Headline: 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 watch
2. Garmin Forerunner
3. Suunto Core
b. Explanation of my choices:

Garmin Forerunner

Keyword
Google Bing Yahoo!
GPS sports No
No
No
Suunto Core
watch
sports watchBing Yahoo!
Garmin
No
No
No GPS Google
Keyword
Forerunner
GPS sportsKeyword
No
No
GoogleNo Bing Yahoo!
Suunto
12
No
watchNo GPS sports No
No
No
Core
Garmin
No
No
No
Above is a screenshot of my three keywords plugged
into Google
Trends.
watch
Forerunner
Garmin
No
No
No
1. GPS sports watch:
Suunto Forerunner
12
No
No
Core
SuuntoSports (EMS),
12
No to drive
No
This is the keyword given to me by the client. Eastern Mountain
wants
Core
more traffic to their GPS sport watches page, and ultimately wants this keyword to be optimized so the
page will rank higher in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). While this keyword is the most relevant to
the page, this particular keyword is not searched very often. According to Google, this keyword is
searched, on average, 1,000 times per month. As the above screenshot depicts, this is a low number.
2. Garmin Forerunner

Out of the three keywords I choose, Garmin Forerunner is the most popular in terms of
average monthly searches. In the Google trends screenshot, it ranks significantly higher than the other
two.

This screenshot shows how the different keywords appear in terms of average monthly
searches. This data was taken from Googles Keyword Planner. Garmin forerunner has, on average,
74,000 monthly searches. The number is so high because of the popularity of Garmins watches. The
Forerunner line of Garmin watches is Garmins signature GPS line, and is one of the most popular GPS
watches on the market. EMS.com has ten Garmin GPS watches on the GPS watch page. Since most of
the GPS watch traffic is dedicated to the Forerunner line from Garmin, it would make sense that
EMS.com would try and direct visitors to their site with this keyword since they have the Forerunner line
for sale.

Garmin Forerunner

Keyword
Google Bing Yahoo!
GPS
watch
GPS sports No
NosportsNo
watch
Keyword
Garmin
No
No
No Google Bing Yahoo!
GPS sports No
No
No
Forerunner
watch

It was also interesting to note that the keyword Garmin Forerunner ranked higher than gps
watch. One would think that gps watch is pretty generic and would cover every brand and kind of GPS
watch that users might search for. However as shown in the above screenshot, this one particular line of
watches, the forerunner, still ranked higher. This shows the popularity of the Garmin Forerunner and
hence the reason I choose this keyword for EMS.com
3. Suunto Core
Suunto is a company. Core is the line of GPS watches. Much like the Forerunner line, the Core
line is a popular line of GPS watches, or so ems.com makes it seem. There are 24 Suunto watches
featured with the other GPS watches on Eastern Mountain Sports category pages, but after doing some
research, the Suunto watches dont actually have GPS technology in them. They are still advanced sports
watches that cost the same pretty penny as normal GPS watches; they just dont have the GPS aspect
about them. Ems.com, oddly enough, still features them on the category page. Because of this reason, I
am still keeping Suunto Core as a keyword to optimize. These are watches that other sites selling GPS
Watches may not feature, so if ems.com can drive traffic to their watches page via a keyword that gets a
good amount of searches, the resulting visitors will also see the wide variety of GPS watches esm.com
offers.

Shown above is a Google Trends graph of Suunto Core. Over time the keyword has stayed
relatively high in searches, and is forecasted to continue to stay fairly popular. I ultimately choose the
keyword Suunto Core because it was fairly popular, and was well represented on ems.com. Also, since
I had already choose Garmin forerunner, choosing Suunto Core gave me two popular brands of
watches that users may search for that could ultimately bring them to see the collection of GPS watches
that were available at ems.com.
ll.

Current Traffic

EMS.com Monthly Unique Visitors: [243,125]

RoadRunnerSports.com Monthly Unique Visitors: [371,773]
Analysis:
Ems.com

Roadrunnersports.com

The traffic information for both sites was found on compete.com. In the current month,
roadrunnersports.com has the advantage over ems.com. In fact, roadrunnersports.coms lowest unique
visitor point in the last year was 267,346 unique visitors. That is still higher than a lot of months for
ems.com. Both sites have seen a steady increase over the spring summer months, and then a decline as
September hit. Altogether, roadrunnersports.com is getting more traffic than ems.com.
lll. Content Analysis: Quality
a. Overall Quality (Cq, Vt, Va)
EMS.com Score: 3
RoadRunnerSports.com Score: 8
Analysis:

Compared to roadrunnersports.com, ems.com does not offer a high level of quality content or
value. The content at ems.com is thin, which is a violation according to Google.

The above screenshot shows the category page at ems.com for GPS watches. As a user,
without being told where you are, it would be pretty hard to figure you were on the GPS watches
page. Besides the small text next to the search bar, there arent any words that would reveal where the
user currently is. Now, this is the case because I found this category page by way of the search tool. Now
if you use the navigation to find watches, you can get to a page titled Watches and Bands. This helps a
little bit, but if ems.com is trying to drive traffic to GPS watches, these words arent working. Conversely,
roadrunnersports.com has a category page labeled GPS Watches. This page is shown below.

As highlighted above, the category page has GPS Watches as a title for the page. This simple
tactic works well and tells users they are in the exact place they were looking for. Ems.com leaves the
users guessing.
Another aspect Google looks at for the quality of a site it to see if customers would be
comfortable giving their credit card information to the site. For this analysis we will look at the product
page for a Garmin Forerunner GPS watch on both sites.
Roadrunnersports.com

Ems.com

Right away my eye is drawn to the text under the add to cart box. 100% Awesomeness, FREE
shipping, and Promise immediately gives me a little more peace of mind to purchase something from
this site. Ems.com, however, doesnt show any sort of guarantee or sign of the company wanting to be
the best. Another element directly related to this is the customer reviews. Roadrunnersports.com has at
least one review, and ems.com doesnt. Customer reviews show real people giving real opinions about a
product. They also allow for other, unique text, to appear on your page. Google is looking for your
content to be unique, and customer reviews are a sure fire way to get unique content on your page.
Now ems.com has customer reviews for other watches, so they at least are on the right track.

Still looking at the comparison of the product level pages at the respective sites, the description
title for each of the pages are pretty similar, except for the fact that roadrunnersports.com have GPS
in the title. This watch is a GPS watch, so not having GPS in the description hurts ems.com.
Another aspect Google looks at in regard to quality content is if the website is pushing out fresh
content to their users. This isnt exactly easy with ems.com being a commerce site, but its important to
look at how they are going about fresh content. When analyzing ems.com, it was hard to find any
evidence of fresh content whatsoever. Roadrunnersports.com, on the other hand, found little ways to
show their content was fresh.

By simply having the word new on products at the top of their category page,
roadrunnersports.com shows their content is being updated.

In addition, in the drop down sort menu for roadrunnersports.coms category page for GPS
Watches, the menu allows the user to see whats new. Something like this isnt present on ems.com.

Lastly, when looking at quality of the site, the value the site gives to its users is very important.
One way ems.com adds value to the GPS Watches page is by way of a chat pop-up. This pop-up asks
the views if they need any assistance while they are on the site. However, in the whole time I was
studying the site, this only popped up once. Roadrunnersports.com has a similar help pop-up,
however, it pops up much more frequently. Roadrunnersports.com also gives value to both the category
and product level pages by way of related searches.

The two screenshots above show what users see on the product level and category pages for
GPS watches. These words are all links that the user can click on to navigate to content related to the
page they are currently viewing. Simple enough. This technique allows users to see other areas related
to GPS watches and continue moving around the site. A hidden reason may also be to put some more
keywords on the page. I can see most of these related searches being pretty popular keywords.
Overall, ems.com ultimately struggles with their content being thin, and not answering
questions for their site users. In this next section, Ill cover how ems.com can go about fixing some of
these quality content issues.

Recommendation for improvements:

First and foremost, if ems.com wants to drive traffic to their GPS Watches page, they need to
label it as such. Even when you do a search for GPS watches, 61 results show up. Out of those 61, only
24 are actual GPS watches. While this may be a database issue, ems.com can start to improve this
confusion by having a better labeling system. They could either have the term GPS in the description
of all of the watches that feature GPS, or take a similar approach to roadrunnersports.com.

The above screenshot shows what users see when they search for watches. Top Running
Watches is clearly identified, and GPS/HRM is a category that users can choose from. This approach is
simple and shows users where they are. This leads to quality content that ems.com could benefit from.
Ems.com also struggles with giving value to their customers. Unlike roadrunnersports.com,
there arent any words like free shipping or 100% awesomeness that connect with the user. Since
ems.com doesnt offer the same free shipping, they can find value in other arenas, one of which would
be giving the users a chance to virtually try on watches before they buy them. Watches fall under the
apparel category, and just with clothes, shoes, or glasses, individuals most likely want to try on a watch
to see how it fits before they make the plunge on an expensive item. There are different companies like
TryLive and Tissot that create plugins for your site that will allow users to virtually try on watches. If
ems.com can make its customers more likely to give their credit cards to ems.com, Google will be more
likely to rate the site higher in SERPs.

In regards to creating content that answers questions for users, ems.com can start by providing
some fresh content to their category page. One way to start doing this would be by telling users that
they care about fresh content. This can be as simple as showing new or upcoming watches on the top of
the category page. When the new watch is clicked on and the product level page appears, ems.com
then can use this as an opportunity to write a well-written, unique description that users think is tailored
directly to them. Instead of simply writing manufacturer composed specs and product overview,
ems.com can write in a conversational manner and really tune into the customer service spectrum. This
fresh and unique content will go over well with Google. Another way ems.com can create fresh content
and answer some questions would be to add different articles about GPS Watches and post them on
their category page. One article could be a hands-on review of a particular watch. Another could be a
unique article dedicated to exactly what a GPS watch is. When users come to ems.coms page, these
articles or forums could answer simple questions users may have, without they needing to leave the
page.
b. Engaging Content (Ce):
EMS.com Score: 7
RoadRunnerSports.com Score: 8
Analysis:
To start looking whether these two sites are providing engaging content, I decided to first look
at some data from Alexa.com.
Ems.com

Roadrunnersports.com

As shown above, the two sites are relatively similar in the category of engagement of visitors.
The bounce rates are very even, and the daily time of site is currently identical. Since the average
bounce rate is 50%, both sites are doing a nice job of keeping users on their site for at least two pages.
Where the two sites start to differ is how they got to the current point. Roadrunnersports.com has
dropped in two of the categories while ems.com has increased by twenty-seven and even thirty-seven
percent! That is a significant improvement ems.com has made over the previous three months. For the
most part, it seems that both sites are doing a pretty good job of engaging visitors.
The next step to check for engaging content was to look for evidence on the two sites. Right
away on roadrunnersports.com, I noticed some of this evidence.

The screenshot on the left was a pop-up that appeared frequently as I was browsing around the
GPS Watch pages. The screenshot on the right is an image that appears towards the upper left hand part
of the screen. Also present is an icon that says Text Chat!. All three are ways that
roadrunnersports.com is attempting to connect with their visitors. These dont exactly deal with trying
on watches, but the presence of the icons still is important. This area is strong for
roadrunnersports.com, but very weak for ems.com. Browsing around on the category and product-level
pages, I found no evidence of ems.com trying to connect with its visitors in this manner.
Both sites feature on-the-page customer reviews for each of the watches. However, ems.com
only has a few watches with reviews, and the ones that have reviews only tend to have a few.
Roadrunnersports.com averages about 14 reviews per watch for the watches that have reviews. This is
another weak point for ems.com.

Lastly, both sites have social media plugins that allow users to share products via social
networks. Ems.com gives users the ability to like or share via facebook, tweet, or email a page. Clicking
on the respective icon opens a new tab for the user. Roadrunnersports.com allows users to share via
Facebook, Pinterest, Google Plus, and Twitter. Doing so opens a little window while staying on the same
page.
Recommendation for improvements:
The main piece that ems.com needs to work on to engage better with their visitors is to
encourage users to give customer reviews on the watches. One way this could be accomplished is
through a survey. When users are viewing watches, a little window could pop up asking users to rate the
watch and tell why. An incentive could offer a few dollars off the watch, or a coupon for a future
purchase.
Ems.com can also learn from roadrunnersports.com by adding some sort of related searches
box. As mentioned in the quality content section, these are essentially keywords that encourage users to
continue moving around the site. As long as ems.com doesnt try stuffing too many keywords into the
related searches box, this should also increase rankings SERPs because ems.com is trying to engage
users through suggesting other content on the site.
c. Social Signals (Sr, Ss):
EMS.com Score: 5
RoadRunnerSports.com Score: 6
Analysis:
To look at the quality of both sites social presence, I examined the sites social reputation on
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest. Lets start with Facebook.

Ems.com

Roadrunnersports.com

As shown from the above screenshots, roadrunnersports.com has a lot more total page likes
than ems.com. There is also a much higher number in the People Talking About This section. When
viewing the Facebook timeline for each site, Road Runner Sports also had a lot more quality posts.
Below is an example.

Instead of solely trying to promote products, Road Runner Sports posts content that will engage
their followers and hopefully generate discussion. Eastern Mountain Sports does a decent job with this
as well, but the numbers show that Road Runner Sports ultimately has a better presence on Facebook.
Moving on to Twitter, here is a screenshot of the two sites plugged into
Monitor.Wildfireapp.com, a site that compares social data.

This graph shows the comparison of the two sites in terms of Twitter Followers. Eastern
Mountain Sports is right around 12,000 while Road Runner Sports has 16,000. According to this graph,
Road Runner Sports starting to exponentially climb in followers during the summer of 2012, passed
Eastern Mountain Sports in the beginning of 2013, and has continued to grow since then. They currently
have over 21,00 tweets since they joined twitter in 2009. Eastern Mountain Sports, on the other hand,
started in 2008 and only has 6,575 total tweets. This low number of tweets is definitely a problem.
However, the quality of the posts are generally pretty suitable. Eastern Mountain Sports tweets special
deals, coupons, questions, links to their Instragram and YouTube pages, product reviews, and contests.
Since these tweets are valuable to establishing relations and sharing content over this social media
platform, Eastern Mountain Sports needs to increase the amount of people they follow. Currently they
are only following 1,373 people, compared to 8,155 at Road Runner Sports. This is a day a night
difference and could be a factor into why Road Runner Sports is more successful on twitter.
The next area that will be examined is presence on YouTube. Going through ems.coms YouTube
page, I was immediately drawn to the feature video that appears above the fold.

This video is entitled Staff Training at Eastern Mountain Sports. It is set to automatically play
to encourage users who visit the page to watch this video first. This two-minute video attempts to build
a connection and ultimately trust with the user. This is a good strategy for Eastern Mountain Sports.

They currently have 1,648 subscribers to their channel, compared to 308 for Road Runner Sports. A lot
of Road Runner Sports content is from a while ago, however Eastern Mountain Sports has a lot of
recently posted videos. Eastern Mountain Sports video views range from 100 to 76,000 for one of their
videos. Road Runner Sports doesnt have as many up to date videos, but they typically have views in the
thousands. Both sites struggle with not having many users rating or commenting on their videos.
Lastly we will look at Pinterest. Below is a screenshot that shows the numbers from both of the
sites.

As the screenshot shows, Eastern Mountain Sports has much more of a presence on Pinterest
than Road Runner Sports. For the type of commerce site that these two sites are, Pinterest may be the
least effective media platform to connect with users, however there still needs to be some sort of
presence and Eastern Mountain Sports is doing well.
After checking for ems.coms reputation (Sr), we will now look how well they are sharing their
content (Ss) on their site.

Ems.com share tools

Roadrunnersports.com share tools

Above show the approach both sites use to encourage users to share on the product level page
for a GPS watch. Right away I notice the design error on ems.coms Facebook Like button. It appears
that the number of page likes should be shown to the right of the like button, however it seems that
number is cut of. Granted, the number in this case is 0, but this still is a problem right away.
Roadrunnersports.com, on the other hand, goes for a simple approach of popular social media icons
appearing as small buttons under the main product photo. When you click, say the Facebook button,
you stay on the same page, however a new window dedicated to the post opens up.

This pop-up works well because it allows users to say what they want about the product, but
keeps the Road Runner Sports name and product in the post as well. The contraction of ems.com is
below.
Ems.com Facebook share tool

When users click on the Facebook share icon on ems.com, a totally new tab opens taking the
users to a new page. This already isnt the smartest decision because it is taking users away from the
page on ems.com. Next, this screen doesnt do a whole lot to help with the sharing process. The user
isnt given any previously written sharelines, the best they get is the company name. And whats with
the null word under Eastern Mountain Sports?
Both sites have their own respective ways of encouraging users to share content, but the only
true way to see how successful they are is to look at the data. In the previous (reputation) section I

covered some of the numerical statistics, now Ill use a site, Socialmention.com, to look at success in a
different light.

Ems.com

Roadrunnersports.com

Unlike monitor.wildfireapp.com I used earlier to compare how many likes, tweets, followers,
etc. a site had, socialmention.com scans all social media data across the web, and attempts to tell you
what people are saying about your site. In the upper left hand corner appears the tables that I have put
in screenshots above. Strength guesses the likelihood that the site is being talked about. Passion
essentially measures the percentage of people that have previously mentioned your site will mention it
again. Basically the higher the percentage, there is a lower amount of people mentioning something
about your site. Reach refers to how many unique authors are mentioning your site. To put it kindly,
both sites are struggling with their social media impact. Ems.com hasnt been directly mentioned in the
past twenty-five days, and only has one other unique author, besides themselves, saying something
about ems.com. Ems.com also has most of their mentions coming from their YouTube page, which
doesnt exactly create as much buzz in the social media arena as Facebook or Twitter. Ems.com has
some work to do in this category.

Recommendation for improvements:

The two main platforms ems.com needs to improve are Facebook and Twitter. The first way to
start moving in the right direction is to increase the quality of content that is posted on Facebook and
tweeted on Twitter. One thing Google really looks at in deciding how sites should rank on SERPs is how
well a site answers questions, and asks questions via social media. The content isnt bad, but can be
better in the area of generating questions that will hopefully produce engaging content. The next area
to improve, specifically on product level pages, is the way in which ems.com encourages users to share
content. Right now, ems.com isnt encouraging, but rather considering sharing a small detail in the
whole picture. The current share tools are designed poorly, and only have Facebook and Twitter as the
main ways to share content. In todays day and age, Google Plus and Pinterest definitely need to be
apart of your approach. The more platforms for users to share on will help increase the overall reach of
mentions. I would also like to see a link to Eastern Mountain Sports YouTube page because this is
currently their best social media arena. The way I would suggest to do this is to redesign the way the
social media icons look (Google wont be able to see the design, but if a design change increases users
sharing, Google will most definitely notice this). After the icons are designed and other social medias are
added, the next step would be to add sharelines right under the product image, before the description.
An example from the LA Times website is shown below.

These sharelines are previously written sentences that writers at the LA Times write so users can
simply hit the share button, and not even worry about what to write themselves. This allows the users
to share your content in a matter seconds, and get back to the page they were on, keeping engagement
throughout. Ems.com isnt writing new articles every day like the LA Times, but the concept is the same.
Someone at ems.com is given the job to write sharelines that apply to each particular product, and then
users can choose to either share on Facebook or Twitter in a quick an easy manner. This concept may
take more time getting started, but no doubt will pay off in the future.
lV.

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

a. Title tags
Ems.com Category Page: <title>Watches Watches & Bands Eastern Mountain
Sports</title>
RoadRunnerSports.com Category Page: <title>GPS Watches | Road Runner Sports Free
Shipping!</title>
Explanation:
Both of the pages chosen from ems.com and the competing site were chosen because they are
the specific category pages for the collection of GPS watches. If visitors want to see the different
selections each site has in the GPS watch category, the title tags for the pages above are what those
visitors will see. When looking at the quality of the title tags, Ill be using three best practices from
Google: 1. Does it accurately describe the pages content? 2. Are the unique title tags for each page? 3.
Are the title tags brief, but descriptive?
Starting with ems.coms title tag, it has the word watches in it. Thats a start, after all, GPS
watches are indeed watches. However, that is the peak for the quality of ems.coms title tag. The whole
point of optimizing the site is for the GPS aspect the watches bring. Ems.com isnt doing that. This also
plays into the fact that this particular title tag isnt very descriptive. Ems.com also struggles in terms of
how users to this particular GPS watch product page. The first way is through the navigation.

Users must follow navigation menus to find the watches and bands category, choose watches,
and then select GPS from the By Category menu. This is the official GPS Watches page and the one
that I am using for the title tag analysis. The other way to get to a category page is by way of the search
tool. When users search for GPS watches, they are taken to a page that looks like this one, except there
are few differences. For one, instead of the title being watches, its now search results. The title tag
has also changed to <title>Eastern Mountain Sports Search Results</title>. This title tag is almost
worthless, and doesnt show anything related to the page whatsoever. These two differing methods for
getting to the category page, as well as the title tags, need to be addressed.

The above screenshot shows how the Watches page for ems.com shows up in SERPs on
Google. When this link is clicked on, the resulting page is the watches and bands page on ems.com. That
gets visitors close to the GPS watches, but still not directly to the page where the GPS watches lie. I
searched many different keywords in Google, and could never find a link that took me straight to the
GPs watches page. This is a problem because of how important title tags are for a site. The title tag is

supposed to tell the purpose, or be the headline for the page. Its what shows up on SERPs and helps
increase click through rates. Ems.com doesnt even include GPS anywhere in their title tags.
Flipping the spectrum and now looking at roadrunnersports.com, I can see a potential reason
why they are ranking higher on SERPs. One of the most important pieces of the title tag is to have the
most important words come first. Roadrunnersports.com wants to increase traffic to their GPS Watches,
so they decided to put GPS Watches first and foremost, because this what the page is about, and is the
most important part of the title tag. One unique thing roadrunnersports.com is doing as well is adding
Free Shipping into their title tag. This is something that most people want to see, and will see because
it is shown on SERPs.
Recommendation for improvements:
Ems.com has some issues with their database that needs to get addressed so that their GPS
watches category page is the same page if the user searches, or goes through the navigation. As far as
improvements for specific title tags, they can start with adding the phrase GPS into the title tag. This is
the most important part of the page, and users wont know there are GPS watches available on
ems.com unless the site specifically tells them. Also, ems.com doesnt need to say the word watches
twice in their title tag. Right now with <Watches watches and bands> the word is repeating itself one
right after another. Google could potentially see this as keyword stuffing. Even if they dont, the title
isnt unique, and needs to be changed to be specific for the GPS category page, not the overall watches
category.
b. Meta tag
Ems.com Category Page: <meta name= description content =Buy Watches at Eastern
Mountain Sports where you&amp;#39;ll find great buys on Outdoor Gear and Clothing for athletes and
enthusiasts demanding the highest quality equipment and apparel." />
RoadRunnerSports.com Category 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, or description, tag is a page specific tag that describes the page. Sites can use these to
have a longer and better description than the title tag to draw in visitors. These tags are also typically
shown under the title tag on SERPs as shown below.

The screen shot above shows how the meta tag appears on a results page on Google. This
placement is a great way to create a unique description to draw users into your page. However,
ems.com isnt doing a good job with this meta tag. Besides the word watches the whole tag seems
pretty generic, and could be used to describe all pages on ems.com. Looking at the meta tag on
roadrunnersports.com, the meta tag is actually useful and page specific. The subject of the tag is GPS
Watches and actually describes what is on the page.
Recommendation for improvements:
The meta tag for ems.coms GPS watches page is bad. Instead of providing a general tag that
could be placed (and probably is) on any page throughout the website, Eastern Mountain Sports needs
to create a meta tag that is page specific and accurately describes their GPS Watch page. Ems.com could
talk about how they have a wide variety of GPS watches, or how the GPS watches can help improve
performance; Something that incorporates a few important keywords that ems.com thinks will draw
visitors to their page.
c. IMG names and ALT text
1.

2.

3.

<img src="http://ems.imageg.net/images/gLogo.gif" alt="Eastern Mountain Sports"

/>
<img src="http://ems.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pEMS117014439t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="GARMIN Forerunner 620 Bundle with
HRM, Black/Blue - Eastern Mountain Sports" />
<img src="http://ems.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pEMS117014442t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="GARMIN Forerunner 220 Bundle with
HRM, Black/Red - Eastern Mountain Sports" />

4.

<img src="http://ems.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pEMS115568416t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="SUUNTO Ambit2, Sapphire - Eastern

Mountain Sports" />

5.

<img src="http://ems.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pEMS19101964t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="GARMIN Forerunner 210 with HRM Eastern Mountain Sports" />

6.

<img src="http://ems.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pEMS118606465t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="TOMTOM Multi-Sport Cardio GPS

Watch - Eastern Mountain Sports" />

7.

<img src="http://ems.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pEMS113259533t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="MAGELLAN Switch Up Watch with

HRM - Eastern Mountain Sports" />

8.

9.

10.

<img src="http://ems.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pEMS115773843t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="POLAR RC3 Heart Rate Monitor,

Red/Orange - Eastern Mountain Sports" />
<img src="http://ems.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pEMS119039074t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="GARMIN Forerunner 15 Watch with
HRM, Blue/Black - Eastern Mountain Sports" />
<img src="http://ems.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pEMS119840539t100.jpg" class="productImage" alt="SUUNTO Ambit3 Peak with HRM Eastern Mountain Sports" />
Explanation:
The following are important images on ems.coms GPS Watches category page. The image tag

and ALT text are also given on the right. This page was used for both the title and meta tags, and still is
important for the image tag analysis. There are more images on this page than listed, but they are all the
same images of different watches with similar naming and alt text. I choose images that featured
different brands of watches offered as well as a few of the more popular/important ones. Starting with
the logo, the image tag for it is gLogo. Since Google cannot see actual images, the image text is
supposed to be written in a way that Google can understand what the images purpose is. Logo is not a
bad name, but the g in front of the logo doesnt have much purpose at all (unless ems.com wants to
confuse Google). The alt text for this image is fine, but could include more information. Moving on to

the images of the different watches, the same assessment can generally be made for all of the images.
All image names start with pEMS1 and then include more numbers based on the product image
naming. This again doesnt tell Google anything about what the image is. The Alt text is better, and
actually tells the specific product name for each watch along with Eastern Mountain Sports.
Recommendation for improvements:
Alt text, according to Google, allows you to specify alternative text for an image if it cannot be
displayed for some reason. The alt text Eastern Mountain Sports works, but could also include a
tagline, or a short description of the website. Also the people at Eastern Mountain Sports need to
remove the g in front of Logo and include Eastern Mountain Sports in the image name. Moving on to
the watch images, the alt text is pretty good. What really needs improvements is the image name.
Random letters and numbers tell Google and the users viewing nothing about the image. It may be
tedious to give all images different names, but it will be very beneficial for ems.com. I would advise the
name be the watch name/model. This is short and simple, but tells Google exactly what the image is.

V.

Architecture (As, Au, Am)

a. Speed (As)
EMS.com Score: 6
RoadRunnerSports.com Score: 5
Explanation:
For this speed test, I used the product page for the Garmin Forerunner 620 watch on both

ems.com and its competing site. For speed results, I used WebPageTest.org to test, and specifically
looked at the first view load time. The Ems.com page loaded in 6.7s, and was completely loaded in 8.0s.
Roadrunnersports.coms product page loaded in 8.0s and then completely loaded in 9.8s. Given the fact
that both sites are not responsive, the sites load a lot slower than the average of 3.5s. To start looking at
what might cause the sites to load slowly, I have provided a pie chart from WebPageTest.org.

Ems.com
Roadrunnersports.com

These pie charts break down the site by content and the percentage of the type of content for
each site. As the charts shows, both sites have just over fifty percent of the page taken up by images,
which will be a contributing factor in the load speed. Road Runner Sports uses a little more java script
than Eastern Mountain Sports, and Eastern Mountain Sports has more HTML content loading than Road
Runner Sports. Next, Ill analyze a few elements on each page that slow the pages down the most.
Starting with ems.com, the first two major hindrances are both different forms of HTML. The
first one involves Facebook takes 460ms for the content to load. The second HTML content has to do
with the index page of Ems.com and takes 299ms to load.

ems.com image 1

ems.com image 2

Looking at images, Image 1 takes 278ms to load and has to do with the page layout. Image 2 is
the main product photo for the page and is the biggest image on the page. It takes 218ms to load.
Transitioning over to RoadRunnerSports.com, Ill address four images and one text/javascript
that are the main pieces contributing to a slower site.

Roadrunnersports.com image 1

Roadrunnersports.com image 3

Roadrunnersports.com image 2

Roadrunnersports.com image 4

Image number one is included in the description tab on the page and is a little bit bigger than
the product image itself. This image takes 775ms to load. The rest of the images are all featured in the
You May Also Like section of the page. Image 2 loads in 587ms, image 3 loads in 508ms, and image 4
loads in 442ms. The last element that really slows down the site is a javascript text that takes a
whopping 1318ms to load. For the most part, besides this javascript, the main aspect that slows down
roadrunnersports.com is images.
Recommendation for improvements
Overall, ems.com is faster than roadrunnersports.com. However, if roadrunnersports.com is
able to speed up the load time of the few images that really slow down the site, they would be a good

deal faster than ems.com. That is because ems.com has a lot of little HTML, javascript, and images that
slow it down. It wont be as easy for ems.com to change because javascript and HTML isnt as easy to
modify as images. Ems.com needs to look at the waterfall chart and see these factors that are causing
the site to load slower, and take action. One quick step would be to fix the Facebook icons. Getting users
to share is a must, but ems.coms social signals are already pretty bad, so changing them to a format
that will load faster may end up helping them in multiple ways.

b. URLs (Au)
EMS.com Score: 3
RoadRunnerSports.com Score: 8
Explanation:
The category page URL for ems.coms GPS Watches is as follows:
http://www.ems.com/family/index.jsp?categoryId=10753727&f=PAD%2FGPS+Enabled%2FYes&fbc=1&l
mdn=GPS&fbn=GPS+Enabled%7CYes
The same format occurs when a watch (product) is clicked on. The product page changes the
family in the URL to product, and then follows by a bunch of random numbers, letters, and symbols.
The only way users could see anything about what is on the site is though the GPS+Enabled phrase
hidden in the URL. According to Google, two of the best practices for sites URLs are to use words in
URLs and create a simple directory structure. Part of using real words is to allow users to read and
potentially remember or memorize your sites URL. Simple and descriptive words will also help Google as
they crawl through your site. Ems.com doesnt follow this practice. They also dont have a very
organized directory, as the URL all seems like jibberish. Yes there is a folder Family, but that doesnt
represent GPS Watches in any way.

The above screenshot shows SERPs of the keyword phrase GPS Sports watch ems. I used this
very generic long-tail keyword to ensure I would find results that include URLs that related to GPS
Watches on ems.com. The URLs are shown under the title tags, and all appear with the unorganized
directory and non-word structure.
Roadrunnersports.com does a much better job that ems.com. Below are the GPS watches
category page URL as well as a product page URL.
(Category)

http://www.roadrunnersports.com/rrs/gear/gpswatches/

(Product)
http://www.roadrunnersports.com/rrs/products/GAR183/garmin-forerunner-620-gpswith-hrm-run-soft-strap/
Looking first at the category page, it is overall pretty good. It uses a pretty good directory system
with backslashes separating folders, and has words that shortly describe what the page is about. The
one slight issue is the folder rrs. I would assume that this stands for Road Runner Sports, but these are
still letters and Google/humans wouldnt be able to understand this at a quick glance. Moving on to the
product page URL, Road Runner Sports still uses words and a nice category system. Here they have an
additional folder, GAR183, that is a product category folder. This, however, wont register that well

with Google. But the site makes up for this by having the following folder have the product name
separated by dashes so the user as well as Google knows exactly what the page will be about based on
the URL. Looking around at other pages associated with GPS watches throughout
roadrunnersports.com, the overall same URL structure is pretty similar.
Recommendation for Improvements:
According to searchengineland.com, a site dedicated to SEO, research shows that people who
are searching on search engines are more likely to select pages with short, descriptive URLs. Based on
this, searchers wouldnt likely click on ems.coms GPS watch pages. In order to fix this, ems.com needs
to tell replace all the random letters and numbers with words that pertain to the page. If a page is selling
a Garmin GPS watch, somewhere in the URL needs to be the words GPS watch as well as something that
relates to the specific Garmin watch. Here is an example of a structure that would work.
http://www.ems.com/Watches/GPS-Watches/Garmin-Forerunner This is a simple, organized format
that uses words and would be relatively easy to fix. It just takes one big renovation to change the
complete structure, and after that is finished the first time, it will be much easier for ems.com to
continue with the much-improved structure. In reality, however, all the pages of ems.com have the
same family or product category after ems.com. So in order to change the GPS Watch category,
ems.com would need to change the structure of the rest of the site. This would be a tedious task, but
would be benefit to all pages on ems.com.

c. Mobile (Am)
EMS.com Score:
RoadRunnerSports.com Score:
Explanation:
We already know that Eastern Mountain Sports doesnt use a responsive design for their
website. Using my iPhone 6, I typed in ems.com and site recognized I was on a mobile device, and took
me to a dedicated mobile site.

The above screenshot shows what mobile users see upon loading the homepage of ems.com via
a mobile device. Users can access navigation menus at the lower half of the screen, or by clicking the
Browse button in the top left. A search bar is also front and center across the top. At the bottom of
the page, there is a text link that allows users to view the desktop version of the site. Accessing the
menus and navigating to the watches page is quite simple and well organized.

Above is the category page for watches on the mobile site. The refine button on the left hand
side above the watches allows users to choose different features to sort by, in our case GPS. Products
are displayed in a grid view, but a button on the right will allow the page to show in a list view as well.

Above shows what a product-level page looks like. As users scroll, they can see the product
photo, add it to their cart, share on social media, and have access to the description, specs, and reviews.
The picture at the top can be magnified with a double tap of the finger. Overall, the mobile site is
relatively user friendly. When I loaded the site on a tablet, the desktop version of the site loaded. Its
functionality was similar to the desktop, but with integration of touch screen mobile features.
Looking to Road Runner Sports, their website is also not responsive. Loading it on my
smartphone, I also realized that there isnt a dedicated mobile site either. This makes browsing
throughout the site very challenging, especially for those that have bigger fingers. Viewing the page on a

tablet, the site still uses the desktop site, but is a lot easier to maneuver because of the bigger screen
size (using an iPad Air).
Recommendations for improvements
Overall, Eastern Mountain Sports has a good mobile site. If there were one area to focus on
improving, it would be to have more specific sub-categories. This applies to the desktop site as well.

Users can navigate on the mobile site to this menu fairly easily. If GPS Watches wanted to be
optimized, it would make sense to have a specific category for GPS watches. The same principle can be
applied to all of the of the sites categories. I also believe that Eastern Mountain Sports stores link
needs to be moved from the top center of the page. In my mind, this isnt as important as other links
such as social media. The social media icons are at the bottom of the page, and with how easy it is to
share on a mobile device, these share tools need to be towards the top of the page.
VI.

Links (Ln, Lq)

a. Link Number (Ln)
Ems.com No. of Referring Domains: 4,816
Roadrunnersports.com No. of Referring Domains: 4,311
b. Link Quality (Lq)
Ems.com No. of Referring Domains: 3
Roadrunnersports.com No. of Referring Domains: 5
Explanation:

Ems.com

Roadrunnersports.com

When simply looking at the chart provided by Majestic SEO, it would be easy to assume that
ems.com is doing a lot better in the quality referring domain links. However, when looking at the data in
depth, ems.com has some dodgy domains that have many backlinks to the site. The top two domains
have over 120,000 backlinks apiece, and the next fourteen have over 40,000 backlinks for each domain.
According to Majestic SEO, these referring domains have a very low trust flow and dont seem very
credible. Looking at roadrunnersports.com, the top referring domains arent very credible either, but the
number of backlinks for each of these sites is dramatically lower than ems.com.
One thing that ems.com needs to do right away is to cut ties with these non-credible domains
that excessively link to ems.com. This is a violation by Google, and no doubt is causing ems.com to rank
lower in SERPs. Another way that they could start establishing nice credible links would be to ask
companies like Garmin, TomTom, and Magellan to link to their watches that are selling on ems.com.
These companies are experts in the GPS aspect of the watch, and links from experts are quality links.

VII.

Keyword Performance on SERPs for Recommended Keywords

Ranking of Recommended Keywords on ems.com

Keyword
Google
Bing
GPS sports watch
No
No
Garmin Forerunner
No
No
Suunto Core
12
No

Yahoo!
No
No
No

Ranking of Recommended Keywords on roadrunnersports.com

Keyword
Google
Bing
Yahoo!
GPS sports watch
5
5
4
Garmin Forerunner
16
No
No
Suunto Core
No
No
No
Explanation:
The tables show keyword results from mikes-marketing-tools.com, a site dedicated to show how
well keywords are performing on search engine results pages. If a keyword doesnt show up in the top
10 results in Google or Bing, or the top 50 in Yahoo!, it is labeled with no. Sometimes, if the keyword

appears just a few spots higher than the tenth spot, the tool will show the result number (as evident in
the 12th and 16th ranking shown in the table). Looking at these tables, the only keyword that places on
the list for ems.com is Suunto Core at number 12 on Google. Roadrunnersports.com however, is doing
a good job optimizing for GPS sports watch with it being listed in the top five results for each of the
search engines. The low results for ems.com are not surprising, after all, we are trying to optimize for
them. In order for ems.com to start having these keywords rank higher on SERPs, they need to start
addressing the issues that have been brought up throughout this report. Lets revisit.

VIII.

Conclusions & Priority Recommendations

As this report has made very aware, there are many SEO factors that ems.com needs to work on
in order to reach a spot in the top on SERPs. Some areas will take a very long time to fix, while others
area much similar task. Ems.com should address first and foremost their category page labels. They
really need page dedicated to GPS watches, rather than an overall watches page with the ability to
select GPS from a menu. Without this change, the rest of the SEO changes wouldnt function well
because their current category page doesnt highlight GPS. Once this change is made, ems.com can
continue going about optimizing the page and product pages for GPS watches.
After this important change is made, the next step that is relatively simple and still a very key
component is HTML. The title tags for category pages and product-level pages are boring and dont
appropriately tell the title of the page. By only having watches and bands as the first words in the title
tag, Google wont know that ems.com has GPS watches. GPS needs to be in the title tag somewhere
close to the beginning. The title tags for product-level pages need to have the product name in them.
Meta tags also can be improved by actually describing the GPS watches page rather than a general
overview of Eastern Mountain Sports. Lastly, image tags need a new naming system, with the naming
being the product name. If the picture is of a Garmin Forerunner 620 GPS, but that in the image name.
Unlike HTML, the area of content will take much longer to improve. Content is a +3 and the
number one success factor in searchengineland.coms periodic table of SEO success factors. According
to Google, if content is thin, this results in a violation of -2. Thin content is exactly what ems.com has.
Once the category page is changed and Eastern Mountain Sports has a page dedicated to GPS watches,
they can move on with fixing the content issue. The first way ems.com can fix thin content is though
providing content that answers questions. People searching for GPS watches want to know what the
specifics behind the GPS, how GPS watches are different, etc. Ems.com needs to find ways to answer
questions for their visitors. A few of these ways would be to have a better labeling system, feature a
virtual try on, have articles about different topics relating to GPS watches, and increase customer
reviews. All of these things will take time and effort to do, but when ems.com can start to answer
questions and have content that is informative, fresh, and unique, then they will rank higher in SERPs.
The next area esm.com can focus on is their presence on social media and how they encourage
users to share content. The social icons on the product pages for the watches are poorly designed, and
dont function well. Ems.com needs to find ways to introduce share lines into their products and urge

users to share via ems.com. Eastern Mountain Sports also needs to take a higher priority of tweeting
and following individuals on twitter. Social reputation is given a +2 ranking on the periodic table of SEO
success factors, and Eastern Mountain Sports has a lot of room to grow.
After finding ways to build better relations though social media, ems.com needs to break dodgy
links with bad websites. A lot of ems.coms backlinks come through non-credible sites, and this hurts
ems.coms reputation. Taking time to try and build links through experts on the area of GPS watches
will lead to more trustworthy backlinks and hopefully referring domains.
Lastly, after every other feature starts on the path of improvement, ems.com can work on its
URL structure. Currently, the structure is very muddled and doesnt have a suitable naming
configuration. The key way to change this is would be to incorporate words that relate to the GPS watch
page, and organize them into appropriate folders. URLs only get a +1 in the SEO success factors, so this
isnt the highest priority for ems.com, but still is an issue that needs to be addressed.
Overall, ems.com has a lot of improvements to make before they can start to rank in the top ten
on SERPs. Looking over this report and continuing to address issues will dramatically help ems.com
become a better site and ultimately do better in Search Engine Optimization.