seo audit-

Olanrewaju Adeyemi B.

Objective of Audit Summary of Audit Audit in details Conclusion

CONTENT

Coliseum.com.ng is a budding e-commerce website in Nigeria. It was officially launched in May. Her Unique Selling Proposition is selling online fashion items ranging from clothes, foot-wears, wrist-watches to accessories. The site provides customers with wholesale prices, discounted purchase plus free delivery on items collectively worth more than N5,000.

Objective of Audit

However, Google search using 'online fashion shop in Nigeria', 'free delivery', 'wholesale online fashion shop in Nigeria' among other search terms relevant to Coliseum bring up many brands ahead of Coliseum. Coliseum has a whole lot of potentials to attract many leads who are interested in this USP, but the website is poorly positioned to take advantage of this potentials.

This SEO audit aims at analyzing SEO shortcomings found on the website as a result of extensive review. This review presents comprehensive report on issues the developer of this site must have considered trivial but have come a long way to limit potentials this awesome online fashion shop. It also recommends both on-page and off-page solutions to these challenges, with the aim of making Coliseum leverage on her USP in order to be more visible online. It suggests Pay Per Click Advertising, Digital Display Advertising techniques that will help broaden, sustain brand awareness across the online community and re-target interested buyers who are stuck in the conversion journey.

Objective of Audit

If this SEO audit is considered, and issues raised are fixed, Coliseum will improve on its organic ranking, it will show on first page of search results. Also, more prospects will be reached across Google Display Network with the good-news of Coliseum's USP. This, in turn, will generate more leads, drive more traffic to the website, increase conversion and spread brand awareness online.

Objective of Audit

On-page optimization -Empty Home page title meta tag -Ambiguous Home page description meta tag -Non-usage of Alt text and file name relevant to caption for item images -No well-defined sitemap -Inactive website blog which ranks low on freshness and content.

Summary of Audit

Off-page optimization -Inactive, irrelevant inbound links -Non-usage of USP as keywords for search engine ranking -Little or no brand awareness campaign across GDN -No audience engaging conversation on social media pages -Absence of content marketing

SEO Audit in Details META TAGS are special Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) elements that provide concise information about website to search engines. The importance of meta tags to brand visibility in this era of stiff competition cannot be over-emphasized. There are a couple of meta tags, but the three that are most relevant to brand visibility online are title, description and keyword meta tags.

KEYWORD META TAGS used to be the most effective way of describing the content of a website to search engines in the past, but due to abuse, Google and other search engines do not rely solely on it to describe the content of a website. Though, it does no harm if keyword meta tag contains relevant search terms that buyers can possibly use to search.

TITLE META TAG is found in <head><title></title></head> of HTML code for a web page. Every web page should have unique title meta tag which reflects the content of such page. Coliseum.com.ng home page title meta tag, currently, is empty! This happens by default when a website developer uses Wordpress to build a site. The implication of this is that search engines are left to decipher what makes coliseum unique among many e-commerce websites in Nigeria.

SEO Audit in Details

By default, content of title meta tag shows in the title bar of web browsers and Headline of search engine results. The current search result headline for coliseum does not reflect the site as the topmost online fashion shop- nothing to convince buyers to check in on the website. When the content of title meta tag summarizes the USP of a business as much as possible, search engine presents the website to the right prospects. Hence, prospects have enough information to decide whether to click on the site link on Google or not. This helps search engine to also correctly index the webpage, rank it appropriately for search results.


DESCRIPTION META TAG: This is another very vital HTML element that further explains the uniqueness of a website to search engines and prospects. Buyers consults with search engines when they have particular needs or problem to solve. Users of Search Engines are not trained to use keywords, they search based on their perspectives and how best they could express their wishes in words. When their search terms generate thousands of results, how do they know which of these results provide what they want?


Description meta tag is the HTML element that summarizes the USP of a business to search engine users at this point. Although, coliseum.com.ng currently has terms relevant to what the website offers, it should be refined to distinguish coliseum from the likes Jumia, Konga and Kaymu. Those unique items offered by coliseum, special benefits peculiar to coliseum should be announced by the content of description meta tag. If description meta tag is optimized, prospects at this point of searching will be fascinated by fantastic offers coliseum has to offer in terms of fashion and accessories, especially in these festive shopping period.


SEO Audit in Details ALT TEXT, FILE NAME AND CAPTION: These three attributes assist with visibility in such a way that images that are properly named, captioned and enhanced with Alt text are easily found via search engine. It was observed that images of the items listed on Coliseum are randomly named, also without the use of Alt text. The current practice on Coliseum website is to use caption to describe the image being displayed. The implication of this is that the images of items being sold on Coliseum will only be displayed on the website but not on image search on search engines.

SITEMAP: this a separate web page that contains links to all other pages on a website and all web pages link to this page. A website such as www.coliseum.com.ng with so many distinct pages ought to have a sitemap to ease navigation and enhance search engine ranking. Sitemap highlights the structure of a website using anchor texts (or text links). Sitemap helps search engines and users to find different pages of the website. This serves as signage that directs both human and search engine algorithms on how to navigate www.coliseum.com.ng


SEO Audit in Details WEBSITE BLOG: 'Styles Talk' is assumed to be the blog linked to Coliseum, it is currently not active. Jumia is a good example of an e-commerce website with a functional blog. This organically increases traffic to the website, refreshes search engines indexes of the site. That is, each time new contents are posted on Jumia blog, more viewers are attracted to the website, also, search engines have new content to crawl and index on their databases. Not actively running a blog wwww.coliseum.com.ng is doing a lot of harm to lead generation, traffic building, relevance of the website and search engine indexing of the website.

As it is now, each time search engines, especially Google algorithms, crawl through the internet for fresh content to index and add to their databases, coliseum is not found to have fresh, relevant content. This further pushes coliseum down into obscurity. Posting fresh, relevant content often on website blog refreshes search engine ranking of the website. Thus makes the website more search engine-friendly. Blog drives traffic, generates more organic leads to the site.


SEO Audit in Details INBOUND LINKS: analysis of links from other websites to www.coliseum.com.ng shows that most websites or blogs linking to Coliseum are inactive, dead or irrelevant. Inbound links are the most important factor that determines search engine ranking of a website. The great offers available on coliseum are not enough to make good search engine ranking, rather those inactive inbound links should be replaced in no time. Inbound links help build page authority and credibility.

SEO Audit in Details Link building for SEO purpose goes beyond merely asking to be listed on passive directory websites or discussion forums. Such links have very low quality in terms of ranking. Rather, inbound links from authoritative sites and active social media pages contribute immensely to search engine ranking of a website.

Coliseum’s inbound links

Jumia’s inbound links

Quality of inbound links at work

SEO Audit in Details Non-usage of USP for PAID SEARCH: Coliseum is currently, ignorantly sitting on goldmine! Her USP: online fashion shop, wholesale online fashion shop, free delivery for orders above N5000 are great keywords that could be leveraged on for pay per click (PPC) advertising. As at the time of this review, non of coliseum’s competitor has PPC ads using those keywords. One very effective way to make Coliseum brand very obvious Online is to build keywords around these benefits peculiar to shopping on Coliseum for PPC ad campaign. Currently, Google search results for these USP are all organic. It will be a big opportunity for Coliseum to blaze the trail with PPC ad on these search terms before her competitors do that. Christmas is fast approaching, many shoppers will be searching the internet for better offers, this is the best time for Coliseum to re-positioning herself for more conversions.

All search results are organic

SEO Audit in Details BRAND AWARENESS across Google Display Network: Jumia, Konga, and kaymu seem to be only e-commerce websites in Nigeria. They pop up in the face of internet surfers in Nigeria as a result of their excellent re-targeting display advertising strategy. This helps them track their customers and leads in order to follow them around online. Colliseum.com needs to increase her brand awareness by deploying digital display advertising on websites on GDN. This will showcase special offers awaiting buyers on coliseum, brand message and benefits peculiar to shopping on Coliseum. Some buyers in the past might have stumbled on Coliseum but did not make purchase for one reason or the other. This is normal in conversion journey. Fashion, especially, involves a lot of window shopping.

Buyers randomly search and compare prices across various online shops before deciding to buy. The essence of display ad is to target leads that have visited Coliseum but are yet to buy. Re-targeting can follow leads with random ads from Coliseum. Dynamic re-targeting can keep showing a particular product an interested buyer once checked out on other sites the buyer visits subsequently. This serves a soft reminder that will keep Coliseum in the minds of every lead that visits www.coliseum.com.ng. Display ad can as well leverage on buyers' interests in order to display products that are relevant to website that they have been visiting over time.


No ENGAGING CONVERSATIONS on Coliseum social media pages: for the purpose of achieving best returns on investment from digital marketing, searching engine optimization should not be about refining the website to be search engine-friendly alone. Other digital marketing tools should be integrated. Coliseum social media pages could be used to boost traffic on the site as well. But, the site's social media pages currently lack those conversations that could get audience stuck to the pages.


Posts from business pages have very minimal time to stay on audience's timelines. Unless the designated profiles churn out interesting conversations, followers will soon forget they are following you or ever liked your page at all. Despite Coliseum already has appreciable followership on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, conversions on the website may not be influenced by these significant numbers if conversations that will capture audience's moments do not come through those pages.


CONTENT is missing Coliseum online marketing mix: availability of so many alternatives have put consumers in control of successes of businesses these days. Consumers do not want to be sold to, as they no longer buy products, they buy benefits. Brands who still focus basically on selling products, no matter how tech-advanced are being left behind. It is high time Coliseum found effective ways to storify her brand message, deliver her USP via messages that add value to lives of their audiences.


Brands like Coke and Pepsi remain highly competitive today because they introduce cutting-edge contents and stories their target market could identify with. Email marketing that delivers value to audience, that puts buyers first, built around topics that will make buyers feel Coliseum really cares will help win customers' loyalty. Sponsored posts on authoritative websites on fashion, fashion news and trends, tips and information that make audience feel they are in vogue will not also be a bad idea for establishing Coliseum as a fashion brand that not only offer good products but also add value to lives of her customers.


This SEO audit has taken an holistic approach to look into reasons Coliseum as a brand has not been very visible among online fashion shops despite she has unique potentials which are definitely yet to be effectively tapped into. It reviewed issues with the website as well as other online marketing tools that could be harnessed to position her as a brand to reckon with in sales of fashion items and accessories online. It is not in any way to portray the brand as being weak in her pursuit of being visible online. Rather, the review has gone far and wide to throw search light on more avenues through which Coliseum could boost her online visibility. There is much work to be done by the website developer, the web maintenance team, as well as the digital marketing team to make Coliseum a brand that can not be ignored in her line of business.

Conclusion

Documents

seo audit-