Campaign Proposal: Nature's Variety

Some 1-On-1 Time

By: Zak Priest

We've spent a bunch of posts comparing Purina and Nature's Variety, and their current digital marketing strategies. Today I want to switch gears and focus on Nature's Variety and what I think they should be doing.

The Problem

Nature's Variety does not have a strong social media presence, period. They have low follower counts, low post interactivity, and extremely inconsistent posting patterns across the big 3 social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube). Nature's Variety is one of the biggest providers of raw dog food and they have passionate community of dog lovers behind them. They just need to harness that community.

The Solution

The Puppy Love Club

The plan is to have customers send us their pet pictures and/or stories. Every day we will feature a "Puppy Love Club Member" on our Facebook page. At the end of the month we will put all the featured club members in a draw for a free bag of food of their choice.

It's a simple idea but I really think it accomplishes what we need to get done:

1. Increase page traffic
2. Incentivize frequent posting
3. Connect more with our community

This strategy can and should launch anytime but I think it will be most effective in February (less days means less entrants).

So what do think? Let us know your thoughts by hitting us up on Twitter @MarketingKennel.

Campaign Proposal: Canidae

A Digital Marketing Campaign to Improve Canidae's Youtube Presence 

Kelsey LeCoure

As determined in a previous post regarding my two brand's YouTube channels, Canidae is strongly lacking in this area. They have been on YouTube for many years and only have 5 videos posted. They also do not show how many subscribers they have but based on the view count and other statistics, they most likely have a low subscriber count as well. 

The Idea

For Canidae's YouTube campaign, I am proposing that they hold a contest asking pet owners to submit short films of their pets - high quality, 2:00-3:00 minutes in length. Once they receive video submissions, they will then re-post the videos on their channel. At the beginning and end of each video, the company's logo and social media information (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Website, etc.) , as well as the name of the person who submitted the video will be shown.
Once the videos have been uploaded for 2 weeks, the video with the highest number of likes will be selected as the winner of one year's supply of Canidae dog or cat food.

Win 1 year's supply of Canidae food (your choice of recipe)!

This campaign will bring much attention to the channel as well as the Brand themselves. People who have never heard of Canidae will visit the website to find out more about their products. It will also encourage people to interact with their social media channels. The YouTube campaign will be shared on ALL social media pages daily. Each day the company can share a different video that has been submitted. Who doesn't love a cute dog or cat on their Facebook timeline?!

Link Metrics Matchup: Purina vs Nature's Variety

Do It For The Fans

By: Zak Priest

Digital marketing isn't just about what you as a company put out on the web; it's about what people are putting out their about you. We're going to take some time, having a look at what the web thinks about Purina and Nature's Variety

Purina

Not a whole lot going on for Purina in this category. Every mention on twitter is just in passing and not by dedicated pet/pet food accounts and all inbound links to their site are singular news stories, again, not by dedicated pet/pet food sites. Purina does get a lot of mention this way for good reason though; they sponsor/hold a lot of charity and awareness events. I'm going to post a few of these news stories here so you get what I mean.

Canadian Pet Heroes Celebrated for Going Beyond the Call of Duty

Media Advisory - Family Day Funderland - Presented by Purina® Dog Chow®

New research chair aims to reduce pet abandonment

Nature's Variety

This is where Nature's Variety shines. They might not have the best social media presence but people still love their brand and it shows. I'm going to show you some inbound links just like above, but unlike above I'm going to explain to give you a brief description of each link to really drive home that this is the kind of stuff we're looking for as marketers.

Suzanne Dean AKA: @dogtraininglady

Ok, I know this isn't really an inbound link but I had to include this Twitter account. Not only is she the top listed influencer for Nature's Variety but she runs a really great Twitter. If you are a dog lover, definitely consider following her.

Stray Rescue of St. Louis

The title says it all. It's really great to get constant recognition from a community leader like this one.

Martha Stewart

Nature's Variety has had quite a few mentions on Martha Stewart's website. The site is in a blog format and talks about a whole bunch of homemaking topics, from making a bed to making pork.

Conclusion

I knew Nature's Variety was going to have great link metrics but I was really surprised at how awful Purina's were. Winner: Nature's Variety.

Link Metrics Matchup: Petcurean and Canidae Pet Foods

A look into the top influencers and fans of these two pet food brands!

Kelsey LeCoure


In the marketing world, word-of-mouth marketing is very important. People are much more likely to trust another consumer's opinion of a product than the company's advertisements. There is more trust and a better likelihood to buy a product when a good review comes from a consumer than anyone making money off of their review or the company themselves. One way to analyse link metrics data is using the Moz Toolbar. Here are some of the results I found with this tool based on the Petcurean and Canidae Pet food brands.

Fido Friendly - Top inbound link for Petcurean

The top inbound link to Petcurean's website is "Fido Friendly" - a magazine for dog lovers. On their homepage there is a large badge that reads: Petcurean blogger advocate. When you click on the badge, it brings you directly to the Petcurean website. This is fantastic word-of-mouth marketing for Petcurean!

The second inbound link for petcurean is a site called "My Best Friend's Barkery" - a pet store in North Carolina that sells a variety of dog food and treats. On the side of all of their pages is a link to the Petcurean website.

The third most popular inbound link for Petcurean is from "Hautedogs" on their Howl'oween parade page. There was a contest for one person to win one year's supply of dog food from Petcurean. Contest and giveaways are a great way, if used correctly, to gain traffic on your social media pages!

The Missing Manual - Top inbound link for Canidae

Now, moving on to Canidae. The top inbound link for Canidae is from "The Missing Manual". This site includes a list of many different natural and organic companies that provide products for everything from your home, to your office, to makeup, and pet food. There is an abundance of information for anyone interested in living green!

The second inbound link for Canidae is from "Arden Moore Knows Pets". This site is an online magazine that includes a wide variety of useful information for pet owners.

The last inbound link for Canidae is from "Self Serve Pet Spa's Blog". The self serve pet spa is a company that offers pet owners a place to wash their pets themselves (instead of having a certified groomer do the work for them. They run a blog that contains information for pet owners regarding health, safety, food, and more!

YouTube Challenge: Purina vs Nature's Variety

The Last of the Big 3

By: Zak Priest

We're on to the last big platform of this Purina vs Nature's Variety blogging mini-series, YouTube. Let's jump right in.

Purina

As a consumer, I tend not to like company YouTube channels and Purina's is no different. Their numbers aren't bad, 7,701 subscribers and 7,867,774 views, but their content is. It's all ads, and not the "this is really entertaining and innovative so I don't care if it's an ad" kind of ads, just the plain old run of the mill hard sell stuff that I'm forced to sit through (not by choice) before I can watch Good Mythical Morning. I understand that kind of stuff needs a home, but can't it live among stuff that's a little more engaging? I guess making this basic stuff makes it a little easier to have regular uploads, which is something they are good at (a video every two weeks or so). Out of their last five videos, this was their most successful.

I also wanted to note that comments, likes, and dislikes are disabled on their channel. Maybe it's related to all the negative activity on their Facebook, who knows?

Nature's Variety

In hindsight I probably should have just made a template for these Nature's Variety segments. Relatively low stats due to being a smaller company. Quality content that is posted infrequently, sometimes months apart. Positive customer interaction. To save time let me give you the straight stats.

Subscribers: 498

Total Views: 963,259

Average Upload Frequency: Once every 3 months or so

Most Successful Recent Video: Our Story

Conclusion

It's safe to say that these two brands are more or less the same across the big 3 social media platforms. Even though I'm not a fan of their content, Purina wins the YouTube Challenge. Their channel was overall more successful.

Youtube Challenge: Petcurean vs. Canidae

Comparing the YouTube channels of Petcurean and Canidae Pet Food Brands

Kelsey LeCoure


In my last two posts regarding the Facebook and twitter pages of Canidae and Petcurean, Canidae was the clear winner. This post is going to shake things up a bit for sure.

Canidae's Youtube channel only has 5 uploads over the course of 7 years. Comparatively, Petcurean's channel has over 45 videos from the last 5 years. Already, we can see that Petcurean is better utilizing their YouTube channel than Canidae is.

Many of the videos on Petcurean's channels are regarding your pet's health. There are videos that discuss how to safely change your pet's food, Fibre and it's affect on your pet's health, and much more! These videos are short and engaging to watch (Average approx. 2 minutes each).

Petcurean has 1600 subscribers, 2,129,397 Views, and 5 links to other social networking sites - Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google +, and their website.

Canidae Pet Foods does not list their number of subscribers on their YouTube page. The stats that are listed include: 288,640 views and they have 1 link to their Google+ page.

The most popular videos on each page are as follows:

Canidae's Most popular recent video

This video from Canidae's YouTube channel showcases how their food and provides details about the company. This video has received 174,382 views, 8 likes, 2 dislikes, and 0 comments.

Petcurean's most popular recent video

This video from Petcurean's YouTube channel is a short advertisement for their dog food recipes. It is a very heartwarming look at "a boy and his dog". This engages viewers as it is very cute and fun. The video has received 111,521 views, 1 like and 0 dislikes. There are no comments on the video.

Overall, Petcurean definitely wins this round of the YouTube Challenge. They have very informative and engaging videos on their channel, a lot of subscribers, and over 2 million total views! These numbers blow Canidae out of the dog park!

Twitter Showdown: Purina vs Nature's Variety

Round 2

By: Zak Priest

Last time we looked at Facebook and both Purina and Nature's Variety did pretty bad. Maybe they put more time into their Twitter accounts? Let's find out.

Purina

Purina has a pretty alright page, nothing spectacular, but alright. They have 45,000 followers and they post frequently. On average about once a week. Ever so often they will do an event over Twitter and will post many times within that event period. Just like their Facebook page, they don't follow the 50/50 rule and mostly post pet pictures and articles of interest to pet owners. This is their most popular post...

It's not that outstanding but it's pretty in-line with the rest of their content.

Nature's Variety

Nature's Variety reminds me of a college student. They work really hard for a short stretch and then they aren't seen until finals. It's a shame because they have a budding little Twitter community. They only have 5,331 followers but they are all dedicated. They could get more followers but they just don't post. They had a ton of activity in January and then they go silent until May. They don't follow the 50/50 rule but I was pleased to see that majority of their posts are customer interaction about their products. Their most successful post is a great one.

I recommend you watch the video to get the full effect but it's so awesome to see such a high like and retweet count for a page that gets about 5 on average.

Conclusion

Both companies did a lot better than I thought they would after what I witnessed with their Facebook accounts. Both of their top posts are there because of the cute factor (as it should be). I'm giving Purina the win on this one because I found their content more consistent.

Facebook Faceoff: Purina vs Nature's Variety

A Battle on the Grandest Stage

By: Zak Priest

Over my next few blog posts we're going to be taking an in-depth look at the effectiveness of the digital marketing done by Purina and Nature's Variety across their many platforms. Today we start with Facebook.

Facebook is the biggest social media platform in the world and if you want to make it in this world of digital marketing it's the most important place to start. So where do Purina and Nature's Variety stand on the grandest stage? Let's dive in and see.

Purina

Purina's page looks really good at first. They post around once a week and every post is the perfect length and has a great picture. Things started to go sour when I noticed that they barely follow the 50/50 rule, like at all. Out of the last 25 posts only 4 of them are about their own community. Purina mainly posts how-to's and time wasters. More interesting though, is their follower interaction. First off I want to point out that each post only has about 70-100 likes and 5-10 comments. For a page with 483,387 followers that is extremely low. When I looked in to what people were commenting I was surprised to find majority of them were complaints. I will say that whoever is operating the page is doing a great job handling these comments but, here take a look...

I wish I was joking but that is also one of their top posts. It was an article about if your dog gets enough fiber and this is the kind of backlash they get. Anyway, let's move on...

Nature's Variety

Honestly, I don't have much to say about Nature's Variety because there's not much there. I understand that they are a smaller company with a smaller following than Purina (48,017 followers) but I was blown away with how infrequently they post. This year so far they have only posted four times. Their follower interaction is low as well. This is their most successful post...

It only had 15 likes, 3 shares, and 4 comments.

Conclusion

Straight up? Both companies have a lot of work to do. Both of their successful posts are only successful because of outside circumstances and they aren't even that successful. Nature's Variety wins this one only because they didn't have an angry mob at their door.

Facebook Faceoff: Petcurean vs. Canidae Pet Foods

Comparing Petcurean and Canidae’s Facebook pages.

Kelsey LeCoure

Taking a look at Petcurean and Canidae’s Facebook pages, there are a few things that indicate whether or not they are using them to their fullest capability. Petcurean has approx. 79,100 likes on their Facebook page which is 100,000 less than Canidae, who is sitting at 179,100 likes! Both pages typically respond to messages within one hour. Petcurean posts 1-3 times per week on average. Whereas Canidae posts multiple times per day. Each brands posts a variety of promotional content, coupons, videos related to the industry, tips for pet owners, and other interesting how-tos. Petcurean does not follow the 50/50 rule. The majority of their posts are related to their business. Canidae more closely follows the 50/50 rule. They have been posting many tips, how-to, and other interesting reads for pet owners. They have also been posting interesting facts about their products, factory, and other business related content. Limited Ingredient Diet, Grain-free food, and Free Treat Friday are all keywords used in Canidae’s Facebook posts.

Canidae's Most Popular Post

This is Canidae’s most popular recent post. It experienced 1,700 Likes, 61 Shares, and 42 comments! I think that this post was so successful because it gives insight into the lives of their own dogs in a fun and interesting way. The pictures also attracts viewers because, well, who doesn’t love a dog wearing clothes?!

Petcurean's most popular post

Petcurean’s most popular post recently came in at 1,900 Likes, 366 shares, and 1022 comments! The reason for these numbers is due to the caption saying that they will donate 1 lb. of food to a shelter for each comment received on that particular post. This encourages followers to engage with their content.

After considering all of the above statistics, I believe that Canidae is using their facebook page in a much more beneficial way than Petcurean. They post more frequently, their content more closely follows the 50/50 rule and they have a greater amount of engagement on their posts on average.

Petcurean and Canidae SEO Comparison

Comparing SEO of dog food brands: Canidae and Petcurean
Author: Kelsey LeCoure

SEO is an important consideration for marketers because it helps your website/brand become more prominent in search engines which will assists in gaining customers, viewers, and raising overall awareness of your company.  In the dog food industry, both Petcurean and Canidae are independently owned, small companies. By the end of this post I will determine which of the two sites, when compared, has a stronger SEO.

SEO Considerations	Petcurean	Canidae
1.     URL:	http://www.petcurean.com/	http://www.canidae.com/
2.     Page Title	Premium Pet Food for Dogs and Cats | Petcurean	CANIDAE® - Pet Food Made By Pet People
3.     Meta Description	Petcurean is a premium pet food company that specializes in dog and cat food. We have five canine product lines for all your pet’s dietary needs.	Here at CANIDAE®, we’re pet people. We use the same ingredients we want for our own dogs and cats in our foods. Independent and family-owned, we’ve been making
4.     Meta Keywords and Monthly search volume:	Not found	Not found
5.     Structural elements:  H1, H2, H3	H2: Our Products • Nutrition hotline • Call 1.866.864.6112 • Petcurean near you • Try our food for free • Get the Scoop!	H1: • We Make Foods For Our Pets And Yours • We’d Love To Share Our Story With You! • Sign in with Facebook, WordPress or G+! • Follow Us On Social Media H2: We Are Pet People. • Have a Dog? • Have a Cat? • Our Featured Articles • Find a store near you! • How to Teach Your Dog to Play Fetch • The Benefits of Having Two Dogs • CANIDAE® Grain Free PURE Wild Adult Dog Formula Made With Fresh Wild Boar • Sign up for our Email Newsletter! • See what we're up to on Facebook! • CANIDAE® Grain Free PURE Sea Adult Dog Formula Made With Fresh Salmon • How to Pick the Right Dog for a Home with Children • What to Do if another Dog Attacks Your Dog • What Do Dreams about Cats Mean? • Like us on Facebook! • Receive our weekly Blog email! • Find CANIDAE at your Local Store! • CANIDAE® Q&A with Lobeau • These Dogs Hate Getting a Bath More Than Anything • CANIDAE® Grain Free PURE Control Hairball Control Cat Formula Made with Fresh Chicken • Find out where we came from and why we love pet food! • View our blog! • CANIDAE® Grain Free PURE Meadow Senior Cat Formula Made with Fresh Chicken • Tips for Finding Dog-Friendly Vacation Lodging • How to Care For a Female Dog in Heat • What Causes Cherry Eye in Dogs, and How to Correct It • Tell us Your CANIDAE® Story! • Have a health question? Come ask our Vet!
6.     Strong tags	Not found	Not found
7.     Alt Text	The Petcurean Difference • Our Story • Sustainability • NOW FRESH™ • GO!™ • SPIKE™ • SUMMIT™ • NOW FRESH™ • GO!™ • SUMMIT™ • Dogs Health & Nutrition • Cats Health & Nutrition • International Distributors • Canada & United States • NOW FRESH™ • GO!™ • SPIKE™ • SUMMIT™ • Nourishing the ones we love for life	CANIDAE® • Search • • • •
8.     Page Load Time	1.181 seconds	0.25 seconds
9.     Observations Regarding Page layout:	The page layout is easy to navigate. It is bright and colourful without being too distracting. Their website overall is aesthetically appealing	The page layout is appealing, simple, and easy to navigate. The colours are light which makes the text easy to read. There are also drop down menus when you scroll over the tabs. This makes it easy to find what you are looking for.
10. Observations Regarding Visual Content:	There are a wide variety of pictures and cute dogs on the site to help grab the reader’s attention. There is good use of colour and their visual content is consistent with their brand (orange theme, dog pictures, etc.)	There are many pictures of dogs which appeal to the reader and help describe the product.
11. Call-to-action:	Nutrition hotline, newsletter, download a coupon, find a retailer	Sign up for our newsletter, Find Canidae globally, submit your story
12. Anchored Text: (list 3)	For Dogs For Cats Where to Buy	Dog Food, Cat Food, Our Story
13. Moz Established Links:  # to Root Domain	348	711
14. Moz Established Links:  # Total Links	12,530	88,207
15. Top 3 inbound links.	http://www.plainchicken.com/ http://www.fidofriendly.com/ http://www.hautedogs.org/howloween.html	http://www.oreilly.com/pub/missingmanuals/livinggreenmm http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs025/1102543180234/archive/1103387689583.html http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs091/1102712936513/archive/1102952599588.html
16. Mobile Friendly: Yes/No	Yes	Yes
17. Content is “shareable” (Like, Tweet, Pin, Blog, etc.)	Yes – Like, tweet, pin	Yes – E-mail, Like, Pin, Tweet, Google +
18. Social Media: (List all SM icons on the home page.	Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram	Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram
19. SERP ranking results when using keywords from this table: (placing or page number)	“Premium Pet Food Company” Pg. 1	“Grain-free Dog Food” Pg. 3

Google Trends: 

Google Trends Insights:

Dog Food had a very high interest in between 2007 and 2008. Since then, the interest has been fairly stable with a very gradual increase since 2008. Both Petcurean and Canidae are non-existent on the graph. Their search volume is not high enough to display any data.

Latent Semantic Indexing Keywords:

www.petcurean.com:
where to buy Petcurean

go dog food
now fresh puppy food


www.canidae.com:

Canidae pure sea

Canidae als
grain free salmon dog food

Summary:

Petcurean’s strengths are its use of alt text and call-to-action. Canidae’s strengths are its use of structural elements and very fast page load time. Other observations are that both websites need to start taking advantage of meta-keywords. Neither of them had any that came up when using Moz which really impacts their SEO.

Both sites have a strong social media presence (they are taking advantage of all major social media channels – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram). Canidae even has a blog on their website which is great to interact with current and potential customers!

Conclusion:

In the dog food industry, Petcurean and Canidae are both small Canadian companies. They both are doing well with social media but need to work on their SEO by including more keywords, strong tags, etc. In my opinion the overall winner of this SEO Search analysis is Canidae. Their blog is very well constructed and maintained, they have a great website with drop-down menus and attractive pictures. They also have a larger number of Established total links than Petcurean does.

APA Citations:

Canidae. (2016) Retrieved from http://www.canidae.com/

Google. (May 2016). Google trends. [Dog Food, Petcurean, Canidae]. Retrieved from https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=dog%20food%2C%20%2Fg%2F11bw42glyr%2C%20%2Fm%2F0521mt1&cmpt=q&tz=Etc%2FGMT%2B4

LSIGraph. (May 2016). LSIGraph keyword generator. Retrieved from http://lsigraph.com/

Petcurean. (2016). Premium Pet Food for Dogs and Cats. Retrieved from http://www.petcurean.com

SEOmoz Inc. (May 2016). MozBar. Retrieved from https://moz.com/tools/seo-toolbar

A Dog Eat Dog Food World - An SEO Analysis

Introduction

SEO is important for marketers because it makes sure that customers find us before they find the competition. In this report I will be looking at the dog food industry, specifically Purina and Nature’s Variety. Purina is one of the largest pet food companies on the planet. I expect them to have outstanding SEO, site design, and online presence. Nature’s Variety up until very recently was a private company that mainly specializes in raw dog food. I don’t expect too much from them but I’m prepared to be surprised. Keep a look out for keywords such as “best dog food” and “healthy dog food”. The objective of this report is to compare both sites’ SEO and see who’s is stronger.

Screen Captures of both home pages:

SEO Considerations	Purina	Nature’s Variety
1.    URL:	www.purina.com	www.naturesvariety.com
2.    Page Title	Pushing Pet Nutrition Forward - Purina® Pet Food & Products	Nature’s Variety
3.    Meta Description	Nourishing pet food and pet products. Find the right dog food, cat food, and treats for the pets that enrich your life.	N/A
4.    Meta Keywords and Monthly search volume:	Purina US, purina pet food, purina dog food, purina cat food	N/A
5.    Structural elements:  H1, H2, H3	H1: N/A H2: Dog Product Selector • Dog Breed Selector • Cat Product Selector H3: N/A	H1: N/A H2: N/A H3: N/A
6.    Strong tags	N/A	Wondering if Instinct is right for you? • Wondering if Prairie is right for you? • Give your pet a Nature's Variety Treat today!
7.    Alt Text	Purina • Purina • Tidy Cats<sup>®</sup> • Purina ONE<sup>®</sup> • Purina<sup>®</sup> Pro Plan<sup>®</sup> • Purina<sup>®</sup> Dog Chow<sup>®</sup> • Beyond<sup>®</sup> • Beneful<sup>®</sup> • ALPO<sup>®</sup> • Friskies<sup>®</sup> • Fancy Feast<sup>®</sup> • Beggin′<sup>®</sup> • Click to Chat With an Online Representative	Click to Expand • Click to Expand • Click to Expand
8.    Page Load Time	15.317 seconds	6.887 seconds
9.    Observations Regarding Page layout:	This page’s layout is easy to navigate. Every important link is available without scrolling. This may be a personal preference but I don’t like the amount of content on their landing page (too much). Overall it has a good layout.	Very simple but gets the job done. Everything fits on one page without scrolling.
10. Observations Regarding Visual Content:	Good mix of pictures and words. Every link is easily understandable (you know where you’re going next). Good use of brand colors (red, black, white)	Just the right amount of pictures. Links stand out. Good use of brand colors (green, brown, orange, yellow). These earthy tones symbolize the brand’s commitment to all natural dog food.
11. Call-to-action:	Not impressed with the amount of call-to-actions. Only a couple “share”s and one “Shop our store”	“Try It!”, “Subscribe to our news and promotions”, “Find A Store”, “Find A Vet”, “You can transform your pet’s life with Instinct Raw. Learn more…”
12. Anchored Text: (list 3)	“Dogs”, “Cats”, “Meet Purina”	“Product Choices”, “Learning Center”, “Who We Are”
13. Moz Established Links:  # to Root Domain	1171	610
14. Moz Established Links:  # Total Links	145K	7016
15. Top 3 inbound links.	http://www.adoptapet.com/ http://www.nist.gov/baldrige/qe/index.cfm http://www.pheasantsforever.org/	http://support.bestfriends.org/site/PageServer?pagename=landing_page http://www.strayrescue.org/ http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ucm200248.htm
16. Mobile Friendly: Yes/No	Yes	Yes
17. Content is “shareable” (Like, Tweet, Pin, Blog, etc.)	Yes	Yes
18. Social Media: (List all SM icons on the home page.	Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pintrest	Facebook, Twitter, YouTube
19. SERP ranking results when using keywords from this table: (placing or page number)	1st on page 1	N/A

 

Google Trends Insights:

There is a massive spike in search popularity across the entire industry in March of 2007. At that time there was a big dog food recall and many brands were affected. Other than that, search popularity across the board has had a small but consistent increase since 2008 (except Nature’s Variety, the have close to 0 presence). The dog food industry has been more popular than it has ever been (if you exclude the spike in 2007) the last 12 months while Purina flatlined around it’s average.

Latent Semantic Indexing Keywords:

Purina: purina pro plan, purina veterinary diets, purina points reward program

Nature’s Variety: nature’s instinct raw dog food, nature’s variety prairie, best raw dog food

Summary:

Purina’s SEO was pretty strong but the website itself was mediocre, which really surprised me. Purina’s website took top spot when searching their product brands and was on the second page when searching the generic keyword, “dog food” (first page was all retailer like Wal-Mart). I was shocked by lack of call-to-action on Purina’s site. They had many opportunities to use call-to-action, such as their “Dog Breed Selector” tool, but dropped the ball in favor of a boring link. Purina’s website also had a whopping 15+ seconds loading time and had practically no keywords related to dog food on LSIGraph. Nature’s Variety was the complete opposite; great site, awful SEO. Their website was straight forward, easy to use, and modern. Their links were intriguing which shows evidence of a great marketing team. That’s where the positives stop. If you look at my analysis I put “N/A” for 4 extremely important categories. When I looked them up on Google Trends they were almost non-existent. And when generating keywords on LSIGraph all I got were variations of the same two keywords along with names of competitors. Both of these sites could benefit from a dedicated digital marketing team coming in and sprucing up the place.

Conclusion:

If this report is any indication of the industry as a whole then everyone needs to work hard at improving their digital footprint. There were no common keywords used across both sites and SERP ranking was relatively low industry wide. If I have to winner of this analysis it would have to be Purina. They shouldn’t celebrate though, they have a lot of work ahead of them.

APA Citations:

LSIGraph. (May 2016). LSIGraph keyword generator [purina.com]. Retrieved from http://lsigraph.com/

LSIGraph. (May 2016). LSIGraph keyword generator [naturesvariety.com]. Retrieved from http://lsigraph.com/

Nestle. (May 2016). Purina. Retrieved from http://purina.com/

Nature’s Variety. (May 2016). Nature’s Variety. Retrieved from http://naturesvariety.com/

SEOmoz Inc. (May 2016). MozBar. Retrieved from https://moz.com/tools/seo-toolbar