For this assignment, I used www.express.com, which is a site I frequently visit. For the competitor site, I used www.gap.com. I have shopped at both locations, online and brick and mortar. My experience with Express has far outranked my experience with GAP.
While the quality and reputation of its products is probably pushing the traffic rank considerably, Express should close the “gap” on its competition by adjusting its meta tags to increase google indexing pages.
One of the items that Hubspot indicated as a weak area for the Express website was the number of photos on the site. Since this is a shopping website, I tend to disagree with this analysis. Personal experience would indicate that the more pictures the better when attempting to make online purchases, especially when it comes to clothing.
Express should definitely do the leg work necessary to increase the number of inbound links to its website. There is a very big difference between the number of inbound links on the GAP and Express webpages. This would also help them improve their search engine ranking.
While neither site used blogging, this is an area that could increase traffic to the Express website. Shoppers like to read about other user’s experiences and blogging would be an excellent way to incorporate this.
Below are the results of the Hubspot rating for Express vs. GAP:
1. What is the website’s rating? (If you listed a competitor, how do they compare?)
The Express website, www.express.com rated 98 out of 100 while its competitor, www.gap.com rated 99 out of 100.
2. List all the major categories for which Hubspot bases its grading. (Note: usability is not covered because the direct user experience is not possible.)
The Express site was rated on inbound links and rated much lower than GAP at 25,262 (GAP had 284,912 inbound links).
GAP also outranked Express in Google Indexed pages (6,660 for Express vs. 13,000 for GAP).
Express beat out GAP substantially in traffic rank with 5,647 vs 799 on the GAP website.
GAP also wins in del.icio.us bookmarks with 949 vs Express’s 56 bookmarks.
I agree with you that these retail sites need many pictures. I am just surprised that with all the problems that Hubspot says these sites have they all still score 98 or 99 out of 100.
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