Huiling Luo
2024/09/29
This report is a content auditing regarding the information architecture of a psychology lab’s website called “The Einstein Lab“. The Einstein Lab is a research lab that focuses on cognitive neuroscience and studies how the structure and function of the brain are influenced by the context of people’s lives, especially sex and gender. Their research focuses on how these influences impact health, aging, and personal identity, intending to advance precision medicine and healthier communities.
P1: Home page of The Einstein Lab
Currently, the site highlights current research projects, publications, and opportunities for collaboration and involvement. It is also an advertisement tool to promote community engagement through participant recruitment and advisory groups.
Potentially, the audience of this website includes students, donors, scientists, and managers who are interested in their research and impacts. Therefore, the purpose of building its official website is to serve as a platform to showcase its research achievements, attract participants, share findings, and enhance public understanding of their work. It also aims to promotes collaboration with other related scientists and students and emphasizes the importance of diversity and inclusion in scientific research.
This report consists of 3 parts, including the SEO data analysis, Content quality and relevance analysis, general IA analysis. Each part would followed with correspondent recommendations. The primary objective of this auditing is to assess how well the website’s structure facilitates access to its research on cognitive neuroscience and gender-related brain health. This includes ensuring that the content is organized logically and reflects the lab’s mission, while also evaluating the ease of navigation, identifying any content gaps or redundancies, ensuring SEO best practices, and improving usability for diverse audiences such as students, collaborators, and the general public.
This report identifies key issues within the Einstein Lab website’s Information Architecture and SEO. Major findings include missing or poorly structured H1 and H2 tags, missing meta descriptions on numerous pages, broken internal and external links, and inconsistent image optimization. Additionally, the navigation system lacks consistency, with some redundant paths in the directory adding unnecessary complexity, and the site misses search system. From the least sever to the most sever, recommendations including correct H1/H2 tags, fix meta descriptions, repair broken links, optimize images, and simplify navigation by improving folder depth and clickable project titles.
Summary of SEO issues
H1 and H2 tags can include keywords that improve a page's search engine optimization (SEO). When users search for these keywords, the content in H1 and H2 tags may help the page rank higher in search results. According to the spreadsheet, there are few issues relate to the H1 and H2 tags.
→ There are 2 pages that has a H1 over 90 characters. If an H1 is too long, it can negatively affect SEO and user experience. The H1 length may decrease the accessibility of important keywords on SEO. Additionally, lengthy H1 tags may be harder for users to read and understand quickly. For optimal SEO, it's recommended to keep H1 tags concise (ideally under 60-70 characters), focusing on the core topic and relevant keywords. This ensures that both audiences and search engines can easily grasp the page’s main focus.
→ There is 1 page that miss the H2 heading. If a H2 is missing, users may struggle to navigate the content, and search engines may find it harder to understand the page's structure and relevance. Without a proper and relevant H2 tag, the overall SEO effectiveness of the page may be reduced.
