1. 1
Table of Contents
Introduction 03
Search Engine Optimization
Keywords 04
URL 06
Meta Descriptions 06
Page Title 07
Page Ranks 07
Text to HTML Ratio 08
Links 09
HTML Coding 10
XML Sitemap 10
Social Media
Interconnectivity 12
Twitter Tips 12
Facebook Tips 12
Local 12
YouTube, Vimeo, Pinterest, and Instagram 13
Google+ 13
LinkedIn 14
General Interaction 14
Videos in Social Media 14
2. 2
User Experience and Website Technologies
Mobile Experience 15
Flash 15
Speed 16
Traffic 17
Creation Contest 19
Design 22
3. 3
Introduction
Eastern.eduisagreat website—veryuser-friendly,acrossall platforms,andverywell organized.There
are changesthat needtobe made,as istrue formost websites.Those changesare detailedinthis
document,andinclude optimizationforsearchengines,userexperience,design,andsocial media.
There isa sectionregardingthe website’srecentCreationContest,andthe international trafficreceived,
whichillustrateswhere andhoweffectiveanyattemptstoreachthe rest of the worldwere.
All factorsincreatingan effective website andaneffective marketingcampaignare interconnected,and
shouldall receive equalconsideration.
4. 4
Search Engine Optimization
Keeping in mind what search engines such as Google, Bing,and Yahoo look for whenranking a site,you
have to findthe perfectbalance inyourSEO and online marketingstrategiestomake yourwebsite stand
out.Search engine algorithmsare lookingfor greatfreshcontentthatisconsistentthroughoutthe entire
website;theuserexperience andoverallperformanceof yourwebsite;yoursite’soverall authority.These
factors tell the search engines how trustworthy your site is.
When it comes to any part of the user experience, readability is a huge factor. You don’t want to stuff
your content full of keywords. You do want to use keywords, but keep their prevalence akin to their
relevance—youdon’twantyourreaderstoknow thata keywordisakeyword.The ideal contentstrategy
is keeping each keyword to 1-3 percent of your content, and using your focal keyword in alternate text
and photo tags.
White space isnotthe enemy—infact,havingwhite space makesawebsite easiertonavigate,improving
user experience and search ratings.
Keywords
While not the most important part of website content, including keywords is a very important part of
optimizingasite forsearchengines.Usingthe same keywordsonall pagesof yourwebsite isagoodidea,
as is using a few unique keywords for each page.
If eachpage had200 words,youwouldwanttouse yourmainkeyword(EasternUniversity)atleasttwice,
but no more than six times per page.
Beinga Christianuniversity,andhavingthatas a major part of your‘brand’you shouldtryto rank higher
forthe term‘Christianuniversity’.Youshouldaimtohave itaccountfor1 percentof yourcontent,on the
majorityof yourpages. Whensearching‘Christianuniversity’,‘AmericanChristianuniversity’,andfinally,
‘Christian universities in the US’, Eastern.edu failed to rank on the front page in each search.
5. 5
Withnearly31percentof your
traffic coming directly from
Google, it’s important to take
note of the termsand phrases
that people are using to find
your site.
Taking advantage of these
keywords will helpdrive more
traffic to Eastern.edu, raising
the page views, applications,
and donations.
51 percent of your search
engine traffic found your site
by searching directly for the
university, and 25 percent only had to search the term ‘eastern’, while ‘eastern college’ accountedfor
nearly10 percentof searchesthat ultimatelyledtoyour website.If these are the terms that people are
alreadyusingtofindyou, it’s important to include them in any new content on your website and blog.
These keywords appear the most
frequently on your website, and are
most likely to be used to find
Eastern.edu in an organic search, either alone or in a combination of words and phrases.
It’s important that high-ranking keywords
are used in your content, and also in titles,
Meta descriptions,andheadings.Asyoucan
see from the table on the right, your site
already follows this SEO best practise for
your short-tail keywords(1-2 word phrases)
While itisn’tas importantto include the long-tail
keywords (3+ word phrases) in the headings,
titles,andMetadescriptions,it’sstill importantto
include them throughout your content. Try to
rank higher for these keywords by using themas
focal words for a few upcoming blog posts.
6. 6
URL
Google recommendsthatall siteskeeptheirURLsassimple aspossible.Forthe mostpart,the subdomain
URLs on Eastern.edu are great. The website in general is very user-friendly, and easy to navigate.
The followingURLscontainunderscores,whicharen’trecognizedbyGoogle asbeingwordseparators.All
underscores in the following URLs should be replaced withhyphens,which are recognized by Google as
official word separators:
http://www.eastern.edu/sites/default/files/sites/default/files/offices-
centers/communications/Spirit_spring14.pdf
http://www.eastern.edu/media_colorbox/9331/default/und
http://www.eastern.edu/media_colorbox/5006/default/und
http://www.eastern.edu/media_colorbox/4986/default/und
http://www.eastern.edu/media_colorbox/66/default/und
http://www.eastern.edu/modal_forms/nojs/webform/2034
Inadditiontochangingthe underscoresinyourURLstohyphens,consideraddingthe targetkeywordsfor
individual pages to the URLs, on pages where doing so would help to describe the page’s function.
Meta Descriptions
The image to the right
is a preview of what
your website’s Google
SERP result will look
like, as it stands now.
Shortening your page
titles and Meta
descriptions will make a big difference, both to how Google indexes your site, and also to making
Eastern.edulookmore professional andfriendly,tothose searchingforChristianuniversitiestoapplyto.
The home page on your site currently uses the following Meta description:
Eastern University is a Christian university in Philadelphia dedicated through teaching,
scholarship, service, spiritual formation, student development and societal involvement to the
preparation of undergraduate and graduate students.
(235 characters)
7. 7
Meta descriptionsideallycontain between 70 and 160 characters, and should vary between pages on a
website. Consider changing your Meta descriptions to a shorter text that contains each page’s main
keywords. As an example, change the homepage Meta to:
Eastern University is a Christian university in Philadelphia dedicated to the preparation of
undergraduate and graduate students.
(129 characters)
Page Title
Your page title is102 characters long,which impactsyourSEO a moderate amount,butis relatively easy
to fix. Page titles shouldbe between 10 and 70 characters long, ideally, and include as many important
keywords as possible.
Consider changing:
Eastern University | Christian University in Philadelphia | Undergraduate, Graduate and Online Degrees
To this:
Eastern University | Christian University in Philadelphia
Or this:
Eastern University | Christian University | Undergrad, Grad and Online
Page Rank
The page rank (PR) of Eastern.eduis6 out of 10, whichisconsideredimpressive.PRscoresare no longer
as importantas theyusedto be,however.Theyare nolongerthe determiningfactorinhow you rank on
SERPs(SearchEngine ResultsPages).Theyare,instead,partof 2 of the more than 200 factorsthat Google
uses to place your site on its SERP.
Your ownpage rankingisa factorinhowyou’re placed,thoughasstated,notalarge factor.What maybe
surprising to some is that Google places at least as much value in the PR scores of websites that link to
your page.
Webmastersare warned,however, that‘unnatural’links,regardlessof how highthe PR score of the site
linkingtoyours,willlikelyresultinSERPplacementandPRpenalties. Asanexample,ashoe store website
may get penalized, if they have backlinks from a Real Estate website. This is because the two are only
related to each other in very few circumstances.
8. 8
Text to HTML Ratio
The image to the left is the woorank.com
definition of text to HTML ratio. Your text
to HTML ratio is only 6.1 percent, which
should be brought up to 15 percent or
more;ideallybetween25 and 70 percent.
With Google’s Panda Algorithm,
havingahighertexttocode ratio
is really important. Regularly
updatingthe blogportionof your
site can go a long way in helping
with this issue. With a minimum
ideal text: HTML value of 25
percent, you will have to
eliminate unnecessary portions of the code for your site, and also drastically increase the amount of
written content on the site.
A highertexttoHTML ratioallowsforimprovedpage loadspeed,userexperience,andpage indexing,all
of whichincrease your chancesof ranking higheron Google’sSERP.Panda crawls sites,lookingforsigns
of readabilityandusability—alotof great,relevantcontentwillgoalongwayinmakingEastern.edumore
authoritative, in the eyes of Google.
IncreasingyourtexttoHTMLratioissomethingthatwilltake time,butitcanbe done.A fewof the easiest
ways to get started include:
Making sure your HTML coding is valid, removing unnecessary bits, and comments from code
White space may be good, but toomuch of anythingis not—removehuge chunksof white space
Avoid using excessive tabs
Don’t use any unnecessary tables in your content
Use CSS for styling, and only use flash and JavaScript when necessary
Use smaller images where possible, and remove any images and videos that don’t add quality
Include reader-friendly text and remove hidden text
Try keeping your loading speed down by keeping page sizes under 300kb
Not all of these apply to Eastern.edu, but should all be kept in mind for the future, and as part of your
overall plan.
9. 9
Links
A quick scan of Eastern.edu (courtesy
of woorank.com) located 143 links, all
of whichare activelypassinglinkjuice.
Link juice is a term that’s used a lot in
SEO discussions,andbasicallyrefersto
the distribution of authority that each
linkis sending.Some linksyouwantto
pass juice, and others, you don’t.
Thisis one of the circumstanceswhere
page rank really matters. The number
of PR points that a website has are
passedoutequallytoeachof the links,
and this transfer of authority is called
‘passing link juice’.
Link juice has a lot of very big, technical
explanations,mostof whichwon’tbenefit
you. To simplify these explanations, here
is an image that shows how link juice is
passed between sites.
Site A has a lot of low-value links,andasa
result is getting much less PR link juice
transferredtoit.SiteBhasonly2sites that
it’s passing link juice to and from. Since
theyare highauthoritysites,withhighPR
scores, and the transfer isn’t being diluted with other links from those sites, site B has a much higher
amount of link juice being passed, and will rank as a higher authority site as a result.
Eastern.edu is passing juice with 143
links. Consider using a NoFollow tag in
the codingforyourpage foranylinksyou
want to remove the link juice from.
NoFollow prevents Google from
including those links in the PR and page
authority calculations, which are all a
part of the more technical and less
practical parts of understanding link
juice. For the practical solution, here’s
another image that will help you with
includingthe no-followtaginyour code.
10. 10
If interestedinthe technical explanationsastowhy youshouldcare aboutyour linkjuice,please seethe
following website: http://blog.woorank.com/2013/05/the-flow-of-link-juice/
HTML Coding
There are problems with the coding on your site, including both errors and warnings. Search engines
would have a much easier time crawling your website if you were able to fix these issues, whichcan be
found either here:
http://validator.nu/?doc=http%3A%2F%2Feastern.edu
Or here:
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=eastern.edu#preparse_warnings
It would be advisable to have your webmaster look into these issues, and resolve them as quickly as
possible.Whenindexingyoursite,Googlewill runintothe same difficultiesasthe validatorsoftware,and
having errors in your code, slowing the algorithm’s assessments, will result in your website being
considered less trustworthy.
XML Sitemap
Your website doesn’tuse anXML sitemap,whichishugelyproblematic.A lack of an XML Sitemapleaves
Google spiderscrawlingaround,as lostas a person wouldbe,tryingto navigate a new city with no idea
how to get around.
XML stands for Extensible Markup Language, and in its simplestform is a text file that lists the URLs for
eachpage in yourwebsite.Ideally,yourXMLSitemapwill alsocontainMetadescriptionsandinformation
about how frequently each page is updated.
There are various
online tools to
help you with
generating your
XML Sitemap—
one of the best
ones is available
through Google,
and can be found at:
http://code.google.com/p/googlesitemapgenerator/
When you’re dealing with your site’s search engine optimization,trusting the most prominent search
engine available with your tools for SEO is never a bad idea.
12. 12
Social Media
Interconnectivity
Eastern University has a great presence on social media sites, including Google+, Facebook, twitter,
Instagram, and Pinterest. These accounts are all linked through your Facebook page, which is great.
Twitter Tips
A brief scanof your twitterfeedshows thatyouare usingtwittertoeffectivelyconveyuniversitynewsto
yourstudentsandalumni.Toextendyourreach,tryusingmore humorinyourtweets(whenappropriate).
People use social media to interact with other people. Using humor and interacting on a personal level
with your audience will get conversations started, attract notice, and ultimately extend your reach and
influence.
Your twitter bio effectively conveys what you stand for, and makes good use of your keywords.
If you haven’t already, follow as many Christian schools(primaryand secondary) as you are able to find
on twitter.Many will returnyourinterest,andyourreach will be increasedthroughthe connectionsyou
make.Easterncan, and should,be usingsocial mediatoincrease general awarenessof the school andits
values, all across North America. This will help prospective students find you.
Facebook Tips
The EasternUniversityFacebookpage hasagoodreach,andyouralumni page activelyinteractswithyou,
withisgreat. Updatesare made frequently, and you use the page to effectively relay university news.
The ‘About’ section of Eastern U’s Facebook page makes great use of important keywords, including
Christian university.
The ‘Reviews’sectionof yourFacebookpage isgreat—itshowsapersonal connectionwithstudentsand
alumni. Try interacting on a personal level on the Facebook page on a more consistent basis.
Local – Yelp, Foursquare & Google My Business
Your universityhasonlyone reviewonYelpandone onFoursquare.Try invitingpeople toleaveareview,
by linking from your website and other social media platforms to these pages. The reviews that you
receive andthe general audience thatyourpageson these local listings receive will impactthe authority
that Google givesto yourinstitutionandyourwebsite.Takingcontrol of how these profilesare usedwill
have a direct impact on your results in the Google Local Pack.
13. 13
Google My Businessisanotherveryimportantlocal formof social media,andyourschool doesn’tappear
to have a profile with them. Creating a profile withGoogle My Business will (literally) place you on the
Google map. Maps and local results are a huge part of the SERPs now, and taking advantage of that is
important.
YouTube, Vimeo, Pinterest, and Instagram
Your presence onYouTube is great.There are a lotof veryinformative videos,andyouhave appropriate
videos embedded into your website.
Your Instagramprofile reallyshowsthe atmosphereatEasternU, whichisgreat. Attractive,professional,
and fun photos of campus and activities.
Your profile on vimeo is great. Tackling important and frightening questions that most new and
prospective studentswillhave,itessentiallyoffersaremote orientationexperience foryourstudents.You
link to each of these individually in your FAQ Videos page, which is great.
Pinterest is a great way to interact and get noticed. Eastern University is using Pinterest well, showing
uniqueness, involvement, and atmosphere.
Overall,yourpresenceonthesefourplatformsisinformative,welcoming,anddescriptive of yourschool’s
educational, social, and Christian atmosphere.
Google+
Your Google+page isextremelybare.Trytouse thispage to your advantage,because Google placesalot
of weight on how we use their own programs and software.
One way that you can take advantage of Google+ is by linking it to the website. Google+ authorship will
linkanynewcontentto the author that haswrittenit.If you wantyour website togarnerextraattention
from Google asbeingan activelypublishingsite withplentyof freshcontent(youdowantthis) you have
to have your website linked into Google+.
You can do this ina fewdifferentways.IsuggestusingGoogle’sWebmasterTools,andalso havingyour
webmaster include the following in your coding:
<a href="https://plus.google.com/107894685718056896129/posts/UtcQ2TspQFY"
rel="publisher">Visit us on Google+</a>
14. 14
LinkedIn
EasternU’s presence onLinkedInisgreat.There’sgooduse of keywords,andactive interactionwith your
audience.ContinueusingafewkeytermsinyourregularLinkedInupdates,includingChristianUniversity.
General Interaction
Startingconversations,contests,polls,andotherformsof personal interactionswill goaverylongwayin
creating a good sense of community in your social media presence. Social media is how the majority of
the new generation of students will research your school. Make your atmosphere known, across all
platforms.
On your website’s Social Networking page, there are images that appear to be buttons leading to
Facebook,twitter,andPinterest,butthey’re justimages.Thatmay frustrate some usersthat are hoping
to be linkedtothose sitesfromthatpage. Have your webmasterturnthese imagesintobuttons,orhave
active links somewhere else on this page.
Videos in Social Media
Still the most popular type of content, videos are being used by social media marketers everywhere.
Thinkinglike anadvertisermakingacommercial that you want people toremember,create avideo that
you think people will want their friends to see and remember.
Creatingfunnyorviral videosandmemeswillensurethatyourcontentisshared.Ifyourcontentisshared,
more people will learn about your university. Andthe more people that learn about Eastern University,
the more your school will grow.
If videosincludeacall to action—orbetter,a linkwithaninvitationtocheckout the site’sYouTube page
formore—yourtrafficwillsoar.Itmaynothappenovernight,butwithtargetedvideocontent,trafficand
conversions will start to rise.
15. 15
User Experience and Website Technologies
Mobile Experience
The mobile experience
is an important one,
with new generations
of users depending
more and more on
smartphones and
tablets, and less on
desktops and laptops.
Not only does
Eastern.edu look great
ona small screen,ithas
a different, savvy,style
to its mobile interface.
It’s as usable on a
mobile device, and as
easilynavigated, asthe
desktop site, which is
great.
Bestpracticesformobile websitesincludekeepingthe site simple,andeasytouse,withobviouscontrols
and touch gestures.Yourmobile websitemeetsall of these bestpractices,isattractive,and veryeasy to
use.The onlybestpractice thatEastern.eduismissingonits mobilesiteisalink(oranobviouslink) tothe
full site. Some people may wish to see the full site from their mobile device.
Flash
Generallyspeaking,FlashisnotgoodforSEO. AnentirelyFlash-basedsite(whichyoursisnot),wouldnot
only be incredibly difficult for search engines to index, but also frequently frustrating to the user
attempting to navigate. Because Eastern.edu does use Flash elements, the following recommendations
should be made to your webmaster:
Use different Flash files for different Flash applications
Include HTML elements to your Flash code
Embed your Flash files into your HTML coding
Use HTML to include meta tags, alt text, heading tags, and anchor text
Don’t use Flash for website navigation tools
Create an XML Sitemap
16. 16
Speed
Your websiteloadsrelatively
quickly, but there are still
some areas where your
speed could improve.
Looking at the image to the
right, a quick scan using
woorank.com software
shows that Eastern.edu is
being slowed by inline
styles, CSS files, and
JavaScript files.
As website speed
significantly affects
website SEO, it’s
important to have
your webmaster look
into this, and see if
there are areaswhere
these issues can be
resolved.
17. 17
Traffic
SEO, plays, films, musical concerts—
when it comes down to measuring
success, the audience is what matters,
regardless of whose success you’re
measuring.A website’strafficisastrongindicatorof how wellthe websiteandbusinessare doingoverall.
A few general statistics about the traffic to Eastern.edu include:
Nearly 93 percent of visitors are American
The majority of your visitors return frequently
Visitors spend very little time on the site
The site has a high bounce rate
These statisticsindicate afew differentthings.It’s
reasonable to assume that the majority of your
website traffic will come from within the US,
because the websiteisforanAmericanuniversity.
The majority of your users
spend little time daily on your
site (3 minutes average, total),
and also tend to return
frequently, viewing the site an
average of 3.7 times daily. An
educatedguesscanbe made thatyouraudience consistsmainlyof existingstudentsandfaculty,andthat
they know what they’re looking for, and where to find it. The fact that most visits are to the homepage
and the My Eastern page supports this supposition.
Anothertakeawayfromthisinformationisthatthe general publicfindsyoursite easytonavigate,which
is great.
18. 18
The number of unique visitors in a given
month has a huge impact on how search
engineswillview yoursite,aswell. InMay
2014, the traffic to Eastern.edu spiked.
It’s easy to assume that each spring, this
will happen.Be sure tohave yourwebsite
at its very best before next May, when
your website traffic will very likely spike
again, due to factors such as admissions,
exams, housing, etc.
19. 19
Creation Contest
The 2014 Creation Contest
received quite a lot of
international attention. As you
can see from the map to the
right,the majorityof trafficcame
from the US, which is to be
expected, given the nature of
your website, university, and
contest.
There were still quite afewvisits
from other countries, and the
following information will help
to spread the word, waking up
the world even more next year.
The chart on the
left shows us that
nearlyhalf of your
visits came from
returningvisitors.
The chart on the
right shows us a
few things.
For starters, you had 4,334 unique visitors, which is one of the most important numbers we’ll discuss.
Approximately38 percent of the visits ‘bounced’, which means that theyonly viewedone page on your
site for that visit.That’san importantnumber,especiallywhenyou’re lookingatthe trafficfor a specific
eventpage,whichwe are.It indicatesthe popularityof the page,andthe effectivenessof anymarketing
campaignsyouputinplace.Peoplequicklyfoundwhattheywerelookingfor,saw it,andleftthe website.
Ideally, campaigns to drive traffic to your site should keep visitors on your site, looking around. The
majorityof your usersdid,viewinganaverage of more than 4 pagespervisit.Bothof these numbersare
great.
20. 20
The countrieswiththe highest
numbers of sessions can be
seen to the left.
Your Americantrafficaccounts
forover94 percentof sessions,
half of which were new users.
Your American users also
spentmuchmore time onyour
website, viewing many more
pages per session than your
international audience.
This is great, because your
potential students will mostly
be coming from the US,
meaning that you’re
effectively attracting your
target audience.
The US and Singapore had very high levels of return rates,whereas your audience in Irelandand Russia
was entirely made up of one-time viewers. This is important, because it allows you to make decisions
about which countries you’ll focus your marketing on, to be most effective.
You have a 0% conversion/returnrate inRussiaandIreland,sodon’tspendexcessmoneyadvertisingthe
Creation Contest in these countries next time. Particularly given that your Russian audience also had a
100% bounce rate—withonly8Russianusers,eachofwhomspentverylittletimeonthatpage,anddidn’t
go toany otherpages,it’ssafe tosaythatyouhaven’tactuallyreachedthem,eventhoughtheymadethe
top 10 for number of sessions.
The followingchartscan be broken downinthe same way, usingbounce rates,numberof sessions,new
users, and page views per visit to determine where your marketing campaigns were most and least
effective. Even with each of
these countries having 6
sessions total, you can see by
examining the statistics, that
your effectiveness in each
country was different. In
Brazil, for example, each
visitorwas onyoursiteforonly
a few moments, and none
returned. In Spain, however,
half of the visitors stayed to
look around your website,
viewingan average of nearly6
21. 21
pages per session. You can go through the rest of your Google Analytics for this time period, and find
similar patterns, to show you where you’re having the greatest effect.
As you can see from the chart on the left,
nearlyall of yourviewersviewedthe Creation
Contest page in the English language, most
often in US English. While not particularly
significant, it is worth noting, when deciding
whether or not to advertise in other
languages.
Lastly, below, you can see that the traffic to
the Creation Contest webpage on
Eastern.edu received a traffic spike in late
June 2014. Very likely, this was the result of
people wishingtoknow whowonthecontest,
and view the top rated videos.
22. 22
Design
The website designisexcellent,withaverycleanaesthetic.Itisveryeasyto navigate through,andhasa
consistentdesign.
The alt attributes
are importantfor
SEO, because
searchengine
botscan’t index
images,andthe
alternate textattributesgivethematextdescriptiontoindex.Please have yourwebmastersearchfor
the missingattribute,andfix thisissue,atyourconvenience.
In the Social Mediasectionof thisreport,the issue withimagesthatappeartobe buttonswas
mentioned.Thisisthe onlyconfusingpartof yourwebsite’sdesign,andshouldbe fixedassoonas your
webmastercanmanage it.
At the endof yourembeddedYouTube videos,there isa
‘recommendedvideos’selectionthatpopsup.There isa
wayto shut thisoff,andI would stronglyrecommend
youtake thisactionas soonas possible. YouTube will
recommendanythingtheybelievewillbe of interestto
an audience of college students,andnotall of these
videoswill be appropriate foraChristianuniversity
website,asillustratedinthe screenshottothe left.
How yourwebmasterdoesthisdependsonseveral
factors,includingthe HTML codinginthe restof your
site.Please have themaddressthisassoonaspossible.
