Post #3: Site Evaluation, pass or fail?

Let’s go behind the scenes of the L'Oréal Paris site! For this post. I am going to do a simple summary of the SEO evaluation and then share any recommendation(s) I have for making the site bigger and better.

Using an SEO evaluation tool (seositecheckup.com), we immediately get a score of 88 out of 100, which translates into a high B and that sounds already impressive. We can see that the page is in the green for most of the important factors such as Heading Tags, Keyword Usage, Sitemap, Social Medias, and Loading Time. The load time is around 3.21 seconds, which is under the average of 5 seconds. L'Oréal has their social media icons at the bottom of the page that directs the visitors to the appropriate social media platform. I mention a few of the failed tests in the next paragraph but again, it isn’t anything that really impedes the webpage or severely affects the visitor. Overall, the webpage is in good shape and really, all the major tests are passed. While this doesn’t brand the L'Oréal Paris page as the perfect webpage, it is something to be in awe with, as the page details and metrics seem to be tailored to receiving numerous visitors as well as be more focused on the customer experience.

So, what does the webpage fail at? In the area of HTML size, the webpage is 793.9Kb compared to an average page at 33Kb. While it’s unclear as to what the average page consists of and if it is within the same category as L'Oréal, the size of HTML does tend to affect visitors in load time, whether it is accessing the landing page or moving from one category to another. The evaluation also flags that the webpage is using an unfriendly SEO URL; but when checked, it is referring to one URL and it directs to a product. The most important failed test is regarding Google Analytics, in that the webpage is not utilizing said program. While the webpage is not using that specific analytics tool, they could be utilizing a different analytics tool to gather data about their users, average user sessions, site bounce rate, page bounce rate, and time on page, to name a few of the analytics metrics. It would seem highly unlikely if the L'Oréal Paris webpage had no analytic tool whatsoever; without it, the team behind the webpage would be in the dark regarding the profitability of their page as they would have no data on conversion rate of successful purchase through the site and the total revenue per session. Although, it is possible that the reason for a lack of analytic programs could be that the webpage is not the place of purchase, rather it is the one that directs you to their approved third parties (Amazon, WalMart, CVS) for purchasing the product.

Onto my top two recommendations for improving the site. First recommendation is to integrate accessibility tools into the webpage. As we become more reliant on the Internet – whether that is because of the faster service or due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic – and an increase in online shopping, the webpage should offer accessibility tools for those with vision impairment problems disabilities, cognitive disabilities, or any disability. This is a priority not only in creating more customers for the products and/or services, but it also relates to what L'Oréal stands for: beauty for all. My second recommendation would be to reduce, or compress, the size of the HTML, in order for even faster load time and eliminating the risk of losing visitors. However, my top priority would be the inclusion of accessibility tools for the webpage.

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References:

• Larson, J., & Draper, S. (2020). Chapter 2: Web Design. Digital marketing essentials. Rexburg, ID: Edify.

• Larson, J., & Draper, S. (2020). Chapter 3: Analytics. Digital marketing essentials. Rexburg, ID: Edify.

• SEO Site Checkup. (n.d.). Retrieved September 29, 2020, from https://app.seositecheckup.com/