Who is ZZounds?
ZZounds.com is an online music equipment retailer. With four warehouses around the U.S. in Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey and Ohio they boast free rapid shipping to over 1.5M customers as well as zero-interest payment plans (ZZounds, n.d.). ZZounds competes with Sweetwater.com, SamAsh.com, GuitarCenter.com and MusiciansFriend.com in the crowded online music equipment space (SimilarWeb, n.d.). For the purposes of this analysis, I will be doing a head-to-head comparison between ZZounds and Sweetwater (typically regarded as the leader in the category) of each site’s Fender “Kenny Wayne Shepherd” (KWS) Stratocaster Electric Guitar.
Web Analytics
My first step in determining what (if any) analytics platforms a site may be using is to view the source code (right-click / view source) then searching for clues. A quick read of ZZounds source code reveals two commonly used Google tools, the Tag Manager and Analytics platforms. While it is not possible to ascertain how many or what kind of tags they are firing on each page, the usage of Tag Manager (assuming someone inside the organization is reviewing the data) is indicative of an intermediate to high level of digital marketing acumen.
One specific technique that ZZounds should employ with regards to their web analytics is to ensure that Google Search Console is active and analyze how many visitors to the KWS page were actually searching for that specific guitar (analyzing queries) and this page was their landing page, versus the number of people who arrived elsewhere on the site and surfed around before finding their way here. Similarly, Google Analytics should be employed to understand people’s actions after they’ve arrived on the page after specifically searching for this model. How many bounced? How many placed one in their cart? How many abandoned the cart? What are the demographics of all of the above?
SEO
While continuing to view the source code, I also conducted a manual review of each site’s <meta> tags. All the “basic” elements were in place such as a custom page description, however it was clear to see that Sweetwater is doing a better job. Both sites are using the Open Graph meta tags, which are snippets of code that control how URLs are displayed when shared on social media. They’re part of Facebook’s Open Graph protocol and are also used by other social media sites, including LinkedIn and Twitter (if Twitter Cards are absent) (Pecánek, 2020). Whereas a normal meta description looks like this:
<meta name="description"……
An Open Graph meta description looks like this”
<meta name="og:description"……
Just below these tags, and as referenced in the Pecánek article, the Sweetwater site shows usage of the “Twitter card” meta tags, while the ZZounds site does not. This omission was my first indication that Sweetwater is doing a better job at SEO than ZZounds; it’s all in the attention to detail. Further, Open Graph meta tags are considered by some to be a key off page SEO technique, useful for improving the layout and visibility of a site across social platforms.
I then sought to perform a side-by-side comparison test using the Internet Marketing Ninjas tool, and when pasting in the product page URLs again realized that ZZounds had another SEO issue, namely the URL of the product page. While the Sweetwater page uses the actual product name and description in the URL:
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/StratKWSFSB--fender-kenny-wayne-shepherd-stratocaster-electric-guitar-transparent-faded-sonic-blue
The ZZounds page uses a cryptic product code:
https://www.zzounds.com/item--FEN0117510
The results of the side-by-side comparison were rather lopsided each in favor of Sweetwater’s page. In every category, Sweetwater was a clear winner. From liberal use of headings (both H1 and H2) to better keyword selection, to internal and external links the Sweetwater page “takes the field” in every measure. Double-checking these findings using the SeoQuake extension for Chrome further illustrated the disparity in the ZZounds vs. Sweetwater SEO effectiveness. Via SeoQuake I could see that the SEMrush page ranking for Sweetwater was 901 (with 50 backlinks) to ZZounds distant 9,936 (with zero backlinks.)
Google Search
The next comparison was to simply conduct a Google Search for the actual product name, “Fender Kenny Wayne Shepherd Stratocaster Electric Guitar” to evaluate the SERPs. While the top two results were from Fender.com, sure enough the first non-Fender website to appear was the Sweetwater page. The UberSuggest keyword plugin tool lists Sweetwater’s “domain authority” as 72. Next after that was MusiciansFriend.com, then GuitarCenter.com and then the KennyWayneShepherd.net artist site. ZZounds did not appear organically on page one, however a paid Google Search ad did appear at the bottom of the page. Continuing to page through the SERPs I finally found the ZZounds page as result number 22 on page three of the Google SERPs, with an UberSuggest domain authority of 60. As a key off-page SEO factor, this disparity in domain authority is certainly damaging to ZZounds (Moz, n.d.).
SEMrush
The next comparison was a Domain Overview comparison between the following:
· Zzounds.com
· Sweetwater.com
· MusiciansFriend.com
· GuitarCenter.com
· AmericanMusical.com
As illustrated below, the only category where ZZounds.com is leading the competitors is in the Paid Traffic Cost, where it outspent the much larger Sweetwater by 17% and spent nearly double that of GuitarCenter’s ad spend. This finding, coupled with spotting the ZZounds paid Google Search ad on page one of the Google SERPs, is indicative of a major business problem at ZZounds. Put simply, rather than honing their expertise at SEO and driving more organic traffic to their site, they are merely “throwing money at the problem” and spending more money on paid campaigns.
Recommendations
There are several immediate actions that ZZounds can take to improve their organic rankings and become more competitive with Sweetwater and the others. The first is to simply improve the URL of the page to a “semantically accurate” URL. Even if the title tag of this page were hidden, the human-readable, semantically accurate URL would still provide a clear idea of what the destination page is about and would provide visitors with an improved user experience by making it clear what they'll see if they click the link. (Moz, n.d.).
The second is to build out more compelling content on the page. In the side-by-side comparison, we can see that the Sweetwater page has 1,627 unlinked words to just 673 on the ZZounds page. The reality is that much of the content on the Sweetwater page came directly from Fender itself; literally someone on the Sweetwater web team just took a bit more time to insert more content on their product page than did the web team at ZZounds. I seriously doubt that their reseller deal would limit access to marketing content, because certainly Fender wants to sell as many guitars as possible regardless of through which channel partner. Again, it appears that ZZounds is slacking on organic content programming and just running more ads, which seems impractical (to say the least) since it the creation of that valuable content would cost them nothing. In addition to the written content, Sweetwater has inserted the Fender promotional video straight off the Fender site; ZZounds has not.
A third improvement that would fall to the web team under the guidance of the marketing team, would be to rebuild their page templates to leverage many more <h1> & <h2> tags. The current disparity of 1 & 8 on Sweetwater versus 2 &0 on ZZounds is a huge fail.
Conclusions
Given that the price of this guitar is identical on both sites ($2,199.99) as well as the manufacturer site (Fender.com) there can be no consumer preference with regards to cost across each site, since both sites offer free shipping. It is also reasonable to assume that both online retailers are paying the same cost-of-goods-sold price to Fender for the inventory, and if anything, Sweetwater might conceivably be paying less if they are moving a significantly larger share of product. Thus, if ZZounds is paying more out-of-pocket for marketing and advertising (customer acquisition costs) and possibly paying more for the goods, it follows that they are making smaller profit margins. Over time then, they would be far better off by increasing their focus on improving organic search results, reducing their paid advertising spend, and finding themselves on page one of the SERPs.
When skeptical executives ask the question, “what is the value of SEO” a case study such as this can provide a compelling argument.
References
No Compromises: More for Your Music at ZZounds. (n.d.). Retrieved from: https://www.zzounds.com/info
ZZounds.com March 2021 Overview. (n.d.). Retrieved from: https://www.similarweb.com/website/zzounds.com/competitors/
Pecánek, Michal. (14 January 2020). Open Graph Meta Tags: Everything You Need to Know. Ahrefs Blog. Retrieved from: https://ahrefs.com/blog/open-graph-meta-tags/
URLs. (n.d.) Moz. Retrieved from: https://moz.com/learn/seo/url
Off-Page SEO. (n.d.). Moz. Retrieved from: https://moz.com/learn/seo/off-site-seo
Hi Stephen,
ReplyDeleteProfessor T beat me to the punch to comment on how well you demonstrate each step. And he is spot on when many companies do not ask customers for feedback enough on their company or brand and really don't know where they are on the perception map in the average customer mind.
Google Analytics is amazing in how much it can measure (even demographics) and gives you an insight into how customers are responding. Companies used to spend massive amounts of time and money to gather information that Google Analytics gives instantly.
The open graphs meta tags is an area I need to work with more as you demonstrate so well how useful it is. I can image that a digital marketing manager has to really simplify their analysis to explain what the reports are showing and suggest changes.
I love how you were able to show how ZZ Sounds does not use Twitter tag meta cards whereas Sweetwater does. There is data out there to show what you stated that Open Graph meta tags are a good off page SEO technique and I feel that if its available why not use it. You demonstrated well how Sweetwater is using digital marketing much better than their direct competitor and the difference it makes, which is why an expert in digital marketing is now essential in a marketing department and an overall plan. This class has impressed on me greatly how improving organic search results reduces paid advertising spending and how finding themselves on page one of the SERPs is so important now. Thanks for an excellent analysis demonstrating it.