Web Site Reviewed: http://www.a2zpa.com

A2Z Home Inspections

General Comments
On the A 2 Z Home Inspections site we see that they are well respected and have multiple certifications pertaining to home inspections. Visitors are always looking for a trust factor and A 2 Z builds visitor trust by displaying their certifications on the home page. The layout of the Web site is very easy to navigate and there are plenty of resources for visitors looking for a home inspector. Contact information is also easily accessible at the top of every page, so if a visitor has any questions they don’t have to go far for a phone number. Also, attached to the website is a blog which is regularly updated with information pertaining to home safety. This is a well thought out Web site that will keep visitors informed and hopefully generate some home inspections for the company.

Specific Positives

• There are plenty of informative pages on the Web site that can help people locate a home inspector in Pennsylvania. The site also has specific codes for different counties.
  
• Plenty of ways to contact the company along with a home hints email capture form.
  
• Intuitive, logical site navigation -- The pages on the a2zpa.com Web site are logically linked via the main menu, which enables easy navigation between the various segments on the site. The links in the main menu are all crawlable for search engine spiders, allowing search engines to visit and review all pages on the site.
  
• Geo-targeting is setup for multiple counties in Pennsylvania with links to specific counties with regulation information. This is an excellent way to improve local visibility.
  
• Home page indexed by all three top search engines — All three of the Internet’s top search engines – Google, Yahoo!, and Live Search (MSN). Currently the website is not showing in Ask.com.
  
• There are a large number of certifications which let the consumer know that the company is well respected and can do the job right.

Specific Problems & Solutions
Some of the immediate issues we see with the website is on-page over-optimization. Specifically, the Meta Title and the Meta Keywords have over 3,400 terms. This can cause the Web site to be seen as a malicious attack on Google’s ranking system., known as keyword stuffing. Eventually it got so bad that Google and the other search engines had to stop relying on page tags alone for ranking. While the title tag is still the most important tool for on-page optimization it is still a good idea to properly format all of the other tags in good faith.

Problem: Over-optimization of Meta Information
Over-optimization is present throughout the Web site. The Title, Description, and Keywords Meta tags are not properly optimized for any of the primary keywords. Secondly, we see an enormous amount of keyword stuffing under the keyword and description tags (the Keywords Meta tag contains 3,490 words). This can easily be seen as spamming to any search engine.  Since search engines show a limited amount of information for each tag, it’s important to optimize these tags to fit within the limits of each search engine. The example below shows the current result when searching for A2Z Home Inspections and our suggested optimized result for the Title and Description Tags.

Current Google search results:
A2Z Home Inspections - Your Peace of Mind is Our Business Serving ...
A2Z is independent, we work for you. The business of inspecting homes is all we do - we do not perform repairs on the homes we inspect, eliminating conflict ...
www.a2zpa.com/ - 75k - Cached - Similar pages

Example of optimized search results:
PA Home Inspections by A2Z – Serving all Northern Counties
A2Z Home Inspections provides comprehensive commercial and residential inspection services including pre purchase and post purchase inspections.
www.a2zpa.com/ - 75k - Cached - Similar pages

Solution Optimize Site for Specific Keywords
While it will take time to fix all of the pages, it’s worth the reward of improved search engine ranking. The simple rule of thumb is that each page on your Web site should contain different information along with relevant titles, keywords, and content. Essentially, each page’s meta information should be specific and relevant to the content on the page.

• Define Your Main Keywords
  Use the Traffic Blazer Keyword Generator to find search counts for your main keywords for the past 30 days. The primary focus of the A2Zpa.com Web site is “PA home inspections” or “Pennsylvania home inspections” for people in that area that need an inspection. Additionally, they could target all of the major counties and cities. Keep in mind that there will be a limited number of searches for small towns or areas with low populations.
  
  Once your keywords are defined the next step is to insert them into the website’s tags and content. You can either draw out a map of your website and group similar keywords together or you can create new pages based on keywords you haven’t yet targeted. This works well when targeting smaller regional areas.
  
• Optimize Keywords Meta Tags
  You should limit the number of keywords per page to 5-15, and any keyword that is used should be in the content of the page. For example, one phrase found in the keyword tag is “carbon monoxide hemoglobin” which doesn’t appear anywhere in the actual page content.  Adding keywords in the keywords Meta tag which don’t appear on the page will dilute the reliability of the keywords meta tag on your page. Think of your Web site as a net. Each page is designed to capture a specific audience. Your job is to make sure that the right people get to the right pages. If carbon monoxide hemoglobin is important, it should be worked into the content on a page related to carbon monoxide and other issues/solutions, and only then added to the keywords meta tag.

• Optimize Keywords in Page Copy
  As far as content goes this website has some unique content, but it could definitely use more. We like to see at least 300 – 500 words for each page. Additionally, you want to make sure that the keywords for that page are listed in the content. Assuming that Poconos Home Inspection is the main keyword for the homepage, right now we can see that it is listed only once on the entire page.

• Optimize Keywords for Images
  a2zpa.com has very few pictures and none of the images feature Alt attributes. Alt attributes are short descriptions of the images that display upon mouseover and when the image cannot be displayed in a browser.  Alt attributes are also valuable to the blind and those with text-only browsers. Alt attributes should be concise and include keywords which provide enough description for readers to understand the image even if they can’t see it.

Problem: No Heading Tags
None of the pages on A2Zpa.com use heading tags for the boldfaced segments above the main page copy. Keywords found in heading tags are generally more valuable to search engines than large fonts.

Solution: Use Heading Tags
Heading tags vary in size from <H1> (largest) to <H6> (smallest).  Using heading tags rather than font tags will better emphasize the importance of the heading and subheadings on the site’s pages. Be sure to include your keywords in these segments.

Example:
<H1> Pennsylvania Home Inspections</H1>
<H2>A2Z - Your Northern PA Home Inspection Company</H2>

Problem: Low Google PageRank 
The current Google PageRank for the a2zpa.com home page is 2 (out of a possible 10), while the other pages on the site all have a PageRank of 0, which is the lowest possible. PageRank is an assessment of the total link popularity for a Web site. By increasing the total number of links pointing to a Web site you may be able to change the overall PageRank score. Keep in mind that not every website can achieve a PageRank of 10. Every market will be different according to competition levels.

Note: Although PageRank is a Google-specific concept, other top engines use similar methodology when reviewing Web content.

Solution: Build Links
Building links can be a simple task, or a time intensive process depending on how you go about it. Joining business groups like the local chamber of commerce is a great idea. Typically they will list your Web site for free once you've paid for your membership. Another idea would be writing a press release and having it distributed online. This can be a valuable source of links. You might not have a story for a press release, so another tip would be to create an article and post it on one of the many article websites out on the net. Whatever your choice is remember to keep your link building out of spam territory. Some webmasters will resort to forum spamming or comment spamming, this could get your Web site banned for good with the search engines so make sure you are always creating valuable, relevant links.

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