eastern moutian sports seo analysis- carlton wilcoxson

8/10/2019 Eastern Moutian Sports SEO Analysis- Carlton Wilcoxson

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SEO Analysis &Recommendations for Eastern Mountain Sports GPS Watches

Carlton Wilcoxson

I. Keyword Research

a.

The 3 keywords/phrases I think will drive the most traffic:

1. GPS Sports Watch

2. GPS Running Watch

3. Fitness tracker Band

b. Explanation of my choices:

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 the client wants to be proactive in the latest “sport

watch” technology. This is a good place to start for I have an idea of product categories and

who may be search for these products. As shown above in the in blue, GPS sports watch

does have a following to which people do search but it is starting to decline.

2. From studying the website I found an ongoing trend on their products when finding “GPS

Sports Watch” in their navigation. Almost every product mentioned something about sports



but more specifically about running. (See examples below) I thought this was a great insight

to the consumer and what they may be searching for. Decided to use the short-tail phrase

“GPS Running Watch” to see how it compares with “GPS sports watch”. I found that it

acquires more searches than “GPS Sports Watch” which is shown in the red on the graph

above. This proves that consumer of this category of product want simple search term that

are related to their activity with the product.

3. “Fitness Tracker Band” required some research. Both terms above I think will work great

for they have provide consistent results. I wanted to find an SEO term that would be on the

on the rise in the future as well as provide a clear understanding of the product. I believe

“Fitness Tracker Band” does that. When searching the term you find some of the same

products and with all the same feature of the “GPS Sport Watch” results. Everything from

location, distance tracking, heart rate, time splits, and weather can be found in both

product results. Also, according to the google trend graph above, it has become a really

popular term as of late. I really advocate that this term is utilized when making SEO

decisions.



II. Current Traffic

EMS.com Monthly Unique Visitors: 163.6k visitors

RoadRunnerSports.com Monthly Unique Visitors: 201k visitors

Analysis: According to Quantcast.com, Roadrunnersports.com is receiving more unique visitors

than EMS.com. Not only are they drawing in more visitors they are but Quantcast.com shows

Roadrunnersports.com having an upward trend of visitors over a 6 month period compared to

EMS.com which can be seen as “hilly” with plenty of ups and downs. This gives more proof that

EMS.com really need to focus on its SEO to gain traffic.

III. Content Analysis: Quality

a. Overall Quality (Cq [quality],Vt [thin], Va [ads])

EMS.com Score: 7 out of 10

RoadRunnerSports.com Score: 5 out 10

Analysis: When it comes to providing quality content RoadRunnerSports.com is way

behind of EMS.com. RoadRunnersports.com does a lot of things wrong. For one their

content is not original. Accord to the text search tool plagium.com, two separate

websites were found having a 100% similar product content text with another 6

websites having about 10% of the same content as well. When compared, EMS.com has

8 website that have similar content text but none over 15%. Furthermore,

RoadrunnerSports.com has ads in the corner of their



product pages for gift cards which is a violation according to the “Periodic Table of SEO

Success Factors”.

Recommendation for improvements: EMS.com can learn some lessons from

RoadRunnerSports.com. For instance, I liked how RoadRunnerSports.com highlighted features

with easy to read built that relate to certain activity for the product description. I bring this up

for EMS.com has a habit of writing boring and mundane product bullet point with no special

feature sticking out. In today’s world, having text that user can skim and hold their interest is

easily is very important. Another thing that bothered me was the lack of consistency in bullet

punctuation. Some bullet points have punctuation while most don’t. According to ”Periodic

Table of SEO Success Factors”, well written content is the most important factor in regards to

content. EMS.com could learn from RoadRunnerSports.com for they are consistent on all

punctuation as well.

b. Engaging Content (Ce):



EMS.com Score: 6 out 10


Analysis: Both sites have similar page views and daily time on site. EMS.com has 4.6

pageviews and 3:30 time on site compared to RoadRunnerSports.com 4.55 pageviews

and 3:35 time on site. Each site has consumer reviews with rating systems. Each offers a

way for consumers share product overs social media. Although both sites offer a video

demo for product only select products actually has this service available.

Recommendation for improvements: EMS.com is doing the bare minimum in my

opinion. There are some product on their website that only have only one product

picture! Plus, RoadRunnerSports.com has more social media outlet on product pages;

extending to Pinterest and Google+. EMS.com has a great opportunity to surpass

RoadRunnerSports.com by provide tutorial videos for all their products. This can be

used as sharable content for bloggers and Youtube channel which could help promote

the content. EMS.com has video of some products demo using staff but why not

technology. Also, EMS.com could a special feature that draws user in. For example,

EMS.com can provide a feature that lets people update pictures of themselves can see

themselves with the product on. This would increase people time on the site and page

views for people would like to try on many product and test this feature out.

c. Social Signals (Sr, Ss)

EMS.com Score: 4 out 10


Analysis: When it comes to social media, RoadRunnerSports.com is way ahead of

EMS.com. For starters, RoadRunnerSports.com utilizes more social media outlets by

having a presence on Pinterest, Reddit, and even Vine. Even with more outlets to



manage, RoadRunnerSports.com manages to provide more content & posts than

EMS.com. For example on EMS.com posts tweets a few times a week, whereas

RoadRunnerSports.com has posts a few times a day. When it come to the numbers the

EMS.com is on the losing end. According to the Wildfire tool made by Google, EMS has

1,388 Google+ followers and RoadRunnersports.com has 1,432 followers. On Facebook

EMS.com has 49,160 “likes” compared to RoadRunnerSports.com’s 99,600 “likes”. On

Facebook check-in feature, 27 people have shared that they were at EMS compared to

5,216 check-ins.



Recommendation for improvements: EMS.com needs to be more proactive in order to

boost their reputation. Although RoadRunnerSports.com does a good job of providing

post and content via social media, RoadRunnersport.com posts do not facilitate

interaction among followers. This can provide opportunity. By having caption contests,

meme generators, and in-store social media promotions, you can create more posts and

have better interactions with consumers than the competition. I think this is a better

alternative than trying to RoadRunnerSports.com at their own game by match the

number of social media outlets as them.

IV. Current Keyword Location Analysis

a. Title tags

EMS.com Products Page: <title>Watches - Watches & Bands - Eastern Mountain

Sports</title>

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

Free Shipping!</title>

Explanation: When comparing title tags I wanted to use the same method for find

the product page title tags. I used the navigation bar to see how the both sites were

labeling their products in the code. I think this is important for when Googling

products, the head SERPs are usually landing pages and not another website’s SERPs

Meaning that Google would not take a user to another website search page results

when googling products or topics. By using the navigation I can see the potential

landing page that google may take a user through its SERPs.

Recommendations for improvements: EMS.com title tags repeats the very generic

word “watches” twice. There are countless sites who uses and sells watches so

EMS.com is doing itself a disservice with such a generic word. I recommend using



more specific terms like “Running Watches & Fitness Bands” or adding phrase like

“Ships Immediately” or “Affordable” to provide value. By doing this EMS.com can

boost it’s ranking by having more unique titles that people may search for.

b. Description meta tag

EMS.com Product Page: <meta name="description" content="Buy Watches at

Eastern Mountain Sports where you will 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: The meta tags are really important for it shows the a description of the

land page for SERP. This is important for it can provide needed context when a user

is trying to find the right search result to click on. I also find it interesting that

EMS.com’s meta tag has very little to do with the product category when product



landing pages can have product specific meta tags. This can cause Google to

overlook a lot of category pages by having multiple pages with generic meta tags.

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ons for improvements: EMS.com is missing a prime opportunity to provide context

and/or services/product they have to offer by having a generic meta tag. EMS.com

needs to give each product category landing page a specific meta tag that promote

the product and its use. An example would be, “Whether biking, running, or

training, Eastern Mountain Sports is the place to enhance your fitness with the latest

in watches includes GPS, Fitness bands, and HRM technology”.



c. IMG names and ALT text

<img src="http://ems.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pEMS1-

17014439t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="GARMIN Forerunner 620 Bundle with

HRM, Black/Blue - Eastern Mountain Sports" /></a>


17014442t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="GARMIN Forerunner 220 Bundle with

HRM, Black/Red - Eastern Mountain Sports" /></a>


15568416t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="SUUNTO Ambit2, Sapphire - Eastern

Mountain Sports" /></a>


9101964t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="GARMIN Forerunner 210 with HRM -

Eastern Mountain Sports" /></a>


9101964t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="GARMIN Forerunner 210 with HRM -





16834087t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="TOMTOM Runner GPS Watch, Pink -



13259533t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="MAGELLAN Switch Up Watch with

HRM - Eastern Mountain Sports" /></a>


19784680t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="SUUNTO Ambit3 Peak GPS Watch,

Sapphire - Eastern Mountain Sports" /></a>


19840539t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="SUUNTO Ambit3 Peak with HRM -



15568426t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="SUUNTO Ambit2 Watch, Black -



15568417t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="SUUNTO Ambit2 Watch, Silver -





14168059t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="GARMIN Fenix Watch - Eastern

Mountain Sports" /></a>


15773843t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="POLAR RC3 Heart Rate Monitor,

Red/Orange - Eastern Mountain Sports" /></a>


15773842t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="POLAR RC3 GPS Heart Rate Monitor,

Black - Eastern Mountain Sports" /></a>


18606465t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="TOMTOM Multi-Sport Cardio GPS

Watch - Eastern Mountain Sports" /></a>


18429897t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="SUUNTO Ambit2 R with HRM, White -



13259534t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="MAGELLAN Switch Watch with HRM -





16834088t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="TOMTOM Multi-Sport GPS Watch

with HRM - Eastern Mountain Sports" /></a>


18495640t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="SUUNTO Ambit2 R Watch, Black -



19039077t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="GARMIN Forerunner 15 Watch with

HRM - Eastern Mountain Sports" /></a>


19039074t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="GARMIN Forerunner 15 Watch with

HRM, Blue/Black - Eastern Mountain Sports" /></a>


19039073t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="GARMIN Forerunner 15 Watch,

Black/Green - Eastern Mountain Sports" /></a>


19039071t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="GARMIN Forerunner 15 Watch,

Black/Blue - Eastern Mountain Sports" /></a>




16834086t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="TOMTOM Runner GPS Watch, Grey -


Explanation: After looking through the alt text and image file. I found that some of

the image names don’t relate to the products or use English. I know when going

over Google’s best SEO practices, that google like to crawl images that have names it

can read. Since google can’t see images having a labeling system for each product

image can give google a sense of what the content on the webpage is. Which can

allow for better ranking for SERPs and even image SERPs.

Recommendation: EMS.com should label it’s image names to match or relate to the

alt text. By doing this google can understand what is being shown and crawl those

image SERPs as well.

V. Architecture

a. Speed

EMS.com Score: 6.454s

RoadRunnerSport.com Score: 7.364s

Explanation: When comparing the websites for speed, I found that EMS.com was the faster but

it still isn’t fast enough. Load times bust be less than 3.5 seconds in order to hold the average

user’s attention. EMS.com and RoadRunnerSports.com suffer from separate problems.

EMS.com load time largely hinder by it’s JavaScript process and images making up over 70% of

the total load time.



Recommendation for improvements: According to Google Developer these problems can be

fixed by minify the JavaScript. Further image can be formatted and compressed in order to cut

down on load time. It is important for EMS.com to cut down its process and client renderings

for EMS.com doesn’t want to lose consumer just because of slow load times.

b. URLs


RoadRunnerSports.com Score: 9 out of 10

Explanation: EMS.com does not follow Google’s best practice for SEO. EMS.com lacks a simple

easy to read URL that affirms what the users are looking at. In EMS.com’s URL I find the same

confusion language as the side navigation. Instead of pages being simply named after a

selected feature of a product, it is named after the decision by user to find the product. If you

look at the image below you can see how the link “Yes” leads to one page and “No” lead to

another page with the URL reflecting the decision.



Recommendation for improvements: Fix the URL issue by actually having simple easy to read URLs

URL should not reflect the background processes of the webpage. The URL are currently confusion and

doesn’t provide an easy to read way of know what page the user is on. This is clunky feature does not

hurt the UX of this site. URLs must be changed for each page of the website.

c. Mobile


RoadRunnerSport.com Score: 0 out of 10



Explanation: Neither website offers a responsive design but EMS.com does offer a mobile

version for smart phones. This is something that RoadRunnerSports.com does not offer. It not

a secret that Google like responsive design from websites so having a mobile website may hurt

EMS.com. Also, EMS.com has to maintain and update the mobile website which can cause

frustration.

Recommendation for improvements: I recommend EMS.com become proactive in responsive

design so that the site can have one URL for desktop & mobile devices. This is allow the Web

Publisher to focus on other web developments rather than maintain two different sites.

Moreover, Google likes responsive design and will pick up on the improvements through

crawling of the site.

VI. Links

a. Link Number

EMS.com No. of Referring Domains: 4,799



RoadRunnerSports.com: 4,324

b. Link Quality

EMS.com No. of Referring Domains: 8 out of 10

RoadRunnerSports.com No. of Referring Domains: 6 out 10

Explanation: EMS.com has a higher quality of links by having more restricted domains as

referring domains. This means that high quality sites such as universities, government

organization, and schools are sharing and using EMS.com’s content.

VII. Keyword Performance on SERPs for Recommended Keywords

Ranking of recommended Keywords on EMS.com

Keyword Google Bing Yahoo!

GPS Running Watch NO NO NO

Fitness Tracker Band NO NO NO

Ranking of Recommended Keywords on RoadRunnerSports.com

Keyword Google Bing Yahoo!

GPS Running Watch 11 NO NO

Fitness Tracker Band NO NO NO

Explanation: Theirs is a great opportunity to offer words that haven’t been used by the

competition. Although, RoadRunnerSports.com ranks, it does not rank in the top 10 on Google for “GPS

Running Watch” Once the site has been optimized, EMS.com can drive traffic from all 3 Search Engines

without competing with RoadRunnerSports.com over similar terms.



VIII.

Conclusion & Priority Recommendations

EMS.com has a lot of work to do if it wants to rank in Google’s top 10. I recommend start with the

on-the-page factors first. Quality of content is huge factor when Google is crawling websites, so I

suggest that EMS.com hire a copywriter to rewrite original and unique copy for product

descriptions. Next, EMS.com should focus on less generic title tags because title tags are a big

factor in Google SERP ranking. For off-the-page areas of improvement, EMS.com need to establish

itself as an Authority in online sport goods and Apparel. I think this can be achieved by providing

more engaging and useful content. For example, product can undergo video demo in the outdoor

environment rather than a studio so consumers can gain insight and spend more time the page by

sharing, linking and promoting your videos.

Other factors that EMS.com need to work on is reputation. EMS.com does not gain its optimal

popularity by not pushing its content through social media on a daily basis. This can be a slow

process but I recommend hiring a social media team who will work to gain impressions and engage

with people. Reputation is important to Google, for it has a habit of listing well known site with

established brands. Also, EMS.com need to focus on creating engaging feature that keeps user on

the site longer. I recommend a feature that would allow user to upload a picture of themselves

with the product being worn. Website’s for sunglasses do offer this service to consumers on for

their product. I suspect the same can be done for watches. Lastly, update content. Google likes

webpage that provide new content since its crawls website so often. EMS.com should have an

ongoing blog and staff dedicated to providing a new content that can featured on the website.

With a combination of the factors stated above and new keywords to optimize around, I feel that

EMS.com can move in rank on Google and drive a lot of traffic to the website.

eastern moutian sports seo analysis- carlton wilcoxson

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