumers and users are on phones or tablets

more often on a daily basis.

VII. Link Popularity (Ln, Lq)

a. Link Number (Ln)

SimplyEyeglasses.com No. of Referring Domains: [384]

FramesDirect.com No. of Referring Domains: [3,290]

b. Link Quality (Lq)

SimplyEyeglasses.com No. of Referring Domains: [5]

FramesDirect.com No. of Referring Domains: [8]

Explanation: While looking at MajesticSEO.com I noticed that there were circle graphs

with the trust flow of the referring domains. The client has at 39% and the competitor

has 57%. All of SimplyEyeglasses.com links are “indexed URLs,” FramesDirect.com on

the other hand has educational, government, and more URLs leading to their site.

VIII. Conclusions and Recommendations

Overall the client, SimplyEyeglasses.com, has some work ahead of them. The first thing I

suggest working on is the sites architecture. I say this, because if a better directory system is

put into place with stronger URLs and coded correctly in HTML then the pages will also load

faster. Once that is put into place then the client can use the new and improved structure to

create a better mobile site. This is where a huge focus should be, because of the huge move

to mobile use. After working on improving their mobile sites SimplyEyeglasses.com can work

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on the HTML of their computer site as they also improve traffic. These two go together,

because HTML coding is read by SEO’s and if some of the coding is worded better than the

clients site may get higher rankings and be shown on the first page of SEO’s if keywords are

used.

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