Yesterday, I posted a business profile on Clean Green Solutions, and today I’m following up with a free site analysis. If you would like a free site analysis for your business or website, please send me an email from the contact page.

Domain name:

The domain name http://www.workinagreenspace.com is relevant to the company’s products and services.

Also, http://www.livinginagreenspace.com is displaying the same content in a frame. Instead, this should be a permanent redirect to http://www.workinagreenspace.com

Site design:

This is a sharp looking design and from a visual standpoint it’s great. However, from a usability standpoint some changes need to be made.

1) The site should have a footer. Currently it ends abruptly and there’s no margin at the end of the page.

2) The site navigation should be changed a bit. There is an great set of graphics on the “closing the circle” page, that are hidden unless the visitor comes through on the front page.

3) Offer an alternative to the PDF files for information on your products. I would suggest making the the text below the product photos, link to a html page where this content can be read. Below that text you can offer the file for download via PDF.

Meta tags

Some pages are missing Meta Tags. Also, the same set of Meta Tags are being used throughout the site, these should be customized to the individual pages.

Content:

The site could use more content related to the individual green cleaning products, and also regarding green cleaning in general.
I would add a case study and/or green cleaning news page where relevant and fresh content can be added on a regular basis.

URL Structure:

The URLs are relevant and descriptive of the pages and content.

Sitemap

The site should have a sitemap to make it easier for search engines to crawl your site.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics should be installed. Analytics will be used to track your keywords, the source of your inbound traffic, and help you to calculate your ROI should you choose to utilize pay per click marketing.

Also, Google Analytics will help to track which keywords you are NOT receiving traffic for.

Link building

Right now this site is in need of plenty of relevant inbound links. The only way it is being found is through the search engines or via word of mouth.

Directory Submissions

The site should be submitted to various relevant directories.

Here is a site analysis I have prepared for Gifted (http://www.madebymarie.com). If you would like one prepared for your business website, please visit the contact page.

Domain name:

The name of the company is Gifted, but the domain name is madebymarie.com. I would suggest you choose one or the other. Either keep the name Gifted and purchase a new domain name (I have a few suggestions which will not be published so that someone else does not scoop them up), or change the name of the company to “Made By Marie”.

Changing the domain name shouldn’t cause a problem if you use a permanent redirect. This will automatically send both the search engines and people attempting to visit madebymarie.com to the new site.

Site design:

This appears to be a template driven site. I would suggest a redesign of the template as right now it has a mix and match feel to it. Visitors that do not know the business owners personally, might be hesitant to make a purchase based on the design. If it is within your budget, I would suggest a custom built site. If you have a modest budget, there is nothing wrong with taking the existing site and customizing the template. If this isn’t allowed by the hosting company, Yahoo! merchant services is a viable alternative.

Meta tags

I would go for more niche meta tags. Broad words like “pottery” are too difficult for a small site to compete for.

Content:

The home page needs to be redesigned to include more textual content related to your products. I would also redesign the front page to include the following…

-A spotlight product or sale (buy 3 get 1 free or something along those lines)
-An email submit form where visitors can subscribe to a newsletter and/or special sale notifications
-A few paragraphs describing your store with links directly to specific products that you mention

I would also suggest integrating a blog where you can draw traffic into the site, with the goal being to funnel visitors to your store. This can be accomplished by generating content relevant to the products you sell.

URL Structure:

The URLs should be adapted to be a bit more descriptive of the product pages. For instance, instead of being “/123456.html”, something like “/glasspumpkin.html” will be more search engine friendly. Also, potential visitors from other sites will be more likely to click, if they hover over the link and get a descriptive URL as opposed to a catalog number.

Sitemap:

The site should have a sitemap to make it easier for search engines to crawl your site. It will also help visitors who can’t find something specific through the front page navigation.

Search bar:

Currently, there is no method to search the catalog on site. A search box should be integrated into every page.

Google Analytics:

Google Analytics should be installed. Analytics will be used to track your keywords, the source of your inbound traffic, and help you to calculate your ROI should you choose to utilize pay per click marketing. Equally important is the fact that Analytics can show you what keywords your site is not drawing traffic from. These are the keywords that you should work on.

Utilize Google Product Search:

This is just as important as being in the Google Maps search results. This could put a direct link to your product, as well as your pricing, prominently displayed in the search results. Best of all, it’s free!

Link building:

…and lot’s of it! Off site, the blogosphere should be good for this. There are plenty of gift related blogs that I’m sure wouldn’t have a problem writing a post about a product and linking back to the site.

On site, I recommend starting a blog where you can link internally to different products after you write about them in detail. You could write about the inspiration for the product, the materials that were used to make it, and so on.

Notes:

This is a SEO site analysis, without having access to the site’s infrastructure or statistics. A detailed Internet marketing plan would also go hand in hand with this.

Depending on what keywords you are targeting, search engine optimization can be a very daunting task. However, here are five small business SEO tips to get you on the right track.

Start a blog

Adding a blog to your small business website will not only pump your site full of fresh content, but it will also give people a reason to visit your site besides looking for your phone number (by this I’m referring to existing customers). You don’t need to update it with ten posts a day, five days a week, but you do need to be consistent. It could be one post a day or three posts a week. Regardless of your post frequency, make it a habit.

Also, be sure to write useful content that is relevant to your site. If you’re writing about what you had for breakfast, it’s not going to help you if you own a furniture store.

Contact relevant sites

Contacting other sites is always a great way to build inbound links. Just send the site editor an email saying something along the lines of “I thought this article I wrote might be of interest to you and/or your readers”. Obviously, you shouldn’t be so abrupt, but there’s no need for a five paragraph email either.

Also, make sure that you’re contacting sites that have content similar to yours. From an SEO stand point this will carry more weight than a random site, and from a sales standpoint you’ll be more likely to generate new customers with traffic coming from a site that holds a similar interest as yours.

So what would be an example of this? Take the furniture store I mentioned above. Their content would be relevant to an interior decorator, but it wouldn’t be relevant to a car dealership.

Use relevant URLs

Take a look at your site’s URLs. If you have a page that is meant to list the services you provide and the URL is structured with something totally irrelevant like yoursite.com/pagenumber2.html, it’s time to make a change. A more appropriate URL would be yoursite.com/services.html

This also applies to the the title of your blog posts as well, assuming that you are using custom permalinks.

Focus on local search

This tip is primarily for service businesses and retail stores, given that they have a certain geographic area that their business is limited to. However, that’s not to say to say that if you don’t fall into either of those categories that you should avoid local SEO.

The typical individual is wise enough to search using some form of a local keyword. For instance, rather than searching “house cleaning”, an individual is more likely to search using the phrase “house cleaning Brookline, MA” because they are looking for a cleaning company in their town and not in Arizona. So as a small business owner, your time and money is more wisely spent trying to climb the ranks for these local phrases, as opposed to the much broader keywords.

Also, don’t forget about your online local directories such as City Squares, Yelp, and CitySearch. In some cases, they might actually outrank you in the search engines for the keywords that you are targeting. So doesn’t it only make sense that you’re listed on their site as well?

Don’t make a mistake with Flash

There is nothing wrong with having Flash on your site. It’s very cool and can create a great user experience on your website. However, if your site is built entirely of Flash, the only people who are going to know where to find it are the ones that are already your customer.

So before you insist that the web designer you hire build your entire site as a Flash presentation, take a minute to think of what you’re paying for. A great looking site, that nobody can find.