The Most Rated Running Shoes brands - SEO Audit of Nike vs. Under Armour

The most rated running shoes – SEO Audit of two brands

Written by:  Zonaira Lone

“Nike vs Under Armour: Which Brand Optimizes For Comfort, style, and Performance?”

In the running shoes industry, Nike and Under Armour are two brands that are popular for their sports wear. SEO is an important factor for marketers in this industry because using keywords on the brand’s website helps the company get more exposure by being placed on the first page of search results if done correctly. Using keyword sentences throughout their site such as “comfort, style, and performance” will allow consumers to easily find the site when they search on Google or any other search engine. Both sites seem to have a good use of SEO keywords, but Nike appears more often on the top searches of Google than Under Armour. The objective is to determine which of the two sites has a stronger use of SEO when compared.

SEO Considerations	Nike	Under Armour
1.    URL:	http://www.nike.com/ca/en_gb/	https://www.underarmour.com/en-ca/
2.    Page Title	Nike Official Site. Nike.com (CA)	Under Armour Sports Apparel, Athletic Shoes, & Accessories | CA
3.    Meta Description	Free delivery and returns | Shop the latest Nike products and discover Nike sports, athletes, technology, training and more.	Official Site: Empowering athletes everywhere, Under Armour delivers innovative sports apparel, shoes, & accessories. FREE SHIPPING available in Canada.
4.    Meta Keywords and Monthly search volume:	None	None
5.    Structural elements:  H1, H2, H3	H1: None H2: FREE STANDARD DELIVERY ON ALL ORDERS • COOL AND FAST Dri-FIT mesh keeps you cool and dry in the Nike City Cool Swoosh top. • BRING ON THE SWEAT Nike Pro Hypercool Limitless Tank. Seamless, sweat-wicking essentials to keep you cool while you blaze through your intervals. • BRING THE HEAT Who cares if it’s hot out? Get the training gear you need to get outside and embrace the heat. • DAZZLING SUMMER WHITE Customise our hottest styles with an exclusive iridescent upper, personal iD and city codes to rep your favourite major metro. H3: None	H1: None H2: BEST SELLING GEAR H3: None
6.    Strong tags	None	Please enter a valid Email Address. • It's official. You're on the team. Thanks for becoming a UA insider.
7.    Alt Text	SU16_RN_DriFITCool_CitySwoosh_W_P1_1600x700.jpg • SU16_0512_WT_FST_P1_GBL.jpg • SU16_5.12_HP_SG_BringTheHeat.jpg • AM_Reflective_1600x700.jpg • AM_Reflective_1600x700.jpg • Canada • Loading	Curry Two • UA Heathbox • Curry Two • ▶
8.    Page Load Time	2.055 seconds	3.174 seconds
9.    Observations Regarding Page layout:	The page layout is very simple and easy to use. Each tab at the top of the site is divided up depending on gender and age group. It also has all the contact information and social pages easily accessible at the bottom of the site.	The page layout for this site is more detailed. It uses more imagery and alt text than descriptive words on the homepage, which makes it difficult when searching for keywords on search engines.
10. Observations Regarding Visual Content:	The visual content is very appealing to the eye because it’s simple and the focus goes immediately to the big image on the home page of Nike’s site. The images clearly show what the structural elements are describing. (For example: “Dazzling White Summer” is the text and the image shows shiny white Nike Air Huarache shoes.)	Under Armour uses a lot of visual content on their site, which I think is great. It allows customers to see what type of brand Under Armour is and how their products look.
11. Call-to-action:	·       SIGN UP FOR EMAIL ·       Limited time only. See Details. ·       SHOP NOW ·       CUSTOMIZE AND BUY ·       EXPLORE MEN’S / EXPLORE WOMEN’S ·       Sign up for Email ·       Join Nike+	·       SHOP MEN’S / SHOP WOMEN’S ·       See Michael Phelps’ Story ·       SHOP NOW ·       GET EMAIL UPDATES
12. Anchored Text:	FREE STANDARD DELIVERY ON ALL ORDERS Limited time only. See Details	I would like to receive the latest news and promotions from Under Armour.
13. Moz Established Links:  # to Root Domain	333	2
14. Moz Established Links:  # Total Links	1,002	6
15. Top 3 inbound links.	1.     2 pieces of fitness gear you need right now - Canadian Living www.canadianliving.com/health/fitness/12_pieces_of_fitness_gear_you_need_right_now.php 2.     BUS 478 Past Synopses www.sfu.ca/%7Esheppard/478/syn/synopses.html 3.     BUS 478 Web Page www.sfu.ca/%7Esheppard/478/groups.htm	1.     (301 Redirect) [No Title] bit.ly/UA20150114 Only 1 inbound link available for Under Armour.
16. Mobile Friendly: Yes/No	Yes	Yes
17. Content is “shareable” (Like, Tweet, Pin, Blog, etc.)	Yes (Email, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest)	Yes (Email, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest)
18. Social Media: (List all SM icons on the home page.	Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram	Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Google Plus, YouTube, Under Armour Record app
19. SERP ranking results when using keywords from this table:	Search: Dazzling Summer White Results: 1st page, 2nd link on Google search	Search: Training running shoes Results: 1st page, 1st link on Google search

Google Trends:

                                      Google Trends for Nike, Under Armour and Running Shoes in the Past 12 months

After searching “running shoes”, “Nike”, and “Under Armour” on Google Trend, I’ve realized that Nike is way above the average line for the running shoes industry. Nike has been the top running shoes brand for over 10 years and is still rapidly rising. In the past 12 months the search interest for running shoes has continued to be on the rise. In my opinion, I feel like since more people want to get back in shape or stay more active, they’re investing in more brand name running shoes for better comfort, style, and performance.

Latent Semantic Indexing Keywords:

Nike:

·       Sportswear shoes

·       Air max shoes

·       Flyknit performance shoes

·       Tech fleece sportswear

·       Performance running shoes

·       Dazzling summer white

Nike has 3 of these keywords shown on their homepage.

Under Armour:

·       Training running shoes

·       Performance running shoes

·       Athletic running shoes

·       Coolswitch technology

Under Armour has 1 keyword on their homepage.

Summary:

Nike’s strengths are its use of Latent Semantic Indexing Keywords on their homepage. Under Armour’s strengths is its use of Meta descriptions for search engine results. The keywords sentences “comfort, style, and performance” are found mostly on Under Armour’s site compared to Nike. When searching for content using the keywords: sportswear shoes, air max shoes, and flyknit performance shoes, Nike ranked on the 1^st page, within the top 5 positions. When searching for content using keywords like: Training running shoes, performance running shoes, and Coolswitch technology, Under Armour ranked on the 1^st page, within the top 5 positions. Both Nike and Under Armour use the keyword “performance shoes” to describe their running shoes, but the difference is that Nike is ranked a little higher than Under Armour.

Conclusion:

Overall in the running shoes industry, Nike and Under Armour are rated two of the top rated brands for sports wear. Using keyword sentences throughout their sites like “comfort, style, and performance” gets more search results to lead to their sites. In my opinion, the overall winner of this SEO Search analysis is Nike because they have a stronger presence than Under Armour does.

APA Citations:

Google. (May 2016). Google trends. [Running shoes, Nike, Under Armour]. Retrieved from https://www.google.ca/trends/explore#q=%2Fm%2F09kjlm%2C%20nike%2C%20under%20armour&cmpt=q&tz=Etc%2FGMT%2B4

Nike Official Site (2016). Retrieved from http://www.nike.com/ca/en_gb/c/women

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

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

Under Armour Sports Apparel, Athletic Shoes, & Accessories. (May 2016) Retrieved from https://www.underarmour.com/en-ca/