Search engine optimization assignment over meal kit delivery service Chef'd. Analyzing ways to make their search engine optimization better.

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SEO Analysis & Recommendations for Chef’d.com
Intro to Web Publishing
Allie Weekley – 3/28/18
I. Keyword Research– Recommended Keywords (Cr)
The keywords/phrase I think will drive the most traffic: “Healthy quick meals”
Strongest content for keyphrase considerations:
The best content for the keyphrase I have decided on is the Weight Watchers meal plan
page. It focuses on the healthies recipes with all of the nutrition facts available and for those on
the Weight Watchers diet, they can see how many smart points each particular meal is worth. For
those searching for “healthy quick meal plans” without any ties to Weight Watchers, they are
able to order these meal plans and easily see what the prep time is for each meal. Chef’d also
provides the level of difficulty in preparing this meal so someone has that information up front. I
tested this phrase by typing the first few characters of the phrase into Google and it populated the
rest of the sentence so this seems like something that is frequently searched by Google users and
would be a great keyphrase to point them in the direction of Chef’d. Healthy eating is a big
priority of most people and has becoming increasingly popular and “trendy” in the last several
years thanks to foodie bloggers and health gurus online. Most people are always looking for
information about how to be healthy while maintaining a busy schedule. Like Chef’d, HelloFresh
also offers healthy quick meals and serves as a main competitor for Chef’d. Though, HelloFresh
does not have the partnership with Weight Watchers that Chef’d does, they offer a variety of
other types of meals that would be classified as healthy quick meals so they could generate some
of the same web traffic as Chef’d.
Keyphrases Considered:
“Healthy meal delivery”, “healthy meal prep”, “meals for weight loss”
For these three keyphrases I have decided to drive traffic to a few different areas of the
Chef’d website. Starting with the phrase “healthy meal delivery” and using that phrase to drive
traffic to the page regarding meal kits on the lighter side. This page is a bit further into the
Chef’d site and is under the meal plans tab and would provide the person searching with results
of a meal that is healthy that they can get delivered to them to make fresh in their kitchen. This
would be exactly what the person searching that keyphrase would be looking for. This keyphrase
is generic enough that someone could simply be searching for local meal kit delivery options that
would deliver pre-made meals or could include someone looking exactly for the type of products
that Chef’d offers.
The next keyphrase to look into is “healthy meal prep”. The concept of meal prep and
making healthy meals in advance to have on the ready has taken off and become more popular
with both people who are experienced with healthy eating and people who might just be getting
into healthy eating and meal prep. Someone who is searching this is likely looking for recipes
and meal ideas they can make at home in bulk and portion out to have for multiple meals
throughout several days. However, this could drive traffic to Chef’d by pointing these users in
the direction of pre-portioned and pre-planned meals that could be delivered to them. In this case

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the overview page of the different Chef’d meals would be a great place to drive traffic to for this
keyphrase.
A third keyphrase to look at is “meals for weight loss”. This keyphrase is something it is
likely every person trying to improve their health has searched at least once and the content on
the page for meal plans on the Chef’d site would be a perfect place to take these searchers so
they come across meal plans appropriate for certain diets such as Vegan, Vegetarian, and low-
calorie options. This page on the site provides the visitor with the information they would be
looking for and a look at calorie information and ingredients so the user would know these are
the healthy meals they were looking for when they started the search.
Google Trends Analysis:
Looking at the Google Trends analysis of my selected keyphrases, the phrase “healthy
meal prep” outperforms the others across the entire year. The most noteworthy point is that all of
the keyphrases spike around mid to late December, as the New Year approaches and more people
start making healthy resolutions and preparing to adapt a healthier lifestyle and food choices.
Because meal prepping is becoming such a popular thing to do, people seem to be more focused
on searching ideas for how to switch that up and make the food themselves rather than having
healthy meals delivered to them. The keyphrase “meals for weight loss” also spikes around mid-
December, following the trend of the other keyphrases. During the second week of January, the
keyphrase “healthy meal prep” was at a level 100 popularity which is at complete peak
popularity. Google Trends also identified “meal delivery services” as one of their fastest growing
searches related to my selected keyphrases and showed a 140%+ increase for that keyphrase.

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Showing up in the related search queries is HelloFresh, a direct competitor of Chef’d. Overall,
the keyphrase “healthy meal prep” shows to be the strongest when compared to the others.
Keyword Ranking Analysis:
“Healthy Meal
Delivery”
“Healthy Meal Prep” “Meals for Weight Loss”
Google Bing Yahoo! Google Bing Yahoo! Google Bing Yahoo!
Chef’d “No” No” “No” “No” “No” “No” “No” “No” “No”
HelloFresh “No” “No” “No” “No” “No” “No” “No” “No” “No”
These results really surprised me because of the strong ranking these keyphrases had for
the Google Trends analysis. “Healthy meal prep” was at peak popularity for Google searches yet
it doesn’t turn up as a SEO keyphrase for Chef’d which shows a major market that Chef’d is
missing out on. Not only is that a relevant keyphrase for Chef’d products and services but it is
clearly trending and incredibly popular and growing. It also surprised me that this keyphrase
didn’t rank in the top 10 results for HelloFresh either, so Chef’d isn’t losing users to HelloFresh
that are searching that keyphrase. Even a keyphrase that directly relates to products that Chef’d
offers and areas they claim to serve like “healthy meal delivery” is still not ranking in the top 10
results. This was the most shocking to me because healthy meal delivery is the entire essence of
Chef’d’s business and users searching this keyphrase are likely not even aware that there is a
company that offer these kinds of services. This is especially true because it is not ranking in the
top 10 for HelloFresh either. Chef’d seems to focus the most on their site about convenience and
prep time, but I believe that people are looking for the most time, cost, and health conscious
meals. If Chef’d can focus more on their site’s healthy options, this would direct an entire basis
of internet search engine users looking to eat healthy with a super easy way to do so through
Chef’d meal plans.

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Potential Traffic:
Average
Monthly
Searches
Number of
Additional
Monthly
Visits if
Ranked No. 1
Current
Average
Monthly
Traffic
Potential
Monthly
Traffic
Range
Maximum
Potential
Monthly
Traffic
“Healthy
Meal
Delivery”
1K-10K 300-3,000
169,143-
171,843 171,843
“Healthy
Meal Prep”
10K-100K 3,000-30,000 168,843 171,843-
198,843
198,843
“Meals for
Weight
Loss”
1K-10K 300-3,000
169,143-
171,843 171,843
From the details outlined in this chart showing monthly traffic for each keyphrase, the
maximum potential monthly traffic Chef’d can generate is from optimizing the parts of the site
for the keyphrase “healthy meal prep”. This will bring monthly traffic to about 198,843. Chef’d
has a lot of room for growth in all areas of the keyphrases selected because they all provide a
decent maximum potential traffic increase and are pretty popular searches that show high spikes
at certain times of the year that Chef’d could capitalize on by specially curated meal kits for the
New Year and their customer’s healthy resolutions. All of the keyphrases would improve the
website traffic that Chef’d would see and keep that number increasing as optimization improves
over time.
Ultimate Keyphrase Choice:
The final keyphrase that makes the most sense to optimize for is “healthy meal delivery”.
Users who are searching for this are looking for something exactly like the products Chef’d
offers and would be provided with the best results and would be the most satisfied with their
results. It has the potential to grow monthly traffic up to 171,843 users and while it doesn’t have
the traffic potential of the “healthy meal prep” keyphrase, it is far more relevant to the products
and services that Chef’d offers and ultimately will lead users to where they want to be. It is
possible that a user searching “healthy meal prep” would skim right over a search result for
Chef’d’s healthy meal plans because they are looking for recipes to make at home with food and
ingredients they already have and aren’t interested in the delivery aspect of it. However, those
searching for “healthy meal delivery” have already expressed an interest in all parts of Chef’d’s
business which includes meals that are delivered with healthy options available. These users are
not looking for meals they can prepare at home with food they likely already have in their
kitchen and aren’t looking for just any kind of meal. Not only does optimizing for this keyphrase
result in a 3,000-user traffic increase for the Chef’d site but it will leave search users the most
satisfied with their results and users most likely to ultimately make a purchase after visiting the
site rather than bouncing because they were not led to what they were actually looking for upon
searching.

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II. Content Analysis & Authority (Cq, Vt, Ta)
Chef’d.com Score: 5/10
HelloFresh.com Score: 7/10
Explanation of Topic:
When users conduct a search, they have something in mind that they are looking for and
are typically have an idea of what that looks like. In addition to that, they want the information
they find to be what they deem to be credible and relevant. For example, a user looking to Chef’d
for a healthy meal kit delivery service would want to ensure that this is a site that knows about
what foods are healthy and nutritious and a site that is an expert in fresh meal delivery. The user
needs to feel like the site is doing something for them and they don’t have to work too hard to
assess the legitimacy of the site and its contents too much, they just know because of included
factors. Some of these factors are a press coverage portion of the site, an about us section, and
customer reviews. Because in the modern age, virtually anyone can create a website, users need
to be sure that Chef’d knows what they are talking about and are a reliable resource for what they
claim to be the go-to site for. Having this kind of quality content will make Google want to send
traffic to a given site and will increase the likelihood it will end up in the first several results on a
SERP.
Analysis of Quality Content / Thin Content:
The content area of focus is the meal plan page and the “lighter options” listed under that
subheading. This is the page most relevant to “healthy meal delivery” and would be most like
what a user is searching for. Immediately the user can browse a variety of different meal kits and
expand them for more information on them specifically. This is the kind of depth users want
when they are browsing a product like this, especially if they are focused on the health aspects of
it and would be interested in the ingredients and caloric content of each meal. This area of the
site is free from typos and offers a small description of each of the “lighter meals”. To look into
exactly how unique the content is, I took a closer look into one of the meal kits specifically and
examined the meal page for the maple mustard glazed salmon. The only results that came up
were links on other sites to this meal that Chef’d offers. I tried this for a few other meals and
came up with the same results. I used the same meal page to take a closer look at the readability
of the page. This is a factor that could be easily overlooked or even underestimated when it
comes to SEO, however readability determines how fast the content will be able to be skimmed
and read by a user who is trying to look at a lot of meals at once and doesn’t want to spend a lot
of time closely reading loads of text. Most of the critique was that the meal description had too
many syllables and used too many adverbs. However, personally I found the description
insightful and persuasive and customers interested in making a purchase are willing to read a
description of a product in order to know exactly what they are getting.
In regard to the value found on the Chef’d site, it was insightful and provided a lot of
good information on what makes these meals delicious. For someone who is health conscious,
they would find the amount of nutrition information valuable and would want to explore each

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meal and browse which meals have fewer calories than other or the most nutrients. Chef’d also
lists which meals are in compliance with certain meal plans which would be valuable
information to those users on meal plans such as Weight Watchers or the Atkins diet or those
wishing to begin one of those diets. Most detailed meal pages, don’t have reviews which is a
factor that adds site value. Some of the more popular meals do but only a couple under the
“lighter option” meals have customer reviews. Plenty of photos of the meals are included but no
demos or photos of how the food arrives in the box is shown to customers. What Chef’d seems to
leave rather mysterious is the delivery aspect of the product/service. Photos or information on
how this meal will come delivered to the customer’s door would be valuable and how the food
will be kept fresh while in transit is another piece of information a user searching for “healthy
meal kit delivery” would find valuable.
There is a small banner across the top, under the hero image, alerting the customer that
they will receive free delivery on orders of $40 or more which is visible to the customer as they
are browsing the meal options. An easily accessible chat bot shows customers that customer
service options are available but Chef’d makes the customer work to answer their questions
rather than supplying them with a plethora of information that they can sift through when
browsing the meal options that they searched for. Under each individual meal information page,
there is a section for users to ask a question, though it is unclear who will be answering the
question which leads the user to the space of authority and likely not selecting to interact with
this feature because they don’t know who will be answering the question and might not trust the
authority of whoever it might be.
Analysis of Trust / Authority:
There are a lot of factors that play into a site’s trust/authority. To begin, we look at the
site’s trust authority according to MOZ. Chef’d scored a 55/100 for page authority and
HelloFresh scored a 73/100. Page authority is viewed as the relevance of information and links
between site pages to each other. The higher the page authority is, the more likely it is to show
up higher in search engine result pages. One of the biggest components of authority is the
usefulness of the information provided within the site. If Google find that sites are “stuffing”
sites with keywords to increase its ranking in search engines, this isn’t a site that Google will
ultimately want to direct users too and most of all not a site that users will have a quality and
satisfying experience with.
Authority can also relate to the time-relevance of information. If a site doesn’t have
current and up to date content, it won’t be what the user is looking for. Based on several pages
on Chef’d’s site, they are pretty up to date as far as their content goes and they keep it relevant to
upcoming factors that drive traffic such as big events like the Super Bowl that generate a lot of
online buzz and holidays that have a large focus around food.
Domain authority is another area of interest where Chef’d scored 46/100 and HelloFresh
scored 68/100. Again, HelloFresh is outperforming Chef’d. This score indicates simply how
likely the site is to be ranked higher in search engine result pages. In this category HelloFresh
ranks quite a bit higher, most likely because they are probably better overall optimized for their
target market of internet searchers than Chef’d is but also the length of the life of their site could
play a factor too.

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Recommendation for Improvements:
The area that Chef’d has the biggest opportunity to optimize and grow is in the value of
their content and make it clear what the purpose of each portion of their site is. For example, if
they are trying to drive traffic of people looking for healthy meals that they can have delivered to
them, they should have one part of the site that focuses entirely on the healthier meal options
rather than their current situation of having one page under meal plans called “lighter options”
and another under the collections section titled “500 calories or less”. Giving users one thing to
focus on will make the page easier for them to browse which increases the site’s readability
while also driving traffic to one page rather than two, resulting in more traffic on that page
overall.
When encouraging a customer to ask a question if they have one, to emphasize site
authority, it would be best for Chef’d to inform their customer who exactly they are asking their
question to. This is a simple improvement that could lead to more engagement and a higher
SERP ranking.
Ambiguous ask a question section
More valuable detailed information that encourages users to interact and increases authority

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III. Architecture (As, Au, Am)
1. Speed (As)
Page Load Speed Chefd.com HelloFresh.com
Home Page 15.03 16.69
“Category” Page 21.54 13.50
Analysis:
Overall, speed determines how quickly the information a user is looking for can be
delivered to them. Google considers how fast a website loads when deciding where to rank it in
their search engine so it plays a major role in traffic acquisition. Users typically give a website
10 seconds to load before they give up on a site or even become frustrated and leave. Making
sure that content deemed most important is loaded rapidly is critical to keeping users on the site
and making sure that the site gets ranked high for speed and ultimately ends up in priority SERP
rankings as a result. The factor that took the longest on the Chef’d category page was by far the
hero image because of the image size and placement on the site. Because this image is the largest
does not necessarily mean it is the most important. Other smaller images might be more
important because those are what is used to actually sell the product rather than serve as a flashy
header for that page.
Waterfall test for Chef’d category page showing the hero image load time compared to others
Something else I noticed was the amount of time it took the HelloFresh homepage to load
when compared to the Chef’d homepage. HelloFresh’s homepage is a lot more colorful and
flashy but compared to how much faster their category page loaded over the Chef’d category
page, it was surprising to see that the home page did not maintain that same speed. However,
Chef’d category page was much slower than HelloFresh’s and was very slowed down by image
files.
2. URLs (Au)
Current URLs:
Chef’d: https://www.chefd.com/collections/all?sort_by=best-
selling#recipe_category=Lighter%20Options
Hello Fresh: https://www.hellofresh.com/menus/2018-W16/veggie-menu

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Recommended new URL:
https://www.chefd.com/meals/healthy/all?sort_by=best-
selling#recipe_category=Lighter%Options
Explanation:
In the new URL I developed, I removed one of the most misleading words on the Chef’d
site which is the word “collections”. This word is super misleading to customers who might not
know how Chef’d defines collections or what all those contain or even if a certain number of
items are included. Users also have no idea how to differentiate the phrasing of collections from
the different types of meals they include like “under 500 calories” and “vegan”. Putting all of
their meal types under their meals heading and then separating it under what users are more
likely to search such as simple words like “healthy” are more likely to drive traffic and ensure
that users get to the area of the site they are wanting to be in.
3. Mobile (Am)
Chefd.com Score: 7/10
HelloFresh.com Score: 6/10
Explanation:
Being mobile compatible is so important for the function of SEO because it allows the
user to know that they can access the site whenever they need to which helps the site best serve
the user and maintain the relationship they are working to build. Additionally, mobile traffic is a
major traffic source. Nearly 60% of searches are conducted from mobile devices and site
compatibility is crucial to being able to not only appear as a result in that search but to also
generate a site visit and produce some traffic and hopefully a sale from that search. By Chef’d
lettings users know they are a site that can be accessed from a mobile device they are staying
relevant to their users and are able to be in front of their users no matter if they are at home or on
the go.
For their mobile site, Chef’d utilizes a responsive design and allows their site to be
scrolled through to view all areas rather than the more traditional horizontal view that they have
on their website. Each of the meals can be scrolled through and browsed easily. Google’s Mobile
Friendly confirmed that the site is mobile friendly and gave some insights to some pages that had
trouble loading for unknown reasons. I was also able to view the Chef’d site from my own iOS
mobile device and found the site relatively simple and easy to use and didn’t notice any loading
problems on my end. Google states that 77% of mobile searches occur at home or in the work
place so while one might think that these searches are mostly happening while waiting for an
appointment, sitting in a restaurant, or walking home from class, these searches are happening in
the same place that users likely have a desktop computer which is why it is essential to be
optimized for the device they are selecting to use. Google also prefers sites that are mobile
friendly so this will help boost SERP rankings in the long run.

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IV: HTML: Current Keyword Location Analysis (Ht, Hd)
Upon looking into where my selected keyword is currently located on the category page,
I didn’t notice it anywhere on the site interface. As I went and looked into the code of the site
page, I only found each word separately in other sentences. Surprisingly, the word “healthy” was
only on the page one time and was super far down the page, lacking a place of priority. Chef’d
doesn’t appear to have any current optimization for my selected keyphrase of “healthy meal
delivery”.
1. Title Tags
Current Tags:
Chefd.com Title Tag for Category Page: < Shop Meals </title>
HelloFresh.com Title Tag for Category Page: <title data-react-helmet=true>Dinner Ideas |
Veggie Plan | 14 Apr - 20 Apr | HelloFresh</title>
Explanation:
Title tags are such an important aspect of SEO because it is a major indicator to Google
of what the page is about. It should summarize everything and be easy to understand because this
is what will show up in the search engine results page and will be what entices users to click on
this webpage. The title tag should be an accurate and concise indication of that page’s content.
Title tags are also important for social sharing because the title shows up there too. If the page is
shared on Facebook, the title tag is what shows up and will generate traffic from the social
sharing site. Carefully selecting how your site page is titled makes a big impact on the traffic it
generates from search engines. HelloFresh had a title tag that didn’t make much sense and
certainly makes little sense to the average site user. It does include some details about the site
area it is under and that it is a veggie based plan but isn’t necessarily concise and is clogged with
a lot of other factors that don’t matter to Google and therefore don’t matter to its search engine
optimization. Chef’d’s title tag was much more concise but was not easy to find on the page.
What I found the most misleading was that the title tag that showed up in SERP pages was not
the same title tag on the code of the Chef’d site.
Selected Chef’d category page in a SERP. Title tag is outlined in red.

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Recommended New Title Tag for Chefd.com
< Shop Meals> healthy options </title>
Explanation:
The changes made to Chef’d’s title tag not only include my keyphrase but are more
centered around the product that Chef’d is trying to sell as well as they keyphrase that people are
searching for. Rather than keeping it vague with just “shop meals”, the title tag is much more
tailored now to include the healthy area that people are interested in when visiting the Chef’d
site. Google explains in their best practice guide to stay away from generic or vague listings for
title tags and using repeated titled tags. “Shop meals” was used on other pages of the Chef’d site
which makes it difficult to optimize for the selected page. Keeping the title tag focused on the
site’s content and what they are ultimately trying to introduce to the customer and sell them is
the best way to achieve higher search engine rankings and more traffic as a result.
2. Description Meta Tag
Current Meta Tags:
Chefd.com Meta Tag for Category Page: <meta name="description" content="Choose from
Over 300 Pre-Portioned Meals Curated by Your Favorite Brands &amp; Celebrity Chefs. Shop
Our A La Carte Meals Without a Subscription Today!" />
HelloFresh.com Meta Tag for Category Page: <meta data-react-helmet=true
name=description content="Choose our Veggie Plan recipe box and pick your favorite meals
from 14 Apr - 20 Apr inspiring and delicious menu. Packed full of fresh, seasonal ingredients,
perfectly portioned and delivered to your door">
Explanation:
The description tag acts as a longer and more in-depth summary about what the site page
is about and what its contents are. It is typically only a phrase or a sentence or two that is
supplemental to the title tag and gives readers an idea of the page they are clicking on before
they have actually clicked on the page. It’s important that the description tag isn’t too short or
too long and is accurate. This gives Google more information about the pages contents so it
knows where to rank it in search engine results pages. Like the title tag, the description tag in the
code and the one that actually shows up in search engine results are different and the tag shown
on the site is one that is not unique to this page and is used on other pages on the site.

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Description tag of category page is outlined in green.
Recommended New Meta Tags for Chefd.com:
<meta name= “description content” “Trying to make healthy food choices? We’ve made it easy
with our healthy meal options collection. Ranging from salmon to stir fry, from pasta to pork,
these delicious dishes all let you enjoy delicious food without the guilt>
The changes made to this meta description tag are in line with the changes made to the title
tag. It is changed to include the selected keyphrase of “healthy meals” and now matches the
description that actually shows up in search engine results pages expect with better wording,
more optimized for the keyphrase. This type of consistency and descriptive content is what
Google is looking for when making ranking decisions.
3. IMG Names and ALT Text
Chefd.com Image Tag Details:
Alt Text= “Greek salad recipe”
HelloFresh.com Image Tag Details:

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Alt Text= “Mediterranean baked veggies”
Recommendations to Improve Chefd.com ALT Text:
Alt Text= “healthy Greek chicken salad meal”
Explanation:
ALT tags are a major part of SEO because they speak for the photos on a website and
communicate them with Google when Google cannot necessarily identify the contents of a photo
on its own. Both Chef’d and HelloFresh’s alt tags were pretty similar and both are very
straightforward and to the point without any additional descriptive details. Chef’d included the
word recipe which is interesting because they don’t really emphasize that word in very many
other places on their site and they tend to refer to their food as “meals” rather than recipes.
Google’s SEO best practices emphasizes the importance of alt text to optimization for Google
image searchers. Alt text is the only way Google has to know what is in a photo and when to
show that in an image search. There is a lot of traffic to be acquired from Google images
searches. Especially if a user is searching for a recipe like this one and sees a great photo for it
and is then directed to the Chef’d site.
The changes to the alt text first include a more detailed description of the recipe for so more
information is provided quickly and even to those who have disabilities. It also shows the
inclusion of two parts of the selected keyphrase by including the words “healthy” and “meal”.
This is going to help with search engine rankings and will increase the sites relevancy to the
selected keyphrase.
IV. Priority Recommendation
The top priority Chef’d could work on to begin optimizing their site is to focus on the
content. They are very inconsistent with their use of keywords throughout their site and are
not clear on how they want certain things to be addressed or labeled. Providing more detail
about the products, recipes, and delivery service would add a lot of great depth that
customers ordering meal kits online would be looking for. Emphasizing the quality and
assuring customers that they will receive the best products in fresh packaging are great ways
to add content to the site that users want to see and things that will make the content more
searchable. Including keywords that are frequently searched by search engine users will
insure that the site has taken proper measures to not only know what their users are searching

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for but are prioritizing traffic first and foremost. When higher traffic is achieved, increased
spending will occur on the site and the most satisfaction for users will come as a result.
Content is ranked on the periodic table of SEO success factors as a +3 so this is a major
component of SEO and one that makes a big difference. It is also something that will show
results fast and give Chef’d the most increase in traffic over time.