SEO Analysis

SEO Analysis & Recommendations for NaturesFinestSeed.com
I. Keyword Research
1. The 3 keywords/phrases I think will bring the most traffic:
1. Grass seed
2. Seed blend
3. Best grass seed
2. Ranking for Recommended Keywords on NaturesFinestSeed.com
Keyword Google Bing Yahoo
Grass Seed 17 no no
Seed Blend 17 no no
Best Grass Seed 14 1 2
Ranking for Recommended Keywords on HomeDepot.com
Keyword Google Bing Yahoo
Grass Seed 2 no no
Seed Blend no no no
Best Grass Seed 10 no no
3. Explanation of our choices:
1. “Grass Seed”:This is the keyword focus given to me by the client. They were eager to
optimize this keyword due to the amount of traffic the phrase receives and because the
whole purpose of their website is selling grass seed. My research on this keyword leads
me to believe that even though it does attain a large amount of traffic, it is extremely
competitive. From the chart, it is clear that it is hard to compete with the leading site of

HomeDepot.com as it ranks number 2. It is wise to optimize keywords that are attainable
and that will bring the best results. The best factor this keyword has going for it is the
amount of visitors it could potentially bring. From Google Trends, below is the how much
this keyword has been searched in the 5 years and how the trend is steadily increasing
over the period.
This figure shows that “grass seed” as keyword is rising in popularity, which is a positive aspect
for us. The key is to have keyword phrases that are continuing to increase over the years so
that we know people are going to continue to search the phrase. When looking for additional
keywords to optimize we definitely took these trends into consideration.
2. “Seed Blend”:Our second choice for a keyword was “seed blend”, because there are
different types of blends within the grass seed. In fact, all but two of the products for sale on
NaturesFinestSeed.com have the words “seed blend” in their name, which leads us to the
conclusion that it’s a common and important term regarding grass seed.

When looking at Google Trends this phrase is gradually increasing as well and that is
shown in the figure below. The interesting factor about this keyword is that it does not obtain as
much traffic as grass seed but the competition level is much lower. AdWords gives us a glimpse
of how much traffic our certain keywords receive. Although the monthly searches are not as
high, the competition level is only a medium in comparison to grass seed which has a high
amount of competition. Also the trend of traffic is steadily increasing, so over the months traffic
will continue to climb on its own. Another component that stood out to us regarding this keyword
is its placement on the SERPS, especially in relation to HomeDepot.com. “Seed Blend” does
not come up on any search engine result page for Home Depot’s site but for Nature’s Seed it
ranks number 17 on Google which concludes that there would only need to be slight changes to
move it to the first page of the SERP and then continue moving it up the organic ranking. SEO is
all about search engines and we were deliberating about how we would rather have a term that
is going to end up higher on the results page and hope that it begins to accumulate more traffic
over time.
3. “Best Grass Seed”: Our final choice for keyword is “best grass seed”, since the whole site
refers to quality of the grass seed and what makes good grass seed, it makes sense to
reference the best grass seed for certain circumstances. Circumstances such as the benefits,

soil, sun, moisture and quality. The combination of these end up with the best grass seed for the
conditions the user has. Using the word ‘finest’ within their domain also shows that there
product has high quality and the word ‘best’ also carries a similar connotation. Displaying a
consistent message throughout the site and keeping the brand recognizable is a plus for the
user and for Google.
The site already encompasses the word ‘best’ three times on their product-category
page proving that it is already driving traffic. The keyword ‘best grass seed’ is ranked at 14 for
Nature’s Seed and would be an attainable goal to optimize, for it to land on page number 1.
When looking at the trends even though it is subtle, the keyword is still increasing in traffic
overtime. When analyzing the keyword further using AdWords, it showed that this word received
1,000-10,000 monthly searches but comes with high competition. Even though there is high
competition rate, since it is already at number 14 on the SERP that means most traffic is being
driven to our site currently and with a few quick changes and adding the keyword in certain
spots, it could easily move up. Below is the picture of each term that we have chosen and the
amount of traffic it obtains plus the competition level.

II. Current Traffic
NaturesFinestSeed.comMonthly Unique Visits: 2,846 (similarweb.com)
HopeDepot.comMonthly Unique Visits: 118,269,000 (similarweb.com)
Analysis: When examining the graph displaying NaturesFinestSeed.com’s traffic for the
past 6 months, it is apparent that traffic has dropped dramatically since its peak in May with
25,000 visits, down to just 1,000 visits in September. It hasn’t been a steady drop- which might
imply there’s something wrong with the site that is turning away traffic- but rather, the numbers
fluctuate by the thousands from month to month. This hints to me that the drop in visits may not
be site related, but topic related. Since lawn maintenance and gardening is a seasonal activity in
much of the United States due to weather changes, I thought the dips in monthly visits might be
due to grass seed itself becoming less popular as the planting season passes. I researched this
theory by googling the phrase “when to plant grass seed”. The results stated that the best times
varied depending on the type of seed being planted, but the most common time in in the early
fall, around Labor Day, due to cooler nights, shorter days, and heavier dews. This did not bode
well for my “planting season” theory, seeing as September has the lowest number of visits
despite it being the best time to plant grass seed.

I wanted to see whether Home Depot experienced the same visitor fluctuation
concerning grass seed, but since the Home Depot website covers far more than just grass
seed, the overall monthly visitor numbers that were provided by SimilarWeb.com would not
have directly reflected the popularity of the grass-seed-specific pages in a given month. Since
SimilarWeb.com only provides data for an entire domain rather than a specific page on a
website, I tried to find a traffic tool that would be able to show a specific webpage’s traffic
history. Unfortunately, the only tool that even looks at specific pages rather than domains as a
whole is Alexa.com, and they only provide one month’s worth of organic search traffic, so no
patterns could be derived.
Home DepotGrass Seed category page traffic reportfrom Alexa.com
Overall, HomeDepot.com experienced a much steadier monthly visitor rate than
NaturesFinestSeed.com judging from the graph provided by SimilarWeb.com. As previously
mentioned, however, HomeDepot.com covers a much broader range of products than the

Nature’s Seed website, so they would not be as succeptible to things like seasonal trends (if
they did indeed have an effect), since they have products for all seasons. Their high point was
in May, with 139,500,000 visits, and has declined every month, reaching 118,500,000 in
October.
III. Content Analysis
NaturesFinestSeed.com Score: 9
HomeDepot.com Score: 7
Analysis:
Content is one of the most important pieces to the puzzle of SEO. The content and originality
of the website is what drives visitors because they are in need of something specific that they
cannot get somewhere else. From the SEO Google Starter Guide, they state that creating
compelling and intriguing content is likely to influence the website more than other factors. Cq
on the periodic table is explained as quality and is a +3 proving its importance. There need to be

reasons that visitors are willing to spend time on the site. There are different important features
that are covered in content including credibility, uniqueness, readability and timeliness.
Some strong aspects regarding the content from first looking at the site is that they give a brief
but concise description on the homepage that is comprehensive of what the entire site has to
offer. Below shows the short description and under their respective categories that makes it
easy for the users to understand.
That is something that allows this site to stand out from the competition site, Home Depot.
HomeDepot.com is home for thousands of products and there is not a page that accuratley
describes the product. They seem to be running on the assumption that their users are coming
to site already knowing what they are looking for and can just quickly make the decision to
purchase without the use of content. That is one of the reasons why I gave HomeDepot.com the
score of 7 due to their lack of content all together. Below are more in depth attributes of what

drives content quality and how Nature’s Seed is either fulfilling or neglecting those certain
factors.
Originality/Credibility: The information on the site must be well written and free of typos. It is
difficult for users to appreciate your site and to take it seriously when there are grammar errors.
Google also ranks based off your credibility and how accurate the site information is. Using the
spell check tool, it turned out positive for Nature's Finest as it came back with only 2 mispelled
words out of a 901. Another important aspect is making sure there is content that is not like
anyone else or appear somewhere else. I put an excerpt from the “Types of Grass Seed” page
into an online plagiarism tool, and there was no other site that had used the same words or
phrases on their site which proves how original Nature’s Seed is with their content pertaining to
the homepage. The problem occurred when I put a snippet from a product page into the same
tool and there was five other sites that had the same content. There was even a blog that had a
100 percent match to the phrases and words that our site had. The Figure below shows the
sites that came up when this paragraph was tested.
This is concerning for our site because we would not want this specific blog to end up in better
rankings on the SERP over our site, driving more traffic to that site over ours. When I typed in
that specific phrase into Google, our site appeared first above the blog but next the blogs meta-
description was a ranking system that had the blog rated extremely high and that could pull

people from clicking on our site and ending up on theirs instead. According to Moz, search
engines like to filter out content that is considered duplicated or essentially the same and that
could cause our ranking to falter rather than rise. Content on the site should be original and
users should be able to look at your specific site and see information that they have not seen
other places.
The content on Nature’s Seed is actually quite detailed oriented when it dives into each
specific grass seed. There is a chart that shows up on each product buying page that gives
details and quick pictures regarding climate, ground conditions and strong characteristics just to
name a few. The display is laid out in an interactive way that adds value and cleanliness to the
content. This also is a great way that the table could end up on Google’s image result page
which would ultimately drive even further traffic to the site. This is another edge that this has
over the competition because there is nothing on the Home Depot page that explains the
benefits of the grass seed nor the conditions that work best for the specific seed blend. This
shows how Nature’s Seed has specific components that do scream original and that do allow
them to stand out from the rest.
Readability: Ensuring content is easy to understand is a big factor for websites. Sites must
have concise short sentences that still get the point across but that also have a conversational
tone. There was a Read Score conducted and the average grade reading level was between 6th
and 8th grade. This score is based off different aspects of the content, including text quality

which refers to the number of syllables within sentences, how much passive voice was in the
writing and how many adverbs were within that one page. Short sentences are crucial so users
are not just skimming because the paragraphs are too long. Nature’s Seed can update their
content to conduct shorter sentences because just one of their sentences that was scanned on
the site had 53 words. Below is the screenshot that shows the various formulas that are used,
the grade level those equal out to and the average at the bottom.
According to Moz, another important feature of making the site Internet-friendly is to break up
content with specific tools such as headers, bullets, images, charts, etc. This way it keeps the
users on the page and not heading back to the search page to click on another site. That is why
the chart I mentioned earlier is so beneficial to the site because it is not just regular copy that
gets boring and repetitive for users.
Recommendation for Improvements:
This strongest recommendation I would begin with is to expand the content to enhance
conversions. In this instance, a conversion means to turn visitors into paying customers. The

best way to do that is to add value to the content and adding more than just a simple description
at times. There are different ways that Naturesfinestseed.com may reach this goal and enhance
their rankings all in at the same time. I think one interesting ingredient that they could
incorporate would be a timeline of how the grass is going to look overtime. That would help the
user be able to see the entire process and the ending product. We believe they should also look
into adding customer ratings so people can see just how popular a certain product is. This could
also help boost the credibility of their content by having people rate their merchandise. The
company already incorporates customer testimonials but we believe it would also be beneficial
for their to be star ratings on each product page. This is something that HomeDepot.com
embodies and I believe that it adds to their particular value but also gives them constructive
feedback.
One of the biggest components we would recommend would be to add our new specific
keywords into the content on the product-category page because that page drives to the specific
grass seed types which ultimately is where the buyer buys. The keywords need to add value to
the content not diminish it, so we would add a tasteful amount in specific places. One
suggestion for one of our specific keywords is to ensure that the term “best grass seed” is
directly together in one phrase and not broken up. At the moment on the site there is the term
‘best’ and ‘grass seed’ but rarely are they directly linked together. I believe once that is fixed, it’ll
definitely drive further traffic to the site from the results page. Since we want our pages to be
found from those particular phrases it is wise that we use those words in our content. The trick
to this method is to avoid keyword stuffing because Google can pick that out and drop the
rankings of the site dramatically due to this issue. That is why it is crucial to add the keywords
but in aesthetically pleasing amounts.
IV. Trust
1. Authority

NaturesFinestSeed.comScore:4/10
HomeDepot.com Score:9/10
Analysis: There are many components that go into a website’s’ overall trustworthiness.
Some are back-end driven, such as the quantity and quality of links and the age of the
URL, while others are more content based, like whether the site is considered a leader
on the topic about which the content is focused, or if experts are quoted or the site gets
press coverage. The more of these things a website has, the more legitimate it seems to
search engines, and will therefore be ranked higher.
Links
NaturesFinestSeed.com does not fare very well in Authority. Beginning with links,
MOZ calculates NaturesFinestSeed.com has 4,099 links among 44 root domains. That
averages out to about 93 links per domain, which seems like an exorbitant number.
While having lots of links can be helpful and important, search engine bots are
suspicious of sites that have excessive link to just a few domains, as this could be a sign
of link swapping, resulting in a lower authority score, and thus a lower SERP ranking.
HomeDepot.com has a total of 177,000 links among 13,384 domains, averaging
to about 13 links per domain. This is a much more reasonable ratio than 93 per domain.
Links are discussed in further detail in section VII.
URL The older a domain is, the more trustworthy it becomes. According to
StatShow.com, NaturesFinestSeed.com was created on the 29th of Janurary, 2011,
making it almost 6 years old. According to the “About” page on their website, the
Nature’s Seed brand itself was also only created in 2011, so their 6 year old domain is
perfectly reasonable. It would not be very possible to have a website for a company that
doesn’t exist yet. The problem lies, however, in the URL’s expiration date: 1/29/2017- a
mere two months from now, and just 6 years after its creation. URLs are relatively
inexpensive, and can be purchased/rented for periods of time much longer than 6 years.

When the bot sees that a url’s expiration is encroaching, or that the URL was only
purchased for a short time, it may assume that the business or individual running the site
is not very invested or secure. If Nature’s Seed had secured their URL for a longer
period of time, the bot would see them as more invested, professional and trustworthy,
and thus improve their authority and SERP ranking.
HomeDepot.com was created 24 years ago on August 4th, 1992, and will expire
on August 3rd, 2022 at the ripe old age of 30 years old, according to StatShow.com. I
was very impressed by HomeDepot.com’s age, seeing as the internet itself was started
only one year before in 1991. It’s just about as old as a URL can get, which makes them
seem like much more of an authority than the fledgling NaturesFinestSeed.com. Home
Depot also thought ahead, and reserved their URL for many years in advance.
Content Focused Authority
The “About” page on NaturesFinestSeed.com tells the story of the Nature’s Seed
brand, beginning with its parent company, the Granite Seed Company, which was
founded in 1988 by Don Bermant, and became “one of the leading suppliers of
agricultural, reclamation, and turfgrass seed in North America”. Nature’s Seed is the
retail division of the Granite Seed Company, and provides the same high-quality seed to
the public. This seems like a fairly respectable pedigree to me, especially considering
the Granite Seed Company’s age. Their longevity and success would likely make them
very knowledgeable about (and potentially a leader on) grass seed. Unfortunately,
Nature’s Seed’s tie to the Granite Seed Company is only mentioned once, and with no
link. While Granite Seed Company’s website doesn’t fair any better on Moz’s authority
ranking (receiving a 41/100), if the two linked to each other, it could be mutually
beneficial and help raise their authority scores.
The “About” section also talks extensively about the process and high standards
for quality Nature’s Seed practices, as well as lists press outlets such as local Fox, NBC,

and ABC outlets that they have supposedly “been featured on”. This is all great
information and should help to increase their authority, but again, and the information
doesn’t link to anything. The press-features section is also present on the Home page,
below the fold, but in both places, the press outlet logos are just static images. It would
be much more effective to link those images to the specific articles or clips in which
Nature’s Seed is featured. Press-coverage is a factor that the bot considers as a signal
of authority, but there is no way for the bot to be able to prove anything about their
expertise or press coverage without reputable links.
There is no writer or contributor credited to any of the copy, but that doesn’t seem to be
out of the norm for an ecommerce site. The copy was likely all written by one or two employees
based on factual information provided by the seed manufacturers also employed to Nature’s
Seed.
2. Engaging Content
NaturesFinestSeed.comScore:
HomeDepot.com Score:
Site Bounce
Rate
Page
Views/Visitor
Daily
Time on
Site
Product-level
share tools
Product-level
ratings
Product-level
Reviews
NaturesFinestSeed.com 29.67% 3.83 2:27 no no no
HomeDepot.com 37.41% 5.85 4:50 yes yes yes

Analysis: Both NaturesFinestSeed.com and HomeDepot.com have low bounce rates at
29.67% and 37.41% respectively, compared to the average bounce rate of 50%. While
NaturesFinestSeed.com has a lower bounce rate, which is good, it also has a lower page views
per visitor rate and average daily time spent on site than HomeDepot.com. This could be due to
the sites’ content being unengaging and turning people away, or simply, and more optimistically,
due to the fact that HomeDepot.com has many times more products (and therefore pages) than
NaturesFinestSeed.com, and their products expand across many more categories and interests
than those provided by Nature’s Seed.There’s simply more to look at on Home Depot’s website.
I believe HomeDepot.com’s higher page views could be due to the product
recommendations on the product-level pages. They provide pictures of and internal links to
similar and complementary products, which can help to propel visitors through the site.
There are no product level share tools or ratings on NaturesFinestSeed.com. I originally thought
the idea of putting share tools on a product such as grass seed was somewhat laughable,
because I couldn’t fathom who would want to tell their friends on social media what kind of grass
seed they were buying. However, upon examining HomeDepot.com’s share tools, which include
buttons for Facebook, Pinterest, email, and printing, I realized that share tools are relevant to
products like grass seed. People use Pinterest to collect ideas and make lists for all sorts of
subjects- from weddings, to haircuts, to... yes, even gardening and landscaping. I can also see
how email and print tools might be utilized by many.

NaturesFinestSeed.com also lacks a product-level rating or comment system, which,
judging by the popularity of HomeDepot.com’s comment section, could be quite useful to
potential customers. It should be noted, however, that NaturesFinestSeed.com does have a
Testimonials tab, and shows testimonial blurbs in multiple places throughout the site (just not on
product-level pages).
I do think NaturesFinestSeed.com pulls ahead in a couple areas of engaging their
visitors- and that’s value-added content. They have a Live-Chat feature as well as the traditional
contact information. Customers are able to get answers to questions in a personal way that
adds value beyond the traditional e-commerce content. There is also an attractive little
infographic on every product-level page that illustrates the region, sunlight needed, amount of
water needed, color of the grass, and more. I know I enjoyed looking at this item, and it was
very memorable.
I believe NaturesFinestSeed.com also has superior product-level copy. Each products is
described in detail, and in sentence form: not just bullet points. This shows that much thought
was put into each product, but it may turn some people off, however, if it seems like too much to
read.
Recommendations for improvements to Trust: Nature’s Seed should not just wait for their
URL to expire before renewing it- they should go ahead and renew it as soon as possible in
order to appear more prepared and professional. That way, they also don’t run the risk of

somehow forgetting to renew the URL and losing their entire site, or having someone snatch it
up. They should also make the most out of their ties to a larger seed company and link to
Granite Seed Company’s website, GraniteSeed.com. It would also be beneficial for them to link
to any press coverage they have received through the press outlets’ logos already present on
their About page. They need to show us they’re credible rather than telling us.
It might also be helpful to put a short bio describing their history and quality requirements on
every product-level page to remind visitors of their commitment to quality and professionalism in
lieu of citing a specific author in order to gain expertise in the minds of the visitors.
Nature’s Seed should follow Home Depot’s example and include share tools on product-
level pages, as well as potentially expanding the testimonial section to product-level reviews.
They might also do well to include a bullet-style summary of each product, in addition to the
existing copy, to accommodate those who may not wish to read full paragraphs.
V. Architecture
1. Speed
Page loading time is a major aspect of having a strong site and is an easy way to compare
sites. Even if you have a high click rate, if your site does not load quick enough it will cause
people to pogo stick which means the users are frustrated with something in particular so they
will go back to the search page and click on another site. From an article by Steve Lohr he
explains that people will visit a site less often if it is slower than competitor by more than a

thousandth of a second. There are different aspects that affect speed and those include the
computer, connection, server and web content. Site owners use the waterfall chart which shows
every part that is loaded line by line and see’s how long it takes to load. It allows for them to see
which aspect of the page takes the longest to load and then see if that can be fixed or changed
to speed the up the site.
From WebPageTest.org, Nature’s Finest loaded in 7.9 seconds. Jakob Neilson would
claim that allotted time is too close to the 10 second mark, which is the limit for keeping the
user’s attention. Based off the waterfall chart the pictures are taking the longest time to load and
the site page used for the test has 12 pictures. On that site, they also provide a pie chart that
breaks down the time needed for each aspect to load.
This pie chart exemplifies that javascript and images took up the most time to load with font
being the quickest. Digging further into the waterfall chart it shows how long each ingredient of
the page took and the longest line is the image that was loading the slowest.

This chart puts into comparison the different speeds and what aspects are and are not the
problem when the site is being loaded for the user. The purple lines indicate images while the
pink lines are showing javascript. Out of the 12 pictures on that page, 10 of them are taking
longer than 4 seconds to load which shows the concern. The waterfall chart also allows you to
directly click on any image you want to see and I chose the one that was the slowest and below
I have provided the picture.
The fact that this picture takes the longest to load issues a problem for various reasons. One
important aspect is that this picture is the above the fold and is the first true picture the user is
visualizing when the page loads. This one image is slowing down the entire site from loading

and the image is not entirely as important as the others. The other images on this page give
examples of the specific grass seeds which is extremely vital for the main goal of the site but the
header photo can be left out or optimized to load faster. Not only are their images taking a long
time to load, their js is also posing a problem for the speed of this particular page.
In comparison HomeDepot loaded in 5.3 seconds which is better for users. Nielson explains
that anything past 1 second is the limit for a users flow of thought to stay focused and 5 seconds
is not to far past that mark and at least is not close to 10 seconds. On their grass seed page,
there is no giant header photo and the pictures are solely of the products. Based off their pie
chart, images and javascript almost take the same amount to load which means they optimized
their features and pictures to load just as fast as code.
HomeDepot.com keeps the speed by not having extra photos that are not important to the
content and keeping it simple with specific photos that are. They only integrate pictures and
style sheets that matter the most to their visitors. This is definitely a place where Nature’s Seed
can move up the rankings by improving their load time. Those are the direct reasons why

Nature’s Seed was given a 5 for this category and Home Depot was rewarded with a 9 due to
their priority of content in regards of speed.
Recommendations for improvements:
It is clear that the issue of their speed is stemming from their images. Based off my
observations, I would recommend that the site either eliminates the lawn header photo or
changes it something else. Since web designers are encouraged to prioritize the content by
loading the above-the-fold section first, this large image is completely slowing down the page
and should be fixed. If getting rid of the image header is not an option, Nature’s Seed should
make sure that they are using the correct image format whether that be jpeg, gif, or png for that
specific photo. Other images that took too long to load were the Instagram pictures that are
clear at the bottom. If the company would like to keep those there, I would suggest using a
technique called lazy loading which may include a mouse over. This would give the user control
and allow them to mouseover the picture if they would like to view it but if they do not, the image
will not load so that time will not be taken up. The pictures will then only be loaded when a user
needs it or when they get to that part of the site. These few changes can give time back but still
keep the content the company wants.
Another suggestion would be taking the code based approach to adjusting this problem. This
could encompass different processes one being to use cascading style sheet for as many
designs as possible. Once that occur, programmers could also minimize the code sizes
including HTML, CSS, and Javascript. They also recommend reducing unnecessary breaks in
the code to allow for one continuous code to load. All of these factors are used to enhance
speed in many different ways and it is crucial to use whichever approach will work best for the
specific site. So in my mind and based off the data, it would be wise to fix the image errors and
then if that does not work to take a look within the code.

2. URLs
Current URLs:
Nature’s Seed URL for CategoryPage: https://www.naturesfinestseed.com/lawn-
grass-seed-types
Nature’s Seed URL for Product-Level Page of Fine Fescue Grass Seed Blend:
https://www.naturesfinestseed.com/fescue-grass/fine-fescue-grass-seed-blend
Home Depot’s URL for CategoryPage:
http://www.homedepot.com/b/Outdoors-Garden-Center-Lawn-Care-Grass-Seed/N-5yc1vZbx62
Home Depot’s URL for Product-Level Page of Kentucky 31 50 lb. Tall Fescue
Penkoted Grass Seed: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Pennington-Kentucky-31-50-lb-Tall-
Fescue-Penkoted-Grass-Seed-100516056/204711462
Recommended new URLs:
Nature’s Seed URL for CategoryPage:
https://www.naturesfinestseed.com/lawn-grass-seed-types
https://www.naturesfinestseed.com/fescue-grass/fine-fescue-grass-seed-blend
Explanation: I do not believe Nature’s Seed needs to change their URL-naming system.
They are exclusively using words rather than numbers, as suggested by Google’s SEO Starter
Guide. The words used are also descriptive, and tell the user exactly what the page they are on
is about. If you’re on a page about Individual Wildflower Species, the URL includes the words

“Individual Wildflower Species”. The directories and subdirectories are usually given the same
as the title of the corresponding page. The exception to this is the category page, which is
labeled in the navigation as “Lawn Grass Seed Types”, and a URL of
https://www.naturesfinestseed.com/lawn-grass-seed-types, but is inconggruiously titles “Types
of Grass Seed”. In this case, I would not recommend changing the URL, but changing the title of
the category page to match the URL and Navigation.
Home Depot, on the other hand, breaks many of the suggested methods of URL
naming. Most noticably, they use lots of numbers at the end (and sometimes in the middle) of a
URL. When numbers are used in the middle, like in http://www.homedepot.com/p/Pennington-
Kentucky-31-50-lb-Tall-Fescue-Penkoted-Grass-Seed-100516056/204711462 for example, it’s
because the numbers are part of the name of that specific product. In this case, the specific type
of seed it “Kentucky 31”, and it comes in a 50 lb bag, which needs to be noted in the title and in
the URL because that same type of seed also comes in a 25 lb bag. In these cases, I consider
using the numbers forgivable, since they are indicative of a specific product. What’s not
forgivable, however, it the string of numbers “100516056/204711462” at the end. I don’t know
what kind of purpose those numbers may serve in the code, but they make the URL look messy
and overly complicated. Such numbers are also present on the category page:
http://www.homedepot.com/b/Outdoors-Garden-Center-Lawn-Care-Grass-Seed/N-5yc1vZbx62
Home Depot also doesn’t use an obvious form of directory organization. They throw seemingly
random letters after the TLDs and before the page title in the URL.
3. Mobile

At this point in time, some users are accessing sites on their mobile devices even more than on
a desktop. The convenience of the mobile device draws users to access a lot of information
from their phones and that is why websites should be mobile compatible. The mobile
compatibility method Nature’s Seed employs is called responsive design. Which means that it
responds to different sizes of the screen and changes the layout in order to fit on a smaller or
larger screen. Below is how Nature’s Seed product-category page would end up on a mobile
device and the next picture shows what that same page looks like on a desktop.

The above screenshots prove how the site is responsive by the way all the content is still on
the mobile device but is just shrunk down and the content switches to a vertical layout. The
biggest change that we noticed was the loss of the navigation bar when the content is on the
mobile device. The navigation is completely eliminated and the logo is then much larger.
Another issue leads back to speed, responsive design takes a longer time to load and that may
particularly be slowing down the load time on both the desktop and mobile. Responsive design
posses even more threats for SEO such as the desktop not containing keywords the mobile
users are using. When the site shrinks due to the window response some important factors and
content might be taken out and then users are not finding the site on the SERP when typing in
specific keywords.

In contrast HomeDepot.com does not operate using responsive design. Instead they have a
different site used specifically for mobile devices. When analyzing the URL of the site on a
mobile phone there is m. right before the domain name meaning that it is created specifically to
be on mobile devices and is different than the desktop. It is also clear that it is not responsive
because on a desktop when the size is changed the content does not move/respond. The
biggest change from desktop is that on the mobile device, space is limited so the extra space on
the side that allowed for users to specify their search is gone. Although that piece is eliminated,
Home Depot still allows for a search bar at the top so users can continue to search from any
page. Home Depot gives their visitors a way to find what they need even with limited space and
that is why I gave them a 9.
Recommendations for improvements:
My recommendation would be to make a whole separate site for mobile and tablet devices. I
believe that reeks more benefits than responsive design especially for SEO. This way the
company can assess research and see what type of aspects mobile users are more common to
use than users on a desktop. This information would help them build a specific site with the
most crucial information created around strong keywords. Having a separate site and design for
mobile devices would also help the speed problem which is a major concern for Nature’s Seed.
Switching these tactics would allow for a smoother transition from desktop to mobile so that
Google realizes just how mobile-friendly the site is.
VI. HTML:Current Keyword Location Analysis
1. Title Tags

Current Tags
Nature’s Seed Product-CategoryPage:<title>Types of Grass Seed | Nature's
Seed</title>
Nature’s Seed Product-CategorySub Page: <title>Fescue Grass Seed | Nature's
Seed</title>
<title>Fine Fescue Grass Seed Blend | Nature's Seed</title>
Home Depot’s URL for CategoryPage: <title>Grass Seed - Lawn Care - Garden
Center -  The Home Depot</title>
Home Depot’s URL for Product-Level Page of Kentucky 31 50 lb. Tall Fescue
Penkoted Grass Seed: <title>Pennington Kentucky 31 50 lb. Tall Fescue Penkoted
Grass Seed-100516056 - The Home Depot</title>
Recommended new title tags:
Nature’s Seed Product-CategoryPage:<title>Lawn Grass Seed Types |
Nature's Seed</title>
Nature’s Seed Product Sub-CategoryPage: <title>Fescue Grass Seed | Nature's
Seed Blends</title>
<title>Fine Fescue Grass Seed Blend | Nature's Seed</title>
Explanations: Title tags appear in many places: in the browser tab, on social share
tools, and, most importantly, on SERPs. Having descriptive title tags is crucial, because they are

the part of the HTML that tells search engines what the page is about. This means it’s also
important for each page to have its own unique title, otherwise the bot won’t be able to tell the
difference in what each page is about. This is how title tags appear in SERPs: <title>Fine
Fescue Grass Seed Blend | Nature's Seed</title> .
If a title tag is too long, it will get cut off, indicated by the green, upside-down triangle.
Title tags are also optimal places to place keywords (IF they are warranted- excessive
placement of keywords in title tags could be considered “keyword stuffing”). For example, we
chose to optimizes for the keywords “seed blend”, since nearly every Nature’s Seed product
name ends with those two words, and since we know that product-level pages were titled with
the product name, we knew the words “seed blend” would already be present in many title tags.
There is still room for optimization, however on pages like the Fescue Grass Seed category
page. This is the page between the main category page, and the product-level page. Right now,
the title tag is <title>Fescue Grass Seed | Nature's Seed</title>, but by adding the word
“Blends” here <title>Fescue Grass Seed Blends | Nature's Seed</title>, and repeating
the process for every Sub-Category page where it would make grammatical sense, we can
further optimize for “seed blends”.
2. Description Meta Tag
Current meta tags:

Nature’s Seed Product-CategoryPage:<meta name="description"
content="Nature's Seed is a top seller of North America’s best grass seed for lawn,
pasture and wildflower seed solutions."/>
Nature’s Seed Product Sub-CategoryPage: <meta name="description"
pasture and wildflower seed solutions."/>
Nature’s Seed Product-Level Page of Fine Fescue Grass Seed Blend: <meta
name="description" content="We offer the very best quality fine fescue grass seed
for home lawns, large yards and commercial landscaping projects."/>
Home Depot’s CategoryPage:
<meta name="description" content="Shop our selection of Grass Seed in the
Outdoors Department at The Home Depot."/>
Home Depot’s Product-Level Page of Kentucky 31 50 lb. Tall Fescue Penkoted
Grass Seed:<meta name="description" content="Grow a durable, economical, low-
maintenance lawn with Pennington Kentucky 31 Tall Fescue grass seed. It has
superior heat tolerance compared to other fescue varieties. Easy to establish and
wear and drought" />
Recommended new meta tags:
Nature’s Seed Product-CategoryPage:<meta name="description"
content="Nature's Seed is one of North America’s top sellers of the best grass seed
for pastures, lawns and wildflowers. />

Nature’s Seed Product-Level Page of Fine Fescue Grass Seed Blend: <meta
name="description" content="North America’s best grass seed blends for lawn,
pasture and wildflowers found only from Nature's Seed. />
Explanations: Like the title tag, the meta tag is a part of the code that search engines
use in order to find out what a page is about. Unlike title tags, meta descriptions can be a couple
sentences to a short paragraph. It’s not crucial for every page to have a different meta tag like it
is for title tags, but the content is still important, and you don’t want to duplicate it too many
times on too many pages according to Google Starter Guide’s Best Practices. If the meta tag fits
a user’s query close enough, google may use it as the description in the SERP. This does not
appear to be the case, however, for many NaturesFinestSeed.com pages. For example, the
meta tag for the Fescue Grass sub-category page is: <meta name="description"
pasture and wildflower seed solutions."/>, but the SERP result shows this as the
description:
This isn’t great news if we’re trying to optimize for the keywords “best grass seed”, which do
appear in the meta tag, but don’t show up on the SERP.
The main category page has the same meta tag, but also shows up in the SERP with a
description comprised of copy text rather than the meta tag:

Many other pages on NaturesFInestSeed.com have the same meta tag as the two examples
above, which I feel like might be the cause of Google opting to make its own description. There
is likely too much repetition throughout the website as a whole. A solution to this would be to
make a few different versions of the meta description, with roughly the same sentiment and
message, that all include the words “best grass seed” (which we are trying to optimize for), and
give all the pages that have that same original meta tag one of the new descriptions. There will
still be some repetition, but hopefully less, which may be enough for Google to start using the
meta tags as the description in the SERPs, and help us optimize for “best grass seed”.
3. IMG names and ALT text
Current Image Tag Details:
Image file name: Kentucky_bluegrass.png
Alt text= N/A
Recommendations for Improvements to this Image:
Image file name: Kentucky_Bluegrass_blends.png
Alt text= Beautiful lawn of Kentucky Bluegrass

Image file name: Perennial_Ryegrass_Blend.jpg
Alt text= N/A
Image file name: Perennial_Ryegrass_blends.jpg
Alt text= Closeup of lush Perennial Ryegrass
Image file name: fescues.jpg
Alt text= N/A
Image file name: Fescue_Grass_blends.jpg
Alt text= Shady garden with Fescue grasses
Explanation: I selected these three images because they are the first to appear once
the user scrolls past the fold. Ideally, the page would be designed so that they appeared, at

least in part, above the fold. As for naming, I mainly just unified the capitalization because,
frankly it was driving me nuts. Then, considering they were each the entryway into a sub-
category of grass seed blends, I added the word “blends” to the end of each. This would mostly
assist in the webmaster’s organization of photos. It also increases the occurrence of part our
keyword “grass blend”.
I added ALT text to each image where there was none. I not only included the name of
the grass being featured in the photo, but also gave context (such as in a garden, or closeup),
and inserted a nice, attractive descriptive word because hey, why not make things a little more
pleasant? It’s important to have ALT text for accessibility purposes, and for those unfortunate
times when the webpage isn’t loading correctly and the images don’t appear.
VII. Links (Ln, Lq)
a. Link Number (Ln)
NaturesFinestSeed.com No. of Referring Domains: 44
HomeDepot.com No. of Referring Domains: 13,384
b. Link Quality (Lq).
NaturesFinestSeed.com Link Quality: 7
HomeDepot.com Link Quality: 9
Explanation: The popularity of a site is often analyzed by how many actual links link to the site
and who links to the site. It is important to see not just how many links there are but also the
quality of those specific links. A backlink is a link on a different site that leads users to your site
and a referring domain is the actual domain the backlinks are coming from. Based off the Moz

tool we found that Nature’s Finest only has 44 referring domains. While Home Depot has over
13,000 and have a higher ranking authority. The element that gives Home Depot better quality
links is the specific types of sites. Most of them stem from .gov or .org which are considered to
have higher quality because they cannot be manipulated. Nature’s Finest root domains do not
have the substantial status like the one's Home Depot posses. Google is searching for quality
referring domains and will hand out accolades in the form of a higher ranking for having them.
Google also explores the referring domains to backlink ratio and will become suspicious if the
numbers do not match up. This proves how quality and quantity are both equally important
when referring to SEO but quantity is something that just gives certain sites an extra edge over
the competition.
VIII. Social Analysis
Social Signals: Sharing
Current share tools
Nature’s Seed:none
Home Depot:

Recommended improved share tools:
Explanation: As it is now, Nature’sFinestSeed.com has no social share tools. There are
plenty of social icons and widgets that lead to their social media pages, but that is merely to
gain followers, not to get users to share Nature’s Seed content, so they are very different from
social share tools. Social sharing can be a great way for websites to gain links as well as get
free exposure.
As I stated before in the Authority section, I think Home Depot has the right idea by
proving share tools for Facebook, Pinterest, and email. Pinterest is a great format for those who
are looking to put together a big project,such as re-seeding a lawn, and email is a pretty
universal format that’s just generally expected. Facebook is also a share tool that has come to
be expected, and has replaced email for a lot of people. I recommend that Nature’s Seed use
these same share tools, and place them in an unobtrusive (but consistent) place on every
product-level page.
By adding share tools, you are giving people the chance the share and talk about you,
and if people are talking about you, and you have more links, then your SEO ranking will
continually improve.

IX: Priority Recommendations:
In order to most effectively improve their SEO ranking, Nature’s Seed should focus on the
content-based elements, since they have the most sway over ranking according to the periodic
table of SEC success factors. Secondly, they should work on the Trust factors. There are some
very straight-forward and simple steps they could take in order to improve their authority, and in
turn, their SEO success.

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