First Jackie Lamer paper

1. LaurenBateman.com Content & Traffic Analysis
BUSINESS ANALYSIS
Industry Overview:
The guitar industry as a whole was one of the few businesses that actually was revived by
COVID-19 pandemic and the quarantine that followed. Guitars have always been a symbol of
freedom, expression and passion, but guitar sales have dropped dramatically since the 80’s and
guitar brands including Gibson Guitars were debating bankruptcy. World renowned guitar player
Eric Clapton even went as far as to say in a 2017 news conference that “the guitar is dead.”
(Williams, 2020)
But it’s not over yet, the pandemic has forced millions of people inside to quarantine for
extended time periods so it’s only natural that someone would pick up a hobby or interest.
People are turning towards the guitar as that quarantine hobby that not only challenges the mind
but also allows people to express their creative side. The proof is in the pudding that guitar sales
were sky rocketing during the pandemic and guitar instruction app Fender Play saw their user
base go from 150,000 to 930,000 between March and June of 2020. (Williams, 2020)
With the ability to simply look something up wherever you are, learning a skill like
playing the guitar has become easier than ever. There are YouTube channels dedicated to
showing close up shots of how to play each guitar note and then there are websites with songs
and chord charts so the student can learn at their own pace but still have the material in front of
them to practice.
Online Guitar Instruction Audience

2. Referring to the zoom call with Lauren Bateman she informed us that veterans were
amongst the most popular group of users for her site. Along with veterans she mentioned that
men over 50 were very popular with her site.
Company information
LaurenBatemen.com is an online guitar tutoring service that allows users to practice and
learn how to play songs with instructional videos and chord charts. LaurenBatemen.com
provides free chord charts and videos but also has a subscription service that gives access to
more content. On the surface there is quite a bit of free content compared to other online guitar
sites. When researching other sites I found that many of the popular ones including
Yousician.com and Fenderplay.com have free trials but you must enter your credit card to even
begin to access any of the websites content. Lauren Bateman makes money off of her site by
offering a premium guitar lesson course as well as running advertisements on her page. The
subscription service is monthly yearly or lifetime so this allows users to weigh the options of
what package they want and aren’t locked in for life if the user doesn’t want to be. Bateman
supplies the content for her website by prerecording instructional videos for songs and having
made the chord charts herself.
Lauren Bateman has a degree in Biology and Archelogy but quit her job as a scientist to
pursue music education. In 2010 and with no prior teaching experience Lauren started teaching
guitar and voice lessons in her small Boston apartment. After gaining local popularity because of
her quality work she found herself to be overbooked with customers and now Lauren owns and
operates two separate music schools in the surrounding Boston area and continued her passion
for music and teaching. With two schools and an online guitar website, Lauren has made a name
for herself and doesn’t plan on slowing down.

3. Competing Site
JustinGuitar.com is a competitor because of the near identical audiences that it and
Lauren Bateman are trying to reach. The two sites offer similar services and content thus making
the two websites competitors. JustinGuitar.com differs from LaurenBateman.com mainly due to
the overall appearance and organization. LaurenBatemen.com is by no means an unorganized
website, but JustinGuitar.com offers many more filters and search features to help the user sort
and pick through songs. JustinGuitar.com has three levels of difficulty with three subsections for
each one. Essentially there are nine levels of varying difficulty which will help the user not only
find what they are looking for easier, but allow them to progress efficiently and not take on
anything too challenging too soon. LaurenBatman.com offers a wide library of songs with
varying degrees of difficulty but only has them ranked as beginner and intermediate difficulty.
JustinGuitar.com also has an instructional video linked to each song whereas
LaurenBateman.com uses chord charts and most of the songs also contain instructional videos as
well. JustinGuitar.com takes a more watch and learn approach where LaurenBateman.com offers
both the chord charts to follow as well as instructional videos to help teach all types of learners.
JustinGuitar.com also offers the ability to play along with an app and allows the user to play
music while on the run and not be forced to sit in front of a computer. Having an app also can
appeal to the younger, more tech savvy generation.
Quality Content Assessment:
Content Overview and Quantity
The content on LaurenBateman.com is mainly text based with the lyrics to the songs on
the screen with the correct chord over each lyric. Bateman’s website offers the user the ability to

4. play along with the chords being on the screen for them. Bateman also offers guitar tutorial
videos for most of the songs as well, however there are some cases where there is just text on the
screen. The problem that arises from only having text on your site is that if a user is on a mobile
device these chords and lyrics could not line up the way Bateman intended.
Looking under the songs and lessons tab is where a majority of the websites content is
located and that includes chord charts, instructional videos and general background for why she
chose each song. When navigating a lesson page the first thing that is on the screen is a
personalized message from Lauren explaining why she chose the song. Scrolling down from that
we are given the strumming pattern for each song as well as the chords that will be used in the
song.
Underneath the “Testimonials” tab Bateman links several reviews from users that help
promote her business. This section is dedicated to providing customer reviews so first time
viewers or skeptics can read real customer reviews and gain insight on what the program has to
offer.
The “Products” tab offers users singing lessons, guitar product recommendations as well
as her own personal merchandise. This is the least important tab because it offers very little
relevant information pertaining to guitars.
Bateman’s website offers 15-200 songs for the user to choose from. It offers many
different genres of music from serval different decades. As well as the varying types of songs,
there are two sections of songs to pick from, intermediate or beginner. This allows for a well-
rounded user experience and the user isn’t forced to play a genre of music that they don’t want to
play.

5. Quality and Value Content
When content is fresh and timely it’s implying that the content is recently uploaded or
updated and is relevant to what is going on. On top of being recently added to the site, it needs to
relatable and appealing to the user. This doesn’t mean that because a song is new that it is
automatically a great choice, but more of adding content that is similar to what’s already on your
website, but expanding on them. For example, when looking at LaurenBateman.com we can see
that a vast majority of her music choices are older rock or country with a few new songs
sprinkled in there. When you look under her latest lessons tab we see she continues her trend
with uploading more of the same types of songs, but it is working so why stop? Lauren Bateman
refreshed and updates her sites weekly according to the zoom call we had in class, which allows
the returning users to consistently see changes on the website which makes it feel more alive.
Bateman’s site does a phenomenal job at executing what it’s supposed to do, and that is
provide online guitar lessons to users. Upon inspection of her site it is a well written site that is
free of typos and other grammatical errors.
The quality factor “unique” is referring to the idea that there is no content just like it on
the internet.
Bateman’s website is more than just one screen and some guitar chords. On top of her
library of songs she truly shows her passion for teaching in music by posting items like her
“mission” on her site. This makes the site feel more personable vs a larger site where you feel
more like an ant on a log. By allowing us to see her mission and reading more into the “Meet
Lauren” tab you can quickly find out that Bateman is just a normal person who cares about

6. teaching the world. After navigating her site for some time, I realized I feel like I know a lot
about Bateman’s life and I have only read what she posted.
Brand Trust and Authority:
News Coverage
LaurenBateman.com has had articles wrote about her by many different medias.
Including the New York Times and even getting a feature on The Red Bra Project. Because she
has seen the national spotlight, her popularity and trust from the general public is up. Having
creditable sources write good articles about Bateman’s site helped shoot her up the rankings.
Social Presence
When referring to the Social Blade YouTube screenshots provided it is obvious that
JustinGuitar.com has the clear advantage because of the amount of views he is getting per day as
well as his total subscriber count. However, as far as the trend of gaining new subscribers goes,
Bateman’s site is on an upward turn compared to Justin’s. January of 2021 through May of 2021
has shown a sharp decrease in the amount of subscribers that JustinGuitar.com is getting and
when compared to LaurenBateman.com, her subscriber count has only been going up. One note
to make is that due to the subscriber count and views per video Justin’s page will be the more
trusted and referred to page then when compared to Bateman’s.
When looking at the Instagram numbers Justin’s site has the upper hand on Bateman’s
site mainly to the amount of followers he has, and how many he is gaining. While the numbers
are going up for Justin, the opposite is happening for Bateman and she is losing several followers
per day but compared to the previous 30 days she is actually losing less than used to so there is
light at the end of the tunnel for Bateman.

7. TRAFFIC ANALYSIS
Visit Analysis
LaurenBateman.com JustinGuitar.com
Visits (July) 47,600 2.6 million
Unique Visitors (July) 29,800 983,300
Visits Per Unique Visitor
(July)
1.5 2.6
Definitions
A visit on a webpage is the number of times the site was visited in a month. A visitor can
visit a page as many times as they want. A unique visitor is a new device accessing the website,
this can mean that one visitor can have two unique visits because they used their phone and
laptop to view the site. Visits per unique visitors is on average how many times a visitor has
visited the website.
Comparison
LaurenBateman.com has less visits per month than JustinGuitar.com due to the
popularity of Justin’s site as well as the fact that he started his site before Bateman. He also went
to school for music and knows about music theory, so naturally his site is going to be full of
quality information. However, because of his advanced understanding, sometimes the newer
students become overwhelmed by his website and need something simpler.

8. Compared from June to July Bateman’s site has seen an increase in visits to her site as
well as an increase in unique visitors. Justin’s site on the other hand, saw a sharp decrease in
visits and unique visitors. There can be a variety of reason as to why this happened. Justin’s site
has a mobile app that allows the user to play wherever they want, thus slowing down and
dropping the amount of traffic seen on his website. Bateman on the other hand doesn’t format
her site for a mobile version which means that a lot of her users are accessing the site through
their desktop. The vaccination rate also could play a factor in the drop of website activity due to
the fact that people were stuck inside so during the months of June and July, so a lot of users
could have put the laptops up and went outside. Also, June and July are big travel months so
users could have been on trips or vacations and away from their laptops.
Returning Visitors
LaurenBateman.com has returning visitors because of the type of content she offers.
Visitors cannot access Bateman’s site’s content anywhere else so they must return to her website
to revisit and progress their guitar skills. Returning visitors are a good thing for a website
because it shows that the visitor has a connection to your site and wants to reuse it. Bateman
referred in her zoom call that users enjoyed her teaching style and the way she set up her chord
chart.
Engagement Analysis
LaurenBateman.com JustinGuitar.com Web Averages
Bounce Rate% (July) 66.68% 54.56% 40-50%
Pages Per Visit (July) 2.7 3.9 4.6

9. Avg. Visit Duration
(July)
11:32 15:48 190 seconds
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is the percentage of users who exit the website after viewing just one page on
the site. This is not always a bad thing because for a websites like LaurenBateman.com and
JustinGuitar.com the user is going to be focusing on one specific page to practice on. If a user
needs to practice a specific song, then the odds of the user “bouncing” are very high. It is
important to track bounce rate because so you know if people are just clicking off of your site
immediately, so you can make changes to improve the user experience.
The bounce rate for LaurenBateman.com is 66.68% compared to JustinGutair.com’s
54.56%. The average bounce rate for all web pages is between 40-50% so both our guitar sites
do have a higher bounce rate than the average, but this could be due to it being an instructional
site. The bounce rate could higher on Bateman’s site due to the fact that on her page there is a

10. “Donation” pop up or link on every one of her pages. As well as general unattractiveness of the
website. Pop ups and donations notifications can lead a user to “bounce” out of frustration.
According to Lauren Bateman her high bounce rate is also due to the fact that when people
google search how to play specific songs, her page will pop up with a link directly to the song
which allows the user to get straight to what they want.
Pages Per Visit
Pages per visit is the amount of pages a user looks at on their visit to the website.
Clicking links to see other content on the website counts as a page visited. The average number
of pages visited on LaurenBateman.com in the month of July is 2.7. This number is lower than
JustinGuitar.com as well as the web average. At first glance this may seem as if Bateman’s
website is of poor quality because of the low pages per visit, but there are several factors that
play into that. Having a low number of pages per visit is not necessarily a bad thing because in
Bateman’s case her website gets traffic from people google searching how to play a certain song
and clicking a direct link to get instructions. This allows the user to get straight to what they are
looking for and thus meaning the odds of them clicking onto another page are low. Because
Bateman has her website set up that way, she is allowing the user to get what they need with
limited hassle.
Average Visit Duration
The Average Visit Duration is the total amount of time a visitor spends on the website.
LaurenBateman.com has an average page duration of eleven minutes and thirty two seconds
which lower when compared to JustinGuitar.com which had an average visit duration of fifth
teen minutes and forty eight seconds. The average visit duration for all websites is 190 seconds.

11. JustinGuitar.com has a longer average visit duration due to the fact that his website contains a lot
more content than Bateman’s including more advanced techniques and practice tutorials which
could lead to a longer study time. The longer average visit duration for Bateman’s website is due
to the fact that a visitor is practicing the song they are looking for by either using the chord
charts or watching a tutorial video. LaurenBateman.com is more appealing to the newer guitar
because her website contains simpler tutorials as not as much information on each page
compared to the in depth JustinGutiar.com. In this case a high average visit duration is not
necessarily a good or bad thing. It depends on the skill of the visitor and how long they take to
practice their song.
Popularity Analysis
Total Backlinks No. of Referring
Domains
Avg. No. of
Backlinks per
Domain
LaurenBateman.com 3,587 282 12.71
JustinGuitar.com 492,242 8,284 59.42
Definitions

12. A backlink is link to said website from a separate webpage. The number of referring
domains is the total number of websites that have a backlink on the website. The average number
of backlinks per domain is the average amount of back links that are successfully used on each
specific webpage. Knowing the Average number of backlinks per domain is important to know
because as a website owner you can know how many times you site is back linked so you can see
how popular your site is amongst other sites.
Analysis of Link Quantity
JustinGuitar.com is has a significant amount of more backlinks and referring domains
than LaurenBateman.com because Justin’s website because his website has been around for over
18 years which would lead to long term success. Justin’s website is more likely to be back linked
on higher quality sites due to the fact that his website is so popular and he has a large amount of
backlinks to back him up.
Trend Analysis
The total number of backlinks for LaurenBateman.com in January 2019 was 202. The
total number of backlinks in September of 2021 is 3,587. The rise of the amount of backlinks is
due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the national quarantine that followed. Because of the
amount of people who were stuck inside, Bateman’s site was able to see a surge in visitors thus
gaining site popularity and eventually getting the site to the level that is at today. Now that the
visitors from the quarantine craze has gotten this far, the visitor has become hooked and needs to
continue to be engaged with the website.
Analysis of Link Quality

13. JustinGuitar.com has a domain score or link quality of 70 while LaurenBateman.com has
a domain score or link quality of 14. This is due to the fact that Bateman’s site has a lower total
number of backlinks which means that her site has a lower number of links to choose from.
Because Justin’s website has such a high number of backlinks his site is much more likely to be
back linked to a more reputable website. Also because a majority of her back links are blogs she
earns a less reputable score. Blogs are opinion pieces from random people on the internet with no
consequences to their opinion is not always trusted, however it is not necessarily a bad thing.
Being referenced in articles by the New York Times increases her rating but blog posts are
weighing her down.

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