Website SEO Team

480 W Hancock St
Detroit, MI 48201

November 26, 2017

EnBiologics LLC
440 Burroughs St
Detroit, MI 48202

Subject: SEO Team Progress Report

Work Accomplished:
As a backend team for the EnBiologics website, most work that we have currently completed involves
research rather than formal pieces of writing. However, sufficient research has been conducted in regards
to a variety of SEO techniques including keywords, meta elements, robot exclusion standard, web
accessibility, etc transitioning our team into prototype/mock up phase.

Regarding meta elements and keywords we addressed a major issue with EnBiologics websites title tag
which lacks any mention of their product HoneyCure. We have decided to create various title tags which
incorporate the product name, as well as all relevant keywords that have led to clicks on the EnBiologics
website, according to Google Analytics. We will do the same drafting for meta descriptions. During our
meeting with Ramy, another issue that we have discovered is that a very large portion of users are being
directed to the site through searches unrelated to HoneyCure. While site activity may increase because of
this, it is important that these people are kept in the minority of visitors since they are not part of the
audience HoneyCure is directed toward and will likely not be interested in the product. To handle this
predicament, we have decided that we need to effectively design a title tag or meta description by putting
ourselves in the mind of potential customers and imagine what sorts of phrases they might search for. The
Google AdWords keywords that we have been sent have aided us in this endeavor.

After meeting with Sean our team has concluded that the website does not implement web
accessibility. To tackle this issue our team has decided to implement this SEO strategy, at least on some
segments of EnBiologics website, as well as to increase EnBiologics knowledge on the topic. Because
of the time constraints, as the semester is nearing, finding a reputable company offering a web
accessibility conversion service and outsourcing this web development task may be the most practical
approach in regards to implementing web accessibility.

After learning more about robot exclusion standard we decided that the current website would not need to
inform the web robot about which areas should be read, since all the pages would improve the rankings of
the search. However, if a search bar was implemented into the website, then it would be necessary to use
the robot exclusion standard to tell the web reader not to process anything related to the search.

After we reviewed acceptable black hat and white hat SEO techniques, we came to the conclusion that
Enbiologics is acting ethically and not implementing any black hat SEO techniques to improve their site-
traffic. All research done by the group has shown white hat SEO techniques to be implemented and
improved (metadata, keywords).

For more in-depth coverage of the various SEO techniques, see SEO Topic Recommendations.

Analysis of Strengths and Weaknesses:

The SEO teams biggest strength comes from strength in numbers. Because there are a total of six
people on the team, each person has specialized in a different SEO tactic. By letting each person delve
deeply into a different topic instead of learning just surface level information on multiple topics, the team
can confidently modify certain portions of the EnBiologics website for the better. The groups
specialization in certain topics has allowed for efficiency in regard to preliminary website changes, which
would not have been the case if SEO tactics had not been divided. If that had been the case, discussions
for website changes likely would have been spent learning other tactics instead of focusing on where the
EnBiologics website could improve, resulting in inefficient meetings and loss of time.

The SEO teams biggest weakness so far is that it has yet to communicate with the EnBiologics teams
from the other classes, though the group will be sure to establish communications and review their work
from time to time. The lack of communication with other teams has not hindered the SEO teams progress
in anyway, but everyone would certainly be able to achieve more complex goals if the groups combined
their thought processes. After skimming through the work that the other groups have done, all groups
have accomplished a similar amount of work, though other groups have clear documentation of all their
work that is immediately relevant, such as drafts of FAQ pages or blog posts. Besides all the required
materials to obtain a grade on the project, the main work the SEO team has done is research into SEO
tactics. To make this as helpful as possible, it is imperative for the team to provide drafts of sample code
or modifications to the website that implement all the SEO techniques that have been studied so far.
Linked here is the teams meeting minutes for November 21, which include various examples of title tags
and meta descriptions that could be tested to see if they increase site traffic.

Our Design Thinking Process:

Empathize: The target audience of HoneyCure is two groups of pet owners, owners of large
animals such as horses and owners of smaller domestic animals like cats and dogs. The SEO team
understood that knowing what pet owners searched for would require thinking like pet owners.
The EnBiologics website had to be easily accessible to many different types of people, and it had
to be based on the keywords that EnBiologics two target audiences were most likely to search.

Define: The SEO team defined a general goal of making EnBiologics appear on the first page of
Google searches related to natural medicine. Many people do not click past the first page of any
search, so it was crucial to make sure EnBiologics would appear as an early result. Furthermore,
the team wanted to ensure the link to the site showed up above the multitude of similar products
on the market. After speaking with representatives from EnBiologics, it was apparent that their
product was vastly superior to others, but many other products, some even with the same name as
HoneyCure, would overshadow the item. Thus, the team established another goal, which was to
 ensure consumers would be specifically attracted to HoneyCure when it showed up on search
results, since it was vital to let consumers know how the product outperformed others.

Ideate: The teams solution to EnBiologics lack of recognition began with research into its
selected topic of search engine optimization, leading to the discovery of various SEO techniques,
like meta elements, robot exclusion standard and the like. Because of the limited time that the
team would spend working on EnBiologics website during the semester, the group realized that
all the techniques needed to be passed on to the founders of EnBiologics so they could continue
to utilize them. Since EnBiologics members had limited experience with coding, the team
decided it was best to focus on the SEO techniques that were easy to understand while still being
important and immediately impactful to site rankings. As of now, most implementations into the
website will focus on meta elements, since they are hidden keywords that can be implemented
with very limited knowledge of HTML, and web accessibility, which involves many tactics that
do not require coding. Nonetheless, the SEO team will attempt to implement some tactics that
involve more intensive coding.

Prototype: The SEO team is currently transitioning into the prototype phase of the design
thinking process. In order to preview different ideas for the website, members of the team have
copied the websites source code and run it on online compilers after making small changes. The
code will be passed around to ensure everyone is on the same page about its current state, and
each member will add to it according to his area of SEO expertise in a layered fashion of group
work. No massive overhauls will be done to the site, as the team understands the desire to keep its
customer-oriented design. All modifications will be relatively small changes that the team
hypothesizes will still have a big impact on the sites positioning in search results, although
testing must be done to ensure such an outcome.

o Furthermore, drafts for various HTML title tags and meta descriptions have been started. These
try to incorporate the keywords that have led to clicks on EnBiologics website the most number of
times.

Test: The SEO team has not reached the testing stage of the design thinking process yet, but
future usability tests will be conducted regarding the effect of the title tags and meta descriptions
of the EnBiologics website. The site will cycle between the various tags and descriptions that
have been drafted, switching to new ones every week and collecting data on the number of
visitors they resulted in. Eventually, the tags that brought the most users will be adopted for site
usage. Due to the short length of time remaining for the school semester, this experiment will
likely continue past the end of the school year, when it will need to be entirely taken up by
EnBiologics. However, the experiments should not be too difficult to handle, as they just involve
checking site traffic through Google Analytics.

Google Analytics Data - Direct Vs. Organic Network Traffic:

Organic network traffic is comprised of site visits coming in from shallow links, deep links,
and search results. Analytics of this type of network traffic will better visualize any improvement
of SEO that occurs during the prototype phase of our project. This is the case due the properties
of direct traffic analytics, one of which being its susceptibility to artificial growth. An empirical
example of this type of growth which we can observe is the direct network traffic spike that
occured at the beginning of this research project. This was due to teams of students from three
different sections accessing EnBiologics website in order to gather information of the product
and company. Organic traffic is far less influenced by this initial spike of page visits for organic
 search engine data does not include in its range direct search engine data. Therefore our team has
agreed upon observing organic network traffic data solely for the time being.

Direct network traffic is defined as traffic which is created by directly typing in a website's URL
into a browser, accessing the site through a bookmark, or page visits which are caused by having
said site set as a browser's homepage. Some analytics software detect traffic via short links from
unsecure http sites which are linked to secure https sites as direct traffic which is a
misclassification of organic network traffic. However, a study conducted by groupon in which
they de-indexed their site in order to monitor direct vs. organic traffic revealed a 50 percent drop
in direct network traffic within hours. This shows us that direct traffic is mostly classified
correctly.

Analysis of EnBiologics.com network traffic from November 08 - November 29

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We will select a title tag by testing various titles, monitoring Google Analytics data for one to two weeks,
and comparing it to EnBiologics initial network traffic data. We will use a three week scrolling domain
to maintain a scale of magnitude in order to better visualize an increase in performance. We will conduct
our first change on November 30 . To keep track of our changes a changelog of a consistent format will
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be created with screenshots of all site alterations including detailed descriptions of each change as well as
their implications. The following is a list of potential title tags to be used and tested in the upcoming
weeks with the initial title tag being EnBiologics LLC - Wound Care, Honey, Natural.

I. HoneyCure - Natural Wound Care for Pets | EnBiologics

II. HoneyCure - Fast Healing, Insect Repellent Wound Care for Your Pet
III. Want No-Lick, Fast Healing Wound Gel for Pets? Buy HoneyCure
IV. HoneyCure - Organic Honey Wound Care for All Animals