At PurelyThemes we’re always interested in seeing how our clients use WordPress, and what they use it for. The blog we’re looking at today is a French blog about something as niche as Kidney Stones, and as such we will be looking in detail at how the site is structured to optimize for the user experience, search engines and performance issues.
The goal of this study is to find out what this blogger is doing correctly, and what other blog owners can do to improve their site. It does not have to be about medical topics, or in French to be effective, this is just a site that I know is working really great.
So let’s take a look at the website from a developer’s point of view first, ignoring any visual or design aspects as such:
The site uses a number of plugins to enrich the UX of the visitors, but it doesn’t feel like too much and there is no annoying popups. So the first impression is positive, and the layout is easy to understand and feels very intuitive.
So let’s analyze what happens to a theoretical visitor. Most of the time, a user will enter a specific page, and not the front page, due to them searching for a topic to get help or information about their kidney stones. Some visitors will be referred by social media, e-mail or something else. However, for those visitors who find the site via the homepage, there is a quick introduction in the left sidebar, some important an static text in the right side, and the main content has the navigation to the various topics the site is about.
So find the link called colique néphrétique, and let’s see what that site is all about. Looking at this article, it is clear that the blogger knows about heading tags (<h1> <h2> and so on), and uses them correctly. The page title is correctly linked with the keyword, and the links from other sites are also pointing to this site. The article itself is very easy to read and understand, and as an extra touch the author ends each post with a personal sign off that adds credibility and a personal touch to the site:
Let’s try another site – I chose calculs rénaux, you can do the same. Once more, if you look at the HTML structure of this page, it is clear that the heading tags are used correctly, and that the text on the site is encapsulated in paragraphs.
And the third page for good measure, once again you don’t have to choose the one I did, but mine was calcul rénal. This time we’ll look at another common thing. Since the blog owner is optimizing for kidney stone related topics, it is important to have some sort of image related to that on the site, and of course he has. What is just as important is the fact that the image has not just an “alt” description, but also a “title”. Look at the image below to see what I mean.
So to sum everything up so far, the blog has dedicated topics for very specific subjects, and as you can see on the screenshot above, they go in very minute detail about the composition of atoms even, so to have a quality site you need quality content. But you also need to know how to structure the content like I showed you this site have.
