SEO Audit of Gemstone Designs
Background for SEO Audit
Gemstonedesignsforyou.com is a fairly new web site and online store. The domain name was first registered in February 2008 and the site launched last August, just 9 months before this review.
We’re going to ‘look under the hood’ to understand what’s working — and what’s not working! — for Gemstone Designs in a minute.
But first, let’s review some key performance indicators for Gemstone Designs before we attempt to identify the root causes. This will help to focus our investigation and prioritize optimization efforts.
Results To Date
- Indexation — Google has indexed 111 pages; Yahoo 0 (zero), and MS Live Search 87 pages. (Gemstone Designs should add an XML sitemap to help search engines index the dynamic store pages.)
- Keyword Rankings — the site does not appear in top search engine results pages (SERPs) at Google, Yahoo, or MS Live Search for keywords used on the site.
- Site Visitors — log reports show fewer than 9 visitors per day, on average, since the site was launched.
- Sales — the site uses a Miva Merchant shopping cart, but is not converting site visitors into buyers so far.
As you can see from these key measures, there appears to be a problem, and further, the problem starts near the top of the sales funnel.
While 2-of-3 major search engines have indexed a large percentage of Gemstone Design’s web pages, potential customers aren’t finding the web site since it isn’t showing up in search results for keywords like “gemstone jewelry.”
It’s no surprise, then, that prospective customers aren’t discovering Gemstone Designs in organic search results, aren’t visiting the site, and aren’t purchasing the products!
SEO Inputs
So where, specifically, does this site’s optimization efforts come up short? While marketing2oh’s SEO audit found many possible culprits, let’s review some of the biggest opportunities and the corresponding actions that should be taken.
Keyword Selection
Looking at Gemstone Design’s home page, a keyword density analysis shows these words are being used to describe the site to site visitors and search engines:
- gemstone designs — 5.9% density, with 5 repeats (including page title)
- gemstone — 4.1% density, with 7 repeats (including title and alt tag)
- designs — 2.9% density, with 5 repeats (including title)
- welcome — 2.3% density, with 4 repeats (including title)
- jewelry — 1.8% density, with 3 repeats
Keyword research suggests that Gemstone Designs should refine their keyword usage, giving greater weight to [jewelry]; adding the phrase [semi-precious]; and using the word [stone] more often than [gemstone]. Combining them provides a good descriptive phrase — semi-precious stone jewelry — a phrase that’s frequently searched for and isn’t as competitive as similar phrases using the word [gemstone].
Inbound Links
Checking for links to Gemstone Design’s home page and site, we discover a big problem! As in…there aren’t any!
This is a critical area in need of improvement; search engines not only use links to ‘discover’ and index web site pages, they also use the number and type of inbound links as an important indicator of how important a page or web site is.
Other than its unique jewelry, Gemstone Designs doesn’t offer link-worthy content on their web site. They should consider adding a blog or newsletter as a first step toward continuously offering fresh, keyword rich, link-worthy content!
On-Page Elements
We’ve just seen that Gemstone Designs uses keywords in text, page titles, and alt tags. But Gemstone Designs can do a better job of incorporating those keywords on its home page and product category pages, especially for the following on-page elements:
- title tags — page titles should include use more keywords (especially product category pages).
- headings — keyword-rich H1 and H2 headings should be added to the home and product category pages.
- text — descriptive text of at least 250 words, with appropriate keywords, should be added to product category pages.
- meta tags — although they are now given little, if any, weight by the largest search engines, many other search engines still use the page’s ‘description meta tag’ and ‘keywords meta tag’ and they should be added to the home and product category pages.
Duplicate Content
Because Gemstone Designs’ home page can be reached via 4 different URLs (gemstonedesignsforyou.com/; www.gemstonedesignsforyou.com/; gemstonedesignsforyou.com/index.html; and www.gemstonedesignsforyou.com/index.html), the potential exists for search engines to index this page multiple times.
When this it occurs, it lessens the ability of any one version to rank well in organic search engine results. Permanent 301 redirects or the new rel=”canonical’ tag should be used to avoid duplicate pages.
Page Weight
Gemstone Designs is in pretty good shape when it comes to the page load times for most page elements — images, CSS files, scripts and HTML file. The home page takes an average amount of time to load.
Except for the background image. Unfortunately, the background image measures 2,000 x 2,000 pixels, and weighs in at over 877 kilobytes — almost 90 percent of the home page’s total weight! Using a 56Kbps modem, it’s estimated download time would be over 175 seconds.
It’s a shame, since the background image, along with the gorgeous product images, give the site an attractive and distinctive look. Gemstone Designs should try to create a much smaller, tiling version (repeating pattern across and down the page) or eliminate this background image altogether.
Summary
Although the unique jewelry and great product photography invite potential customers in, Gemstone Designs is just getting started with search engine optimization efforts to reach potential customers. By focusing on building link-worthy content, adding targeted keywords, and improving on-page elements like title tags and headings, Gemstone Designs will be on its way to getting the love it deserves from search engines!
SEO Report Card for Gemstone Designs
- Keyword Selection: C
- Inbound Links: F
- On-Page Elements: C
- Duplicate Content: D
- Page Weight: D
OVERALL GPA: D
Neha Pahuja responds:
Posted: August 27th, 2010 at 4:30 am →
this was realy helpful….