sep paper #2

Jessica Porter

SEO Analysis & Recommendations for Eastern Mountain Sports GPS Watches

I. Keyword Research – 3 Recommended Keywords (Cr)

a. The 3 keywords/ phrases I think will drive the most traffic:1. GPS Sports Watch2. Navigation Watch3. Hiking Watch

b. Explanation of my choices:

As you can see below, I ran these three specific keyword phrases into Google

Trends and the results were very close in range. “GPS sport watch” has an average of

26 searches, “Navigation watch” has 24, and “hiking watch” has 21.

1. GPS Sports Watch:

This is the keyword focus given to me by the client. My research on this

keyword phrase leads me to believe that “GPS sports watch” is mostly used because

technology is evolving with each passing year. There’s a difference between a watch,

a sports watch, and GPS sports watch. Although this keyword phrase is specific,

customers could be typing in more specific keyword phrases. On Google Trends,

under related searches, specific name-brand product watches appeared as the top

searches for this type of product. Even though the keyword phrases such as “Nike

Watch GPS” or Garmin Sports Watch” is more popular than “GPS sports watch”, it

doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad for EMS.com. I say this because the more popular a

keyword phrase is, the more competition it has, which means it is less likely the site

will rank in the top 10. Especially if those specific name brand watches have a

website, which they do. So I believe that a specific generic keyword phrase is the

best route to go. EMS.com could focus on those generic keywords to increase their

chances of climbing up the search engine results page. As you can see below this

keyword phrase has increased in recent years and continues to increase. So as

stated, this could be good or bad for the site, it just depends on the other factors that

can help increase this site’s search engine results.

2. Navigation Watch

From studying both websites and Google Trends, I determined that

“navigation watch” is another keyword phrase I believe customers would use to

search a related product. I thoroughly searched through both Eastern Mountain

Sports and Roadrunnersports.com watch product page and read the descriptions on

many GPS watches. In the EMS.com search tool I typed in “navigation watch” and

there were some similar results as when I typed in “GPS sports watch”. I also went

to Google.com and typed in Navigation watch just too see if similar products to “GPS

sports watch” would show up. As you can see below, “navigation watch” was a

popular keyword phrase back in late 2005, but had a noticeable decrease until 2007.

But has slowly start to increase.

3. Hiking Watch

I chose this keyword phrase because I assumed if customers were typing in

GPS sports watch or navigation watch, then hiking watch would fit well into both of

those categories. Also hiking involves a lot of physical activity and usually when a

person hikes they need a sense of direction and that’s where the GPS or navigation

would fall into place. I also seen in Google Trends under related searches that “gps

for hiking” and “Garmin hiking gps” were top searches. But the interesting thing is,

when I compared all three in the Google Trends chart, “hiking watch” severely out

numbered them both. As you can see the chart below, this keyword phrase was

pretty much non-existed in 2007, but as the years passed it increasingly gotten

popular, with its highest search of 100 in August of 2014. And if you observe the

chart below this one, in October 2014, GPS sports watch is still in the lead for that

product search but navigation watch and hiking watch are close behind.

October 2014

II. Current Traffic

EMS.com Monthly Unique Visitors: 154,000

RoadRunnerSports.com Monthly Unique Visitors: 259,500

Analysis:

As you see EMS.com has 154,000 unique monthly visitors and

RoadRunnerSports.com has 259,000. EMS.com has 105,500 less visitors than

Roadrunnersports.com. The chart below EMS.com had a huge spike in unique

visitors in May 2014. But the next month, June 2014, EMS.com had a 37% decrease.

They made a slight recovery from that downfall.

If you observe the chart below, you see that RoadRunnerSports.com also had a great

amount of visitors in May 2014, but has since decreased, that is until late August

2014. But unlike EMS.com, Roadrunnersports.com has had a 46% increase from

their previous month. Maybe they had a special sale going on in late August or even

maybe Roadrunnersports.com just happen to had a golden keyword phrase that

brought customers to their site.

III. Content Analysis Quality

a. Overall Quality (Cq, Vt, Va)

EMS.com Score: 7RoadRunnerSports.com Score: 5

Analysis:

EMS.com has some pros and cons just like any another website. They have

good quality content on their category page and product level page. I noticed that

when I typed in “GPS sports watch” in the search tool, 61 items showed up, but

when I searched for it under “Accessories” and “Watches & Bands” it had 94.

EMS.com has a “Refine Search Results” with “GPS” showing how many watches has

a GPS and how many do not. This is a useful tool to help narrow down a customers

search on a specific item. On Roadrunnersports.com I checked to see if they had the

same thing. They only had a “Narrow Your Search” categorizing it by “Gender,

What’s New, and Price”.

I went to several product-level watch pages and scanned through the

descriptions on each. I noticed that they didn’t use periods at the end of their

sentences under the “Features/Benefits” in the description box. Though it’s not that

big of a deal, its part of what makes good quality content. Besides the grammar

mistake, I wanted to see if the content was unique, so I copied the wording in the

description box and ran it in Plagspotter.com & Plagium.com. All the content was

original. Just to be sure, I ran multiple descriptions from product level pages and

they all turned out original as well. On Roadrunnersports.com in the product level

page, instead of having sentences, they had one-word descriptions unlike EMS.com. I

ran Road Runner Sports site’s URL in Plagspotter.com just to be sure it was unique

and their content was also original.

EMS.com didn’t have any ads on the homepage, category page, or the product

level page. After being on the sports watch cateogry page for about 5 minutes a

popup box appeared in the middle of the screen that asked if I needed any help with

a yes or no check box. That shows that they’re there to serve and help their

customers. On the product page in Roadrunnersports.com, a popup box also

appeared on the screen. It asked me did I need help finding my shoe size. This would

have been helpful if I were searching for shoes, not watches.

I noticed on the product level page in Roadrunnersports.com towards the

bottom, they have a search related section. Instead of a search related section,

Ems.com had a “More Great Choices” box where it shows unrelated items. But under

the images of that specific product, they have “Other products in this category”. On

the product-level page EMS.com offers free shipping on products that’s $48 or more,

but Roadrunnersports.com offers free shipping on all their products. Also on

EMS.com product-level page, I had seen that they had a “Product video” and “photo

images” which is great just to give customers another reason to buy it. On

Roadrunnersports.com product-level page, there’s a video tab, but no video. In the

tab they ask you to vote and request a video. Another thing I noticed was in

Roadrunnersports.com they have a “Need Help?” tab.

Both sites have their fair share of mistakes, but overall I gave EMS.com a 6

and RoadRunnerSports.com a 5. This is because EMS.com had better quality content,

especially under the description box, on the product level page. I also gave EMS.com

a higher score because in the watch category page they had a more specific category

in the “refined search results” area which help makes the customers experience

more beneficial. In addition, the reviews in EMS.com are very detailed. Not only do

they have a pros and cons, rating, and category, but a “best uses” category beside it.

The extra effort in the review section is helpful because reviews have a heavy

influence on a customer’s decision. EMS.com has a better review section compared

to Roadrunnersport.com.

Recommendations for improvements

Some simple improvements I would make to EMS.com would be on the

product level page, in the description box. Just add periods to the end of the

sentences. I would also increase the size of the “related products” section

because it is barley noticeable under the product’s image. If I weren’t

thoroughly scanning through the page, I wouldn’t have seen it. I like the fact

that they have images of the product, but they should have the product image

magnified whenever the mouse censor is over it like Roadrunnersports.com. I

think they should also offer free shipping on all their items, but I guess t

depends on if the company can afford it. Its just an extra perk that would

make customers return.

Engaging Content (Ce):


Analysis:

I gave EMS.com a score of 7. The reason being is according to Alexlia.com, the

daily time spent on EMS.com is 3:38; which showed a 42% increase. Where as the

daily time spent on Roadrunnersports.com is 3:36 with a decrease of 8%. I y6 ,k,also

noticed on Alexia.com, that EMS.com bounce rate is down by 25% and is currently at

37.10%. They’re doing great compared to Roadrunnersports.com whose bounce

rate is 37.8%. EMS.com has multiple ways that customers engage. On their product

level page, they have a review section like every e-commerce site should, but like

stated before they have some extra perks in their review. As you can see below they

have Ratings, Pros & Cons, Best Uses, and more.

On Roadrunnersports.com they have a review section also, but not nearly as

detailed as EMS.com. As you can see below, Roadrunnersports.com review section

only has a comment section and ratings from the buyer.

On EMS.com, they have “share this page” to Twitter, Facebook, and email on the

product level page. They also have the number of Facebook likes that item has. On

Roadrunnersports.com they have share buttons to Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus,

and Pintrest, but doesn’t have how many likes an item has gotten.

Recommendations for improvements

Some improvements I recommend EMS.com make, is creating a tool where

people can comment on a review. I know several e-commerce sites such as Amazon

and Wal-Mart that have a section where you can post a comment on someone’s

review. This can keep the customers engage and will eventually increase the time

spent on the page. Furthermore, the Facebook “like” number display is cut off as you

can see below. It’s a minor glitch where I’m sure it can be easily fixed. I also used a

different browser to see if the problem still occurred and the same issued popped

up.

I would also like to add that more social media wedges should be added to the list

above.

Social Sites (Sr, Ss)


Analysis

Reputation:

EMS.com has a Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube account. EMS.com joined

Facebook back in November of 2008. They have 49,149 Likes and 27 visits. With

each post that EMS.com puts up, there are at least 10 likes for each. On some post

there aren’t any comments, but on others such as a sales post, it’s very popular.

EMS.com doesn’t just post content from their site, but also engage with their

Facebook followers. Their latest post was dedicated to Veterans Day as you can see

below. They even engaged with their Instagram followers.

Roadrunnersports.com joined Facebook in May of 2009, with 99,247 Likes and

5,196 visits. I noticed on their page that they post links from their sites, but also post

recent and upcoming marathons that they sponsor. They even share and post links

from other sites such as sparkspeople.com, Youtube, and may They engage with

their Facebook followers just by asking them a simple question to get a conversation

started such as “What is your motivation to be out there every day?”

As for as Twitter goes, EMS.com and Roadrunnersports.com both have an

account. EMS.com joined Twitter in December of 2008, so pretty much around the

same time as on Facebook. On Twitter they have 12,200 followers and has tweeted

6,582 tweets. I noticed that instead of just posting links from the site, they post the

video within that link. So customers get to watch a video about that item. Also in

every tweet they use multiple hashtags, this way it could be all linked back to their

twitter page. They even post things linking back to their Facebook account. EMS.com

really does tweet back to their followers. I seen on one post how a woman asked a

question about their registry and EMS.com relied back in no time. I saw that they

would Favor anyone’s tweet that mentions them or even put their name in the

tweets. Which I think is great; because that shows that they’re paying attention to

what’s happening on social media. But observing their tweets, they don’t get a lot of

favorites or retweets from followers.

Roadrunnersports.com joined Twitter the same time they joined Facebook,

which was back in May of 2009. They have 16k followers and have tweeted 21.3k

tweets since then. Roadrunnersports.com also is involved in twitter’s social trends

such as “#tbt”, which stands for Throwback Thursday. But just like EMS.com they

really don’t get a lot of favorites or retweets. But that doesn’t mean they don’t

engage with their followers because they do, especially if someone mentions them.

EMS.com has a Youtube account and so does Roadrunnersports.com. On

EMS.com Youtube account they show videos of their products, instructional videos,

and reviews. I see that they joined in June 2009 and have 1,654 subscribers to their

channel. And of course people state their opinions through the comment section

about the video. I didn’t know EMS.com had a Google Plus account until I seen the

small symbol in the upper right. They didn’t show that they had one on their website

with the rest of their social media. On Google Plus they have 19 followers and 6,973

views. They have only posted one thing on Google Plus and that was back in

November of 2013. They also had no photos or a description about the company,

only just a link to Youtube. For Roadrunnersports.com, they seem to have a lot more

diversity in their videos. They had videos about their products and reviews as well

as some funny entertainment to help sell their products. They also had videos about

how proceeds from certain items will be giving to charity. Road Runner Sports has

310 Subscribers to their channel.

On Google Plus they have 2,508 views with only four posts. I checked to see if

both of these sites were on Instagram and they were. EMS.com has 2259 followers

with 234 posted pictures and Road Runner Sports has 2,448 and has posted 448

pictures. I scanned through some pictures on both accounts and didn’t see any

negative comments.

Shares:

On EMS.com site page there’s a Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube symbol at the

bottom of the page where it only links to their social media page. On their product-

level page, there is a “share this page” to Facebook and Twitter, but that’s about it.

There is also a Facebook like tool where the “share this page” is located, but the

problem with that is the number is half cut off as you can see below:

Roadrunnersports.com has the same social media wedges as EMS.com with the

exception of Google Plus and it is also located at the bottom of the page. On their

product-level page they have the same symbols as on the home page. They don’t

have anywhere on the page where you can “like” that specific item, just only share

buttons.

Recommendations for improvements:

The reason I gave EMS.com a lower score than Roadrunnersports.com

for social Share, is because Road Runner Sports is basically more popular on

social media. From observing EMS.com social media sites, they have fewer

followers than the competition even though they’ve been on the social media

a year longer. And as you can see the chart below, Road Runner Sports

popularity has been increasing and even surpassing EMS.com.

My suggestions for increasing popularity on social media would be to buy a

ad or two on Facebook. The ads usually go on the right side of the page or

appear on timelines. For Twitter, I would suggest that they start following

more people. They don’t follow as nearly as many people as

Roadrunnersports.com do. I believe the more people they follow, the more

people will follow them. On their twitter page, there are mostly links to videos

and category pages. They should take more time to engage with their

followers and participate in social trends such as “Throwback Thursday and

Flashback Fridays”. EMS.com should also improve their Google Plus account.

There’s hardly anything on the page worth viewing. But referring back to the

website, EMS.com should put their social media wedges towards the top right

or top left of the page instead of at the bottom. it is good that they have a way

to share content to social media On the product-level page, but they should

add more social media options to the list. I think Facebook and Twitter isn’t

enough, especially with the amount of social media sites out there and the

influence it can have on a site. It wouldn’t hurt to add sharelines when sharing

content either. Another thing that needs improving is the Likes on the

product-level page. Like stated before, the number of likes displayed is half

shown and it seems like a minor glitch that could easily be fixed.

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

Title Tags:

EMS.com Product Page: <title>Eastern Mountain Sports - Search Results</title>

RoadRunnerSports.com Product Page: <title>GPS Watches | Road Runner Sports</title>

Explanation: I chose to analyze the GPS sports watch results search page because I

wanted to see the difference between EMS.com and Roadrunnersports.com in the

page-source. I think we may have found one of the problems why EMS.com is

ranking lower than Roadrunnersports.com in the SERP. For the EMS.com title tags,

you can see that they just have “Eastern Mountain Sports- search results”. Whereas

Roadunnersports.com actually has the keyword that you searched for like, “ GPS

watches Road Runner Sports”. I’m sure that made a big difference when Google is

reading code. Not only did Roadrunnersports.com have an important keyword, but

also had the keyword first in the title tag. Below you can see how the title tag

appears in Google’s SERP.

Recommendation for improvements:

Some suggestions for improvements for EMS.com is have the specific

keyword that someone searched for in the title tag. That makes it hard for Google to

find the page if its only Eastern Mountain Sports and nothing else. I also would

suggest adding something that’s beneficial to the customer such as free shipping or

something of that nature.

Description Meta Tags:

EMS.com Product Page: <meta name="description" content="Buy Watches at Eastern Mountain Sports where you'll find great buys on Outdoor Gear and Clothing for athletes and enthusiasts demanding the highest quality equipment and apparel."/>

RoadRunnerSports.com Product Page: <meta name="description" content="Get a new perspective on your training with GPS Watches from Road Runner Sports. Invest in constant improvement w/ a new GPS Watch - FREE SHIPPING!"/>

Explanation: EMS.com has made a slight difference in their Meta description tag.

When I tried searching for the description tag on the search results page, I couldn’t

find it. I had to go back to the navigation under “Watches and bands” and narrow

down the search to GPS in order to get the description tag. As you can see below

there’s a difference in the meta tags, but not really any important keywords to help

it stand out from Google’s stand point. Compared to Roadrunnersports.com,

EMS.com could do a lot better. In Roadrunnersports.com Meta description tag, they

have two main keywords that I searched for. But then again they had a specific

category for GPS Watches. Again I had to go through navigation for

Roadrunnersports.com in order to find the description tag on the page source.

It’s good that EMS.com had a searched keyword in the Meta tag.


My recommendations for the Meta tag would be to add more important

keyword phrases instead of “buy watches”. The keyword they used is too vague that

it doesn’t increase the chances of EMS.com ranking higher in the SERP. I would also

like to suggest that keyword phrases should be put in the search results page source

Meta description tags. That could help improve the search results.

IMG names and ALT text

title="Eastern Mountain Sports" class="logo"><img src="http://ems.imageg.net/images/gLogo.gif" width="634" height="57" id="brand" alt="Eastern Mountain Sports" /></a>

<img border="0" name="cms_image405406884" src="http://ems.imageg.net/cms_widgets/23/91/2391111_assets/_Sitewide_wk40_stacked_REV.png"

img src="http://ems.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pEMS1-18001884t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="GARMIN vívofit Fitness Band - Eastern Mountain Sports"

http://ems.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pEMS1-18001884t100.jpg

http://ems.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pEMS1-18001884t100.jpg

<img src="http://ems.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pEMS1-15773842t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="POLAR RC3 GPS Heart Rate Monitor, Black - Eastern Mountain Sports" /></a>

Explanation:

I chose to analyze the “GPS sports watch” search results page for EMS.com

image tags. The search results page showed all the watches that could possibly

have GPS navigation or sports watches with similar features. I chose these four

images because of the relevance it has. The first image that showed up in the source

page was the company logo. They use the .gif for their image file. It was located at

the top left like it should be. But before analyzing the logo, I thought that the

abbreviation of the logo and the actual “Eastern Mountain Sports” were two

different image files, but they’re together as one. I thought the second image I chose

was of importance because it was found throughout all the pages on the site. Even

though there weren’t any keywords that I was particularly exploring, they had

possible keywords that could attract customers such as “Free shipping” and “SAVE”

that could possibly boost their search engine results. I’ve also seen that they used

a .png as their image file. I’m not sure exactly what the difference is since both the

logo and this .png image shows up on every page in this site. The third image file I

chose was a .jpg which was a Garmin Fitness Band. I chose this one because it was

the first item that appeared in the search results page. I honestly don’t know why it

was the first one that appeared on the results page, especially if it didn’t have any

important keywords I searched for. But maybe EMS.com associated sports with

“fitness” that’s located in the ALT text. The last image I chose was the POLAR RC3

GPS Heart Rate Monitor. I specially chose this one because it had the main keyword I

specifically searched for, which was “GPS”. This was also a .jpg as well as all the

other product images on that category page.


One recommendation I would suggest for improving SERP, would be to first

add a attractive keyword in the second image which was the .png image file. Maybe

even use one of keywords that were in the actual image. But don’t overstuff all the

images with keywords since Google will penalize for it. Also one more thing I would

suggest is to possibly recode the search results page. I say this because I went to

FeedTheBoot.com and pasted the URL page results, and everything showed up on

the page but watches. It was mostly clothing, but no watches whatsoever. So this

could be a problem if Google were to search for the GPS sports watch page and a

clothing page show up whether than watches.

V. Architecture (As, Au, Am)

Speed

EMS.com Score: 2.93 secondsRoadRunnerSports.com Score: 2.78 seconds

Explanation: As you can see Roadrunnersports.com has a faster speed time than

its competition EMS.com. I chose to test the GPS watch category page. I went to

tools.pingdom.com to test the speed of the websites. I used WebPageTest.org for the

pie chart to help break down the differences between the two. Below, I have the

EMS.com pie chart content breakdown:

As you can see above, the image file takes up 59% of the sites space with and

JavaScript coming right behind with 31.3%. From observing the waterfall chart on

WebPageTest.org, it’s mostly the product images that take the page so long to load.

Not only the product images but the background images as well. .jpg is the product

image file type. Roadunnersports.com has the speed time of 2.78, which is .15 faster

than EMS.com. I used the search result category page also for

Roadrunnersports.com. As you can see the pie chart below, Roadrunnersports.com

images is taking up a good amount of space. But as you can see, JavaScript has

52.8% of the sites space.

This a big difference compared to the competing site. EMS.com images are what’s

slowing them down.


The main improvement I would recommend for EMS.com is maybe eliminate

some images. I’m not confident on how everything goes as far as coding, but if

there’s a way to just reduce unnecessary images that could increase the page load

speed time. I understand that extra images are necessary for the quality of the site,

but maybe try to compress some of those images. Another suggestions for EMS.com

would be to reduce the JavaScript coding, just by getting rid of unnecessary

characters and such.

URLs (Au)


Explanation:

For the first URL, I went to EMS.com and went to the shoe category page and the

Product-level page. As you can see both URL’s below, EMS.com is doing exactly what

Google Starter Guide told them to avoid.

Category Page:

Product-level Page:

The URL structure gets pretty complex after “product” in the sub-domain. I went to

even more category pages and product level pages to see if there was a change in

the URL structure. I went to “Men Fitness Gear” category page and the same thing

showed up. When I went to a jacket product-level page even more numbers

appeared in the URL, making it super unattractive. I also typed in “Eastern Mountain

Sports shoes” in Google to see if the same unattractive URL appeared and as you can

see below, it does.

For Roadrunnersports.com, I decided to go to the “Nutrition” category page and to

my surprise, the URL is the complete opposite of EMS.com. Rodrunnersports.com

kept the URL short, simple, and memorable just like Google recommends in their

Starter Guide. Below, you can simply see one word, “Nutrition”, with the exception

of Road Runner Sports Abbreviation, “rrs”.

I went to one of their product level pages to see if I noticed any changes. I was

expecting the product level page URL structure to be exactly like the category page,

but unfortunately it was not. I went to “GU Energy Gel 24 pack” product-level page

and this is what came up:

I tried another category page and product level page on

Roadrunnersport.com just to confirm the first findings. I went to “Women’s Apparel”

category page and just like the first time, it was short and simple. It only had the

domain, “rss”, and “womensapparel”. And just like my second finding, the product-

level page had a lot of unattractive number and letters. So I find this very interesting

in the fact that the category page has a simple URL, but the product-level page does

not. I was curious to see what would show up in the SERP. I typed in “Road Runner

Sports women apparel” and this popped up:

So it seems that Roadrunnersports.com just want to look presentable for the SEPR,

but if you dig deeper into the pages, it has that complicated code in the URL.


The reason for me giving EMS.com a 4 is because they need to do some major

URL reconstruction. I understand it may take some time to restructure the URL, but

it could help Google and the user in ways that could increase EMS.com SERP

rankings. It doesn’t have to be super simple, but just recoding the URL could make

all the difference in the world. And they could even just start with the category

pages and eventually work their way through the product-level pages. And if they

cant do that, then at least put a keyword that’s used in the category page in the URL.

Mobile (Am):


Explanation:

I went to EMS.com on my iPhone to see if the site was mobile compatible and

it was. I first knew it was mobile compatible because in the URL it had “m.ems.com”.

Everything was similar to the desktop site, but I did notice that on the mobile site

the header colors were inverted. The mobile site slideshow was automatic just like

the desktop with just a few words cut out. They didn’t have the feature items

displayed on the mobile site like on desktop, only just the navigation. I noticed on

the mobile version that it was responsive to the phones layout. If I turned my phone

sideways it would respond by rotating it to a landscape setting. Since there was a

mobile version, I checked to see if they had an app. Their app wasn’t about the

store/retail, but it was dedicated to local Eastern Mountain Sports climbing schools.

The app includes “special offers, class schedule, class locations, activity location, and

maps”. I also have an iPad and I was curious to see if it was tablet compatible and

unfortunately it was not. On the iPad, it is just like the desktop but only smaller.

Which means users would manually have to increase the size on their tablet. I then

went back to the desktop and checked to see if EMS.com was responsive. The site

was not responsive, but if it were, it would probably slow down the load time more

than it is. On another hand, that would be good user experience.

For Roadrunnersports.com I see that their desktop version is not a

responsive site. As far as the mobile version it is not compatibly with mobile phones.

Everything is the same but in a miniature size. This could be a real pain for someone

with bad eye sight. Customers are better off using the desktop version, if they would

like to view this site. Just to be sure I checked to see if it was tablet compatible and it

was not. I figured Roadrunnersports.com wasn’t tablet compatible since mobile

users are more common than tablet users. And just like EMS.com I was curious to

see if Roadrunnersports.com had an app for their site and they did not.

Recommendation for Improvements:

EMS.com scored well for mobile capability. The main recommendation I have

is to make the site tablet compatible. Technology is getting more advanced with

each passing year and EMS.com needs to advance with it, just to stay on top of their

game. I would also like to suggest making EMS.com a responsive page, its an extra

step but a necessary one to for good user experience. My last recommendation

would be to add an app specifically for the EMS.com store, its great that they have an

app for their climbing school, but for regular shoppers at Eastern Mountain Sports

an app would be very convenient for them and maybe it could eventually increase

traffic.

VI. Links (Ln, Lq):

Link Number (Ln)

EMS.com No. of Referring Domains: 4,822

RoadRunnerSports.com No. of Referring Domains: 4,323

Link Quality (Lq):

EMS.com No. of Referring Domains: 7

RoadRunnerSports.com No. of Referring Domains: 5

Explanation:

For EMS.com they have a number of quality links. They have 52 educational

referring domains and 7 governmental. As far as backlinks, MountWashington.org

was number one on the list. This is an organizational site and although it’s not a high

quality link, its still trust worthy. I searched the site and MountWashington.org has a

partnership with EMS.com. Next on the list was Chacos.com. This site is an e-

commerce site, that’s similar to EMS.com. The trust flow of Chacos.com is 55, while

Mountwashington.org has a trust flow of 65. The third site is EbayEnterprise.com,

who EMS.com is a client of. The last two sites are sites that are EMS.com also

partners with. EMS.com sell these sites product. Roadrunnersports.com has 4,323

referring Domains, 31 of those are educational and 4 are governmental. The #1 URL

in the backlinks list was UlmanFund.org, a cancer awareness organizational site.

Roadrunnersports.com is one of their many sponsors. They have a trust flow of 47.

The second site on the list was limelight.com/showcase. Its not a high quality site at

all, in fact it had the least amount of trust flow with 44. So from my observations it

seems EMS.com has better quality links just from the number of referring domains

and a larger number in educational and governmental sites. Also not mention they

had a higher trust flow with their URL backlinks.

VII. Keyword Performance on SERPs for Recommended Keywords

Ranking for Recommended Keywords on EMS.com

Keyword Google Bing Yahoo

GPS sports watch

No No No

Navigation watch

No No No

Hiking watch No No No

Ranking of Recommended Keywords on Roadrunnersports.com

Keyword Google Bing Yahoo

GPS sports watch

5 5 4

Navigation watch

No No No

Hiking watch No No No

I was kind of surprised at the results. For EMS.com I would have thought at least

one of those keyword phrases were high ranking especially “GPS sports watch” just

because EMS.com had an option for “GPS” in the sub-category. For

Roadrunnersports.com, “GPS sports watch” ranked #5 for Google & Bing and #4 for

Yahoo. As you can see the chart above, Yahoo.com ranked “GPS sports watch” before

Google or Bing. But my two chosen keywords were not. But like stated in the

beginning of this paper, popular keywords have more competition, which doesn’t

help increase the chances of EMS.com ranking higher.

VIII. Conclusions & Priority Recommendations:

EMS.com has a lot of good quality for website, but there are a few important

things they need to work on that could potentially increase their rankings in the

SERP. Starting with one of the most important things a website need to have in

order to be successful and that is high quality content. In the product-level page of

EMS.com there were some great descriptions of features and benefits, but there

should be periods at the end of each one of those sentences. Ems.com also has

unique content, which is a bonus to the site. It was good that this site had product

images and a product video, but I recommend that they have an actual size type

image next to the product just to give customers an idea on how big or small the

item is. For example they could have a wallet or another small object to compare the

watch size to. Another important key factor to increase rankings is the choice of

keywords. Although “GPS sports watch” ranked higher than my two chosen

keywords, it's not necessarily a bad thing. Like stated several times before, the more

popular a keyword phrase is, the more competition, and the more competition, the

harder it will be to increase the SERP ranking. So my recommendation is to play

around with those keywords and also use the keywords I didn't mention such as

"Garmin sports watch" or Nike sports watch". Title tag is another issue EMS.com has

that could EASILY be corrected. The first mistake that EMS.com made was putting

"search results" in the title tag instead of putting a keyword phrase in their product

page title tag. This is one minor change that could make all the difference in the

world. And when that mistake is corrected the keyword phrase should come first

instead of behind "Eastern Mountain Sports". That simple mistake could be the

reason EMS.com SERP is ranking low. One of the last important “+3” of the SEO

periodic table is the quality of links. EMS.com has some good quality links, but they

should consider partnering up with one the companies that's top brand such as

Garmin or any other top brand company. Even though I didn't see any low quality

links, EMS.com should do a thorough cleaning of unnecessary referral links just to

be sure. As far as social shares & social reputation, EMS.com didn't do as well as they

could have especially compared to the competition. Although EMS.com has a great

number of followers on Facebook and Twitter they were less popular than

Roadruneersports.com. So I would suggest possibly buying a few ads on Facebook

just help increase traffic to their page. For twitter I would suggest following more

supporters of EMS.com that way they could get more retweets and favorites and

that could eventually increase followers and traffic to the twitter account. And also

participate in more social trends. Another improvement I would make is to be more

active with Google Plus because the page looks neglected. And once EMS.com Google

plus account is thriving, the Google Plus symbol could be added to the rest of the

social media wedges that's on EMS.com. One more recommendation I have as far as

social media, is possibly add Sharlines when sharing content. That makes the

product a little bit more attractive when someone sees it on his or her social media

post. Other minor improvements I would make is first add a comment section to the

user's review. The more engaged the customers are the better it is for the site. As far

as the URL, there are some much-needed improvements that need to be made.

Instead of having those complex looking numbers & letters, they should simply

replace it with whatever is the placement of their page. For example instead of

having "Ems.com/home/index.jsp" they could simply put "EMS.com" or for the

category page, instead of having Ems.com/family/index.jsp?categoryId=3705267”,

it should be “Ems.com/camphike/sleepingbags”. One more improvement I would

like to add that’s important, is making EMS.com tablet compatible. Like stated

before, technology is evolving like never before, so making it tablet compatible will

put EMS.com in the middle of all the action. EMS.com is a great website, but just

improve on some of these things and there is chance they could rank higher than

their competition, Roadrunnersports.com, or any other competing site.

sep paper #2

Documents

nike watch gps

gps sport watch

garmin sports watch

watch product page

gps sports watch2

garmin hiking gps

popular keyword phrase

specific keyword phrases