SEO Assignment

Cook & Wells 1
Abbie Cook
Kaley Wells
November 28, 2017
SEO Analysis & Recommendations for MuckBootCompany.com
I. Keyword Research-- Recommended Keywords (Cr)
When analyzing a website, one of the most important aspects to keep track of is
the idea to constantly improve their ranking. This is important because improving a
website’s ranking in search engine result pages creates more traffic and popularity on the
site. To properly conduct research for TheOriginalMuckBootCompany.com, we first have
to look at the competitors’ websites to compare what the most frequent words are.
The websites LaCrosseFootwear.com and BassPro.com are both competitors to
The Original Muckboot Company because of their similar products. When looking at
each website’s boots, there were similar relevant words and phrases. Examples of these
words are ‘comfort’, ‘boots’, ‘women’, ‘men’, and ‘kids’. To find more phrases on the
websites that were not so similar, we started looking under categories of boots to get
more specific. This is when words like ‘hunting’, ‘work’, and ‘stable’ started coming up.
A. The 2 Keywords/phrases we think will drive the most traffic:
1. “Rubber hunting boots”
2. “Barn boots womens”
B. Current rankings of our 2 keywords:
“No” = Not in the top 10 results, according to Mike’s Marketing Tools.

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C. Explanation of our keyword choices:
1. “Rubber hunting boots”: This is the keyword focus given to us by the
client. Our research on this keyword phrase leads us to believe that it is
one of the more popular search phrases when it comes to these products
because it gets between 1,000 and 10,000 searches per month, according
to Google Keyword Planner. According to Google Trends, the search
phrase “rubber hunting boots”, while it has had its slow months, is
increasing as the colder months approach and as hunting season starts to
pick up. This keyword phrase, according to Figure 1.0, seems to reach its
peak during the December months which we believe is due to not only the
cold but the holiday season as well.
Figure 1.0 - Google Trend of “Rubber hunting boots” from Jan. 2004 to present
2. “Barn boots womens”: From studying the website and Google Trends, we
determined our suggested keyword phrase would be “barn boots womens”.
This phrase took a lot of thought and consideration to come to, but we

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believe it is neither too broad nor too specific for our website to focus on.
Our research on this phrase confirms our original thought as it receives
100 to 1,000 searches per month, according to Google Keyword Planner.
According to Google Trends, while the interest over time is not identical
to “rubber hunting boots”, it follows a very similar pattern of increased
interests during the colder months as well as harvesting season. As well as
“rubber hunting boots”, “barn boots womens” also seems to peak during
December which we believe is due to the holiday season (Figure 1.1).
Figure 1.1 - Google Trend of “Barn boots womens” from Jan. 2004 to present
II. Current Traffic
A. MuckBootCompany.com Avg. Monthly Unique Visitors: 92,500
B. LaCrosseFootwear.com Avg. Monthly Unique Visitors: 74,833
C. BassPro.com Avg. Monthly Unique Visitors: 7,291,666.67
D. Analysis: We are analyzing current traffic to gain a general understanding of how
the sites are currently performing, traffic-wise. Between the three websites listed
above, BassPro.com receives an incredible amount of higher average monthly
unique visitors than TheOriginalMuckBootCompany.com and
LaCrosseFootwear.com combined. Though, TheOriginalMuckBootCompany.com

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does receive quite a few more monthly unique visitors compared to
LaCrosseFootwear.com.
III. Content Analysis & Authority (Cq, Vt, Ta)
A. MuckBootCompany.com Score: 8/10
When searching TheOriginalMuckBootCompany.com on Copyscape,
there were six external links they showed up because they have similar content on
both their pages. Five of these are affiliate websites that feature a
TheOriginalMuckBootCompany.com product. These affiliate sites have a very
similar summary of the description as the product they are featuring on the actual
Muck Boot Company website. The affiliate websites also bring you directly back
to TheOriginalMuckBootCompany.com which creates more traffic to the website.
The sixth external link that came up under Copyscape was an Amazon link to one
of Muck Boot Company’s website. In this instance, the product description on
Amazon was also similar to the one on the TheOriginalMuckBootCompany.com
website. All six of these external links are all helping promote The Original Muck
Boot Company which helps drive more traffic to the website and increases its
popularity.
With this in mind, we would give TheOriginalMuckBootCompany.com a
rating of eight out of ten because none of these links were hurting the website and
six links with similar content to them is not a concerning number. None of the
affiliate websites linked to The Original Muck Boot Company’s competitors
either, which helps them stand out because of their originality. With this in mind,
there is also always room for improvement for The Original Muck Boot Company

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to have completely original content separate from all related websites. The
Original Muck Boot Company product descriptions have small paragraphs, but
they can improve by adding more detail to them as well as bettering the wording
it to diversify it from other websites.
B. LaCrosseFootwear.com Score: 7/10
The results on Copyscape were larger for LaCrosseFootwear.com
resulting in eight external links. Seven of these links were affiliate websites that
have a product featured on LaCrosseFootwear.com. There is similar text on the
affiliate websites and LaCrosseFootwear.com because the affiliate websites use
the same description for their featured products as LaCrosseFootwear.com does.
Like The Original Muck Boot Company’s affiliate websites, La Crosse
Footwear’s affiliate websites do feature links back to their website. This is good
for LaCrosseFootwear.com because it drives more traffic to their website. Unlike
The Original Muck Boot Company’s affiliate websites, some of La Crosse
Footwear’s affiliate websites did not have the best quality or content on their
websites. Being associated and linked to these lower quality websites could drive
down La Crosse Footwear’s credibility when Google is ranking them. The last
external link that Copyscape has for LaCrosseFootwear.com was their product
featured on Amazon. This is not a bad link to have because Amazon is a trusted
and quality website.
We would give LaCrosseFootwear.com a rating of seven out of ten. This
is because LaCrosseFootwear.com had more external links that had similar
content to them. The majority of these websites were affiliate sites, but no matter

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the website, there should not be many websites with the same content. Another
reason for the rating of six out of ten is because the websites that had similar
content to LaCrosseFootwear.com did not have the best quality content. If
websites are going to be linked to LaCrosseFootwear.com they should have better
quality websites to help their rating.
C. BassPro.com Score: 10/10
When BassPro.com is searched on Copayscape.com, there is no results
that show up. This means that BassPro.com has completely original content where
no other website has similar content to them. This is the reasoning behind their
score of 10/10. BassPro.com is completely original and does not have to diversify
their content anymore because of it. While this is impressive, BassPro.com needs
to continue to diversify their content so that they can stay in the position that they
are.
Explanation of Topic:
Quality content is key when dealing with search engine optimization. There are
many aspects that go into good, quality content and this includes credibility, value, and
thin content. The credibility of a site requires it to be well written, free of typos, and
unique. These aspects of credibility help the user better understand the message that the
website is trying to convey. A well thought out and nicely structured website users will
be able to clearly understand the message. The trust a user has for a website also helps
lower the bounce rate of the website. This means that users would rather stay on a
website with good value than a website with thin content. A thin value website would
have low engagement, as well as content that is similar to other websites. If a website

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meets the criteria of quality content, they have a better chance of having a higher rank
when searched.
A. Analysis of Quality Content / Thin Content
● Credibility
When checking the credibility for the hunting boot category page,
a related page, and other relevant pages, one of the first things that are
noticed is the lack of text on all pages. The text that was there is well
written and easily understandable, as well as free of typos. The only area
of concern for TheOriginalMuckBootCompany.com is the other websites
with similar content. There is not very many, but there is enough that
TheOriginalMuckBootCompany.com could definitely improve. This
improvement could tie into their lack of text. If they reword their text and
be more detailed, they could diversify their content more to be more
unique.
● Value
When dealing with the value of a website, there is more to look at
than just a simple description, users want more details.
TheOriginalMuckBootWebsite.com suffers in this area because of their
lack of full text. When just focusing on their hunting boot category page,
there is just the title of each product with the price and very small subtitle.
Continuing on to a specific products page, there is just a very small
description of the product containing two or three sentences. This is a
good start when describing the product, but there could be a lot more text

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describing each product. The information given does not go beyond what
other similar websites would. The little text on all their pages also does not
give users many reasons to stay engaged on a page for too long. Users
could easily skim each page and move on in seconds. What
TheOriginalMuckBootCompany.com does have in their favor are the little
things on their product page that adds value for their content. This
includes their size guide, compare option, review section, and shipping
information. This kind of content does add value to their website by
improving their customer service for the users.
● Thin Content
Thin content is not what a website wants to be described as. This
means that your website is not good quality and would not be ranked high.
Many factors like low engagement, similar content, and having a few
words on a page can contribute to thin content. This is more common
knowledge when it comes to thin content, with Google continuously
changing their algorithms, there is more in-depth and specific aspects that
can be flagged for thin content. This includes link spam, paid links, heavy
ads, keyword stuffing, and cloaking to name a few. No matter if a website
has the obvious thin content or the more hidden ones, Google will find it
and flag the website for it. When looking at
TheOriginalMuckBootComapny.com, there were not many aspects of the
website that stood out as to be considered thin content. Again, what

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TheOriginalMuckBootComapny.com could do to improve is making their
website for unique by adding more text.
B. Analysis of Trust / Authority
● General Trust Topics
Another important quality of a website is the ability for users to
trust it. A user needs to be able to see that the website has the proper
authority and experts reporting on the topic. Users can get a better
understanding and proof of credibility by looking under the “Our Story”
section on TheOriginalMuckBootCompany.com website. This section
gives more of a background on the company and lets the users trust them a
bit more. The users can also see more of the credibility of the website
when looking under “Terms & Conditions”. This provides more of the
legality side of the website to show users that they are following the
correct guidelines and rules with their website. When users go to buy an
item, there are also multiple options to contact the website if there are any
concerns or questions with research. When going to pay for an item the
button to click states, “Checkout Securely” . All of these aspects let the
users be more comfortable with entering in their card information online.
TheOriginalMuckBootCompany.com has been a registered website
since October 17, 2000, this makes the website 17 years old and very
credible. The website is also registered until October 17, 2019, meaning
there is two more years until the domain link expires. This is important to
keep track of so that TheOriginalMuckBootCompany.com can continue to

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rent the URL to continue to build their credibility and ownership. Having
a website that has been owned by the same people for many years
increases it’s ranking and authority.
● Authority
The page authority for TheOriginalMuckBootCompany.com,
according to the screenshots provided, is 28/100 and the domain authority
is 53/100. To find both of these rankings, Moz Open Site Explorer by
combining all of their link metrics into a single score. A high score means
that the website has the potential to rank well in search engine results. It is
easy to see that TheOrigianlMuckBootCompany.com does not have a very
high score and has much to improve on.
C. Recommendation for improvements:
There are many ways to improve the quality of
TheOriginalMuckBootCompany.com along to help better the content and increase
trust and authority. Probably the biggest aspect that would help this website is to
reformat the descriptions for the individual products to prevent duplicate content,
increase engagement, and increase the time a user spends on the website. As seen in
figure 1.2, the descriptions for each individual product is limited to a couple
sentences that lack in details. There is also no way to show the user what the boot
would look like on them and no more than one photo displaying what the product
looks like. This makes it difficult for the user to imagine what the product would be
like to have and wear in person. Our recommendation for
TheOriginalMuckBootCompany.com is to improve this area on each individual

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product page. To do this, first of all there needs to be a lengthier and more detailed
description of the product. This can include putting in details about what terrain the
Figure 1.2 - TheOriginalMuckBootCompany.com Product Description Page
boot would be best for and what material the boot is made of. This would give the
user a better idea of what they are buying and what specific use they can have for the
boot. This would also clear up questions and uncertainty that the user may have about
a product. A second aspect that should be added to their description section is a video
of the product so that the user can see a 360-degree view of the product. As shown in
figure 1.3, BassPro.com has this incorporated on their website. This video is
recommended because this shows the user what the boot looks like in motion. A
video also gives much more detail than a photo could. The video could feature a 360-
degree view of the boot while also showing a person walking in the boot so the user
could see how the boot moves when worn. Each product could have its own video
that displays the boot in the environment that it is meant to be worn in. This would
improve engagement and time a user spends on the website while also giving

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them more insight on how the boot performs in the setting it is meant for. Adding a
video and more detailed description of each product would help showcase the product
in its complete form. This would also build more trust and credibility to the
Figure 1.3 - Example of Video for TheOriginalMuckBootCompany.com
website because the product is now showing the claims that
TheOriginalMuckBootCompany.com makes. This company claims that they have the
best boot for any need and with a better description of each product, they can prove it
to the user.
IV. Architecture (As, Au, Am)
A. Speed (As)

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Analysis: Speed is important to SEO because faster pages have been proven to
rank higher in search results. In past papers, we have discovered that users tend to
get frustrated if a web page takes more than ten seconds to load. According to the
results from WebPageTest.org, MuckBootCompany.com tends to be on the
slower side when it comes to its page load speeds. All of the pages we tested
including the home page, the women’s category page, and a product page under
the women’s category all took over ten seconds to load. After studying all three
page’s waterfall charts, we were able to determine what items took so long to load
(Figure 2.0 - Figure 2.2).

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Figure 2.0 - Waterfall chart of MuckBootCompany.com displaying the longest loading item
Figure 2.1 - Waterfall chart of MuckBootCompany.com/women/shop-all.html displaying the longest loading
item

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Figure 2.1 - Waterfall chart of MuckBootCompany.com/womens-article-ice-tall-winter-boot.html displaying
the longest loading item
Diving further into these waterfall charts, we were able to discover which exact
items were causing each page to load slower. For the home page and category
page, an image (Figure 2.2 - Figure 2.5) was taking the longest to load, but for the
product page it was a certain javascript (Figure 2.6)
Figure 2.2 - The image via the waterfall chart that takes the longest to load on the home page

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Figure 2.3 - The image actually displayed on the home page
Figure 2.4 - The image via the waterfall chart that takes the longest to load on the category page
Figure 2.5 - The image actually displayed on the category page

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Figure 2.6 - The details of the javascript that cause the product page to load slowly
B. URLS (Au)
Current URLs:
● MuckBootCompany.com URL for Category Page:
www.muckbootcompany.com/women/best-for-women/hunting.html
● LaCrosseFootwear.com URL for Category Page:
http://www.lacrossefootwear.com/women/hunt/?sortId=product-family
● BassPro.com URL for Category Page:
http://www.basspro.com/shop/en/ladies-hunting-boots
Recommended URL:
● MuckBootCompany.com URL for Category Page:
www.muckbootcompany.com/women/hunting.html
Explanation:
C. Mobile (Am)
● MuckBootCompany.com Score: 8/10
We decided to rate The Original Muck Boot Company’s mobile site 8/10
because according to Google’s Mobile Friendly Test, The Original Muck Boot

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Company’s women's hunting boot page is mobile friendly. However, the page only
partially loaded and this can affect how Google sees our company’s page. There was a
total of nine resources that didn’t load properly and the majority of those were images
and script. While it is good that they are mobile friendly, there is still plenty of room for
improvement.
● LaCrosseFootwear.com Score: 2/10
We decided to rate LaCrosee Footwear’s mobile site 2/10 because
according to Google’s Mobile Friendly Test, LaCrosse Footwear’s women’s hunting boot page is
not mobile friendly. There are multiple issues with the site not loading properly including the
page only partially loading and a total of 24 page resources that were not able to load such as
script, images, and stylesheets. The content of the page is wider than the screen and clickable
elements are too close together.
● BassPro.com Score: 9/10
We decided to rate Bass Pro’s mobile site 9/10 because according to
Google’s Mobile Friendly Test, Bass Pro’s women’s hunting boot page is mobile friendly. Muck
like The Original Muck Boot Company’s mobile site, it only partially loaded, but it had less
issues with its page resources. There were only five page resources that did not load and they
consisted of one image and four scripts. While Bass Pro’s mobile website is mobile friendly,
there is still room for improvement which is why they did not receive a ten out of ten.
Explanation: Mobile is important to SEO because, according to Moz,
“Every year people spend more and more time on their mobile devices and
tablets,” ("Optimizing for Mobile - SEO Best Practices", n.d.). After

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putting our website through Google’s Mobile Friendly Test, we found that
it was responsive. We have concluded that this could be part of the reason
why the speed of our website tested slower than our benchmark websites.
Our website’s information is appearing to be consistent with the mobile
site (Figure 3.0). The navigation items are the same as they are on the
desktop site and are even in the same order (Figure 3.1 - Figure 3.2). You
can even view comments of products. (Figure 3.3) The only difference
that we noticed between the mobile website and the desktop website was
that there were no ads.
Figure 3.0 - Screenshot of how the hunting boot category appears on mobile

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Figure 3.1 - Screenshot of how the “filter” function appears on mobile
Figure 3.2 - Screenshot of how the “sort by” function appears on mobile

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Figure 3.3 - Screenshot of a review on mobile
V. HTML: Current Keyword Location Analysis (Ht, Hd)
A. Title Tags
1. Current Tags:
MuckBootCompany.com Title Tag for Category Page:
<title>Women's Hunting Boots | The Original Muck
Boot CompanyⓇ</title>
LaCrosseFootwear.com Title Tag for Category Page: <title>LaCrosse
Footwear - Women's Hunting Boots</title>
BassPro.com Title Tag for Category Page: <title>Women's Hunting Boots
| Bass Pro Shops</title>
2. Explanation:
Title tags are important because they are what show up in SERP, Search
Engine Result Pages, (Figure 3.4) as well as in a user's browser and when a
website’s page is shared via social media.

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Figure 3.4 - The Original Muck Boot Company’s Women’s Hunting Boots Title Tag in SERP
3. Recommended New Title Tag for MuckBootCompany.com
<title>Best Selling Women's Hunting Boots | The
Original Muck Boot CompanyⓇ</title>
We believe that this recommended change will be beneficial to our
website because it is a unique title as it does not match any other title on
our website, it accurately describe the page's content, and it is brief but
descriptive. We know that this is a good title tag because these factors are
all included in the Best Practices from Google's Search Engine
Optimization Starter Guide.
B. Description Meta Tag
Current Meta Tags:
MuckBootCompany.com Meta Tag for Category Page: <meta
name="description" content="Comfortable and stylish women's hunting boots
from The Original Muck Boot CompanyⓇ. Come find the right hunting boot for
you. Free Shipping & Free Returns">
LaCrosseFootwear.com Meta Tag for Category Page: <meta name="description"
content="Our women's hunting boots are built for cold weather and tough terrain
using premium materials to ensure unparalleled performance.">

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BassPro.com Meta Tag for Category Page: <meta name="description"
content="Bass Pro Shops is your trusted source for quality fishing, hunting,
boating and outdoor sporting goods. Inspiring people to enjoy & protect the
great outdoors.">
Explanation: Meta tags are important because without a meta tag, search engines
would not be able to give a summary of what your page is about. When reading
through our website’s meta tag, we believed that it was well written. However,
when looking at how our website’s meta tag appears in SERP we found that the
description does not match the summary that is given on Google (Figure 3.5).
Figure 3.5 - The Original Muck Boot Company’s Women’s Hunting Boots Meta Tag Description in SERP
Recommended New Meta Tags for MuckBootCompany.com:
MuckBootCompany.com Meta Tag for Category Page: <meta
name="description" content="The Original Muck Boot
CompanyⓇ offers comfortable and stylish women's hunting
boots. Free Shipping on your favorite pairs today!">
According to Google’s Best Practices, a good meta tag should accurately describe
the page’s content and is unique from other pages throughout the website. We
believe that this recommended change will be beneficial to our website because it
flows more smoothly than the previous tag, accurately describes what is on the
page, and entices a potential customer by highlighting that there is free shipping.

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C. IMG names and ALT text
MuckBootCompany.com Image Tag Details
Alt text=“Muck US”
LaCrosseFootwear.com Image Tag Details
Alt text=“LaCrosse Footwear”
BassPro.com Image Tag Details
Alt text=“Bass Pro Shops Santa's Wonderland Logo”
Recommendation to Improve Muck Boot Company ALT Text:
Alt text=”The Original Muck Boot Company Logo”
Alt text is important to SEO because if an image is unable to load or someone who is viewing
our website has a disability that keeps them from being able to view images, the alt text can
allow users to still know what is pictured as it provides information about the image.

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BassPro.com (Figure 3.6) and LacrosseFootwear.com (Figure 3.7) have both used alt text for all
of their images, but MuckBootCompany.com (Figure 3.8) still has some work to do.
Figure 3.6 - Varvy’s Report on BassPro.com’s Alt Text
Figure 3.7 - Varvy’s Report on LacrosseFootwear.com’s Alt Text

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Figure 3.8 - Varvy’s Report on MuckBootCompany.com’s Alt Text
In our opinion, BassPro.com has the best alt attribute strategy because they hit all
of Google’s SEO Starter Guide Best Practices by using brief, but descriptive filenames
and alt text, supplying alt text when using images as links, and supplying an Image
Sitemap file. Our recommended improvements will benefit The Original Muck Boot
Company because it is a great way to rank higher on search results which will then bring
new visitors to our site.
VI. Priority Recommendation
Throughout the paper, we have analyzed many different aspects of what goes into
search engine optimization. There are many different factors that go into a good search
engine optimization and they are listed in the Periodic Table of SEO Success Factors.

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These factors are ranked in importance with +3 being the highest and most important, and
-3 being the lowest. Taking into account the various recommendations that we suggested
for TheOriginalMuckBootCompany.com, we believe that content quality is what the
website needs to focus on first. Content quality is rated one of the most important success
factors in the periodic table of SEO with a ranking of +3. This high ranking means that
this factor is one of the first and biggest successful factors that are looked at when
ranking a website. If TheOriginalMuckBootCompany.com perfects this aspect of their
website, their ranking will go up. Content quality is about having a website with well-
written pages and substantial content. In this paper, there were multiple times where the
website lacked in this area and needed improvements. For the quickest and biggest
impact on the website’s ranking, content quality is what they need to focus on first and
foremost.

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References
Optimizing for Mobile - SEO Best Practices. Moz. Retrieved from
https://moz.com/learn/seo/mobile-optimization

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