Shepherd and Wedderburn Report

Dive into this report for an arsenal of actionable insights. Inside: exclusive peronalised imporovments, speed optimisation hacks, SEO quick-wins, and compelling data-driven content strategy. Your digital leap forward, in a nutshell.

Shepherd and Wedderburn Report

Overview

Website Summary

Based on search results our AI analysed your site and provided top line comments about the site content indexed in Google.

Overview of shepwedd.com

Shepherd and Wedderburn is a prominent Scottish-headquartered UK law firm offering a wide range of legal services. Their expertise covers various sectors, and they have offices in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, London, and Dublin. Here’s a summary of their key services and areas of expertise:

  1. International Services: They provide corporate transactional services to international companies, banks, and investment firms, covering major transactions across Europe, India, Australia, North America, and South America. Their services include compliance and regulation advice, dispute resolution, and intellectual property support. Additionally, they offer legal advice to private clients with international concerns, and expertise in real estate and technology, media, and telecoms sectors.

  2. Energy and Natural Resources: The firm has a strong presence in the energy sector, advising on matters related to conventional power, renewables, oil and gas, water, waste, and mining in various regions including Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Canada.

  3. Rural and Estates: Their work includes advising on purchases and sales of properties like estates, farms, and forests, dealing with agricultural and environmental issues, and working on renewable energy projects.

  4. Sustainability and Social Responsibility: The firm is committed to sustainability, aiming for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. They focus on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) aspects and have a strong emphasis on diversity and inclusion in their workplace.

  5. Legal Advice and Client Service: Shepherd and Wedderburn prides itself on establishing long-term relationships of trust with their clients, rooted in high-quality legal advice and client services. They have a history of supporting innovation, economic growth, and international commerce.

  6. Planning Act 2008: The website provides an overview of the Planning Act 2008, focusing on its implications for development consent regimes in the UK. It discusses the duty of local planning authorities in mitigating and adapting to climate change and the introduction of the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) to fund infrastructure necessitated by new developments​​.

  7. Regulatory Monitoring, Compliance, and Investigations: Shepherd and Wedderburn emphasize their flexibility and experience in building integrated compliance systems, offering various services such as providing commercially relevant information, supporting public affairs teams, and engaging with local and government authorities​​.

  8. Smarter Working: The firm highlights its approach to efficient service delivery through a range of tools, including AI-enabled machine learning software for document analysis and a bespoke Reporting Portal for sharing case and matter updates with clients​​.

  9. International Employment Guide: This guide offers insights into various employment law issues on a global scale, underlining the firm’s expertise in international employment matters​​.
  10. Health and Safety in Agriculture: Shepherd and Wedderburn addresses the common causes of accidents in agriculture and provides advice on managing risks in this sector, reflecting their understanding of industry-specific legal challenges​​.

 

Competitors

Content Gap

We are utilising data from SEO like Ahrefs to conduct a comprehensive analysis of top competing domains the content gap between your domain and its top 10 competitors.

Top 5 Detailed Actions to Maximise Organic Traffic

Here are the five most important detailed actions to increase organic traffic:

  1. Focus on Traffic Drop Opportunities: The largest drop in traffic is seen on shepherd.co.uk with a decrease of 1649 visitors. Prioritising investigation into the cause of this drop and devising strategies to gain some of this lost traffic could be beneficial.
  2. Enhance Current Traffic Value: The domain with the largest drop in traffic value is rics.org, with a decrease of £2514.18. Identifying and recreating this high-value content could help regain and potentially increase the site’s traffic value.
  3. Improve Target Keywords Ranking: brodies.com has the highest share of target keywords at 6.90% but saw a slight drop in traffic. Optimising the site for these target keywords could boost traffic.
  4. Maximise Page Count Gains: lawscot.org.uk has seen a significant increase in the number of pages (738 more pages). Ensuring your site has a competitive level or growth and is properly indexed will lead to greater traffic gains.
  5. Address Competitor’s Keywords: Burnesspaull.com holds a substantial share of 7.70% for competitor’s keywords, which is relatively high. Analysing and understanding the competitor’s strategies could provide insights to outperform them in those areas.

Top 10 Competitors

 

DomainRankCompetitor’s KeywordsCommon KeywordsCurrent traffic
lawscot.org.uk211533.70%11823
burnesspaull.com39327.70%6062
morton-fraser.com47766.50%4828
harpermacleod.co.uk56564.80%8648
tcyoung.co.uk63934.40%951
ros.gov.uk73621.70%32970
rics.org82770.70%128939
lawscotjobs.co.uk91782.20%2031
revenue.scot101441.30%31563
brodies.com1133016.90%12558

Speed

Top 5 Quick Wins

We run your site through Google PageSpeed Insights and evaluated the performance of a web page on both mobile and desktop devices, here are the biggest gains and suggestions on how to improve page load times.

 

Based on the data from the PageSpeed Insights report, here are the five most important actions to be taken to improve the page loading speed of the https://shepwedd.com/ website, particularly for mobile:

  1. Eliminate render-blocking resources: Reducing or eliminating scripts and styles that prevent the page from loading quickly could save approximately 2.76 seconds. This typically involves deferring non-critical resources or inlining the critical ones.
  2. Reduce unused CSS: Removing styles that are not being used on the page can save around 0.92 seconds. This might require a cleanup of the stylesheet or splitting it into multiple files that load when necessary.
  3. Defer offscreen images: Implementing lazy loading for images that are not immediately visible in the viewport can save about 0.61 seconds. This means images will only be loaded as they are about to enter the viewport.
  4. Properly size images: Ensuring that images are the correct size for their containers without relying on the browser to resize them could save 0.55 seconds. This may involve creating different versions of the images for different screen sizes.
  5. Minify CSS and JavaScript: Minifying CSS could save 0.55 seconds and minifying JavaScript could save 0.18 seconds. This process involves removing unnecessary characters from the code without changing its functionality.

Additionally, considering the Total Blocking Time (TBT) of 3,250 ms and Time to First Byte (TTFB) of 0.8 s, focusing on server response times and reducing the execution time of blocking scripts can further speed up the site. Also, addressing Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) of 0.663 by ensuring elements do not move around as the page loads will improve user experience.

These suggestions should be a starting point for a technical SEO expert or web developer to begin optimising the site’s loading performance.

URLPerformance Score

https://shepwedd.com/

61%

https://shepwedd.com/people/gillian-carty

72%

https://shepwedd.com/knowledge/construction-case-law-update-top-5-construction-cases-2018

90%

https://shepwedd.com/knowledge/rights-access-vs-right-privacy

71%

https://shepwedd.com/knowledge/changing-employment-landscape-employment-law-hot-topics-2019

77%

https://shepwedd.com/knowledge/updated-pricing-guidance-published-single-source-contracts

84%

https://shepwedd.com/knowledge/legal-update-asda-loses-court-appeal-case

75%

https://shepwedd.com/people/gillian-carty

85%

https://shepwedd.com/knowledge/public-procurement-scotland-post-brexit

68%

https://shepwedd.com/knowledge/regulation-cryptoassets-stifling-innovation-or-catalyst-growth

82%

https://shepwedd.com/knowledge/lgbt-history-month-encouraging-openness-legal-profession

79%

https://shepwedd.com/knowledge/action-you-can-take-now-protect-your-business-and-your-family-against-no-deal-brexit

88%

https://shepwedd.com/knowledge/abuse-dominance-uk-courts

72%

https://shepwedd.com/knowledge/regulatory-references-what-s-new-under-senior-manager-and-certification-regime

91%

https://shepwedd.com/knowledge/permanent-investment-courts-future-investor-state-dispute-system

93%

https://shepwedd.com/knowledge/changes-enacted-compensation-eligibility-agricultural-improvements

82%

https://shepwedd.com/knowledge/notice-mediate-what-can-we-learn-british-columbia

89%

https://shepwedd.com/knowledge/age-discrimination-new-guidance-employers

83%

https://shepwedd.com/knowledge/after-event-insurance-getting-policy-terms-right

73%

https://shepwedd.com/knowledge/concussion-sport-role-governing-bodies

84%

Average

80%

 

SEO

Issues to fix

Analysing current on page SEO here’s a list of top issues which should be addressed

Your content goes here. Edit or remove this text inline or in the module Content settings. You can also style every aspect of this content in the module Design settings and even apply custom CSS to this text in the module Advanced settings.

Main Site

SEO SCORE 73/100

PrioritySuggestions
HIGHInclude the most common keywords in the title tag, meta description, and heading tags.
HIGHUse H1 and H2 tags to improve search engine visibility and ranking.
HIGHConsider using structured data to help search engines better understand your content.
HIGHEliminate any render-blocking resources to improve website experience.
HIGHUse images in modern formats to reduce file size and improve loading speed.
HIGHReduce the HTML size to improve loading times and retain visitors.
MEDIUMReduce the DOM size for faster page loading and improved performance.
MEDIUMServe properly sized images to reduce loading times and improve user experience.
MEDIUMAdd “rel=noopener” or “rel=noreferrer” to target=”_blank” links to avoid performance and security issues.
MEDIUMUse social media meta tags to improve shared links on social platforms.
LOWLimit the use of HTTP requests to improve page loading time.
LOWMove inline CSS to an external stylesheet to improve performance.

 

Opportunities

RankIssue NameIssue TypeIssue PriorityURLs % of TotalDescriptionHow To Fix
1Directives: NoindexWarningHigh24URLs containing a ‘noindex’ directive.Review and remove the ‘noindex’ if appropriate.
2Content: Low Content PagesOpportunityMedium23.26Pages with a word count below 200 words.Add more descriptive content.
3Page Titles: Over 561 PixelsOpportunityMedium52.15Page titles over Google’s pixel length limit.Write concise page titles.
4Page Titles: Over 60 CharactersOpportunityMedium51.62Page titles that exceed 60 characters.Write concise page titles.
5Canonicals: MissingWarningMedium12.91Pages without a canonical URL.Specify a canonical URL for each page.
6Response Codes: Internal Blocked by Robots.txtWarningHigh1.04URLs blocked by the site’s robots.txt.Review and update robots.txt as needed.
7Images: Over 100 KBOpportunityMedium7.02Large images that may slow down pages.Optimise image size and format.
8Security: HTTP URLsIssueHigh0.45HTTP URLs that are not secure.Update to HTTPS and fix internal links.
9Response Codes: Internal Client Error (4xx)IssueHigh0.61Internal URLs with client-side errors.Resolve errors and update links.
10Links: Pages Without Internal OutlinksWarningHigh0.21Pages without links to other internal pages.Add internal links or enable JavaScript rendering.

Hosting

External Review

We analysed your environments to check for any common problems.

Security

List of security assessment results and recommendations following an external Vulnerability Scan. Please note that these results are preliminary and may contain false positives.

Test DescriptionCVECVSSVulnerabilityRisk LevelRisk DescriptionRecommendation
Searching for vulnerabilities of current Drupal version…CVE-2023-52567.5Vulnerabilities found for Drupal version 9.5.9HighThese vulnerabilities expose the affected applications to the risk of unauthorized access to confidential data and possibly to Denial of Service attacks.We recommend you to upgrade Drupal to the latest version in order to eliminate the risk of these vulnerabilities.
Fingerprinting the server software and technology…N/AN/AServer software and technology foundLowAn attacker could use this information to mount specific attacks against the identified software type and version.We recommend you to eliminate the information which may allow an attacker to identify the software platform, technology, server and operating system (ex. HTTP server headers, meta information, etc).
Fingerprinting the Drupal installation…N/AN/ADrupal installation found from fingerprintLowAn attacker could use this information to mount specific attacks against the identified software type and version.We recommend you to eliminate the information which may allow an attacker to identify the software platform, technology, server and operating system (ex. HTTP server headers, meta information, etc).
Searching for Drupal modules…N/AN/ADrupal modules foundLowAn attacker could use this information to mount specific attacks against the modules.We recommend you to make sure the Drupal modules are updated to the latest version.

 

Shared Hosting NOT Detected

List of domains hosted on the same server:

This table includes the domain names and their last resolved dates, extracted from the provided data. The full data contains 2 domains.

Domain NameLast Resolved Date
shepwedd.co.uk2023-12-04
shepwedd.com2023-12-11

In the context of web hosting, particularly for businesses, opting for dedicated hosting can be a significant decision. Dedicated hosting provides an exclusive server for a single client, which means that the client does not share the server’s resources with any other users. This exclusivity can lead to enhanced performance, security, and control—factors that are crucial for businesses that rely on their online presence for operations and revenue.

The importance of dedicated hosting for business reasons includes:

  1. Performance: With dedicated hosting, businesses can expect improved website loading times due to the availability of dedicated resources. This can be particularly important for sites that experience high traffic volumes or require significant processing power.
  2. Security: Dedicated servers can offer stronger security measures since the business has complete control over the server’s security protocols. This can be critical for companies that handle sensitive data.
  3. CustomiSation: Businesses have the flexibility to customise the server environment to their specific needs, including the operating system, software, and configurations.
  4. Reliability: Since the server is not shared, there are fewer chances of downtime caused by other websites’ traffic spikes or technical issues.

On the other hand, shared hosting, where multiple clients share the resources of a single server, can pose several risks:

  1. Resource Limitation: Websites on shared hosting may experience slower performance due to the shared resources among numerous clients.
  2. Security Concerns: If one website on a shared server is compromised, there is a potential risk for other sites on the same server to be affected.
  3. Limited Control: Clients have limited ability to install custom software or make server configuration changes, which can be restrictive for businesses with specific needs.
  4. IP Blacklisting: If one of the websites on a shared server engages in malicious or spammy behavior, it could lead to the server’s IP being blacklisted, affecting all websites hosted on that server.

Search engines and web services may consider the type of hosting as a factor when assessing a website’s credibility and reliability. While dedicated hosting is generally not directly referenced as a ranking factor by major search engines like Google, the indirect benefits such as faster loading times, better uptime, and enhanced security can contribute positively to SEO rankings.