Do you ever wonder what grade your website would get?
Today, we’re going to talk about website grading tools and how they can help make you findable online. I don’t know about you but I’m obsessed with grades. I was one of those really annoying students that like to hang out during office hours and put an apple on the professor’s desk, (Yes I was that student)
They go to Facebook and they have all these quizzes. You’ve seen them, what’s your unicorn name? or Who secretly loves you? I am a sucker for these and can spend all day doing them. And then pretty soon, I’m like, “You need to let go, step away from the quiz.” And the same thing goes for websites.
But there are a ton of good graders out there, but I want to introduce you to 2, which I have a lot of respect for and I think will really help you to understand that the engine of your website, the guts, the backend is so important and that it is super tight.
I recently went to a gal who had a bad relationship with a web developer. I went into their website, ran these tools on all the web sites and they were abysmal numbers. And I’m like, “No, no, no. Do not hire her.” Because they may make a beautiful web site but the technical prowess of it is poor. And Google knows that first.
Website grader is owned by HubSpot, genius. If you’re going to look at some way to build your business, website grader has done a great… Figure out a way to give them a grade. No matter what it is, people love assessments.
Do not judge yourself by your score. Do not fire anybody based on your score. Just go in with the understanding that you didn’t know what the rules were. Neither did the person who built your website. Apparently, because your score is low, that doesn’t mean they’re bad people.
It doesn’t mean they should have known this and didn’t do it. It just everyone has a different assessment that they work from. So, this assessment though is the assessment that’s going to tell you exactly what Google is… When Google pings your website, it’s running a test on you. It’s called the Google algorithm. If you don’t measure up then it’s not going to rank you.
This website grader is looking at the same elements. It’s saying I’m going to ping your site, I’m going to visit your site. I’m going to see if it has all the things that make it trustworthy?
4 Key Indicators:
Performance – How fast does the site pull? Like, why is this site so slow? What are you doing in the background? Are you doing something deceptive? They don’t like slow, they want fast. So, if your website is slow, that could be a big indicator of why maybe your score is not as good as it should be.
Mobile – Over 40% of searches on Google are being done on mobile devices. That number just keeps going like crazy. You know how much we spend on our little smartphones. They’re a big part of our life.
The images should all be lined up perfectly. If it’s not, then that’s not responsive and Google’s going to be like, “We’re not going to let you rank as high because you’re not meeting the requirements.” So, for mobile, you should have a 30 out of 30. That means I can pull your site and it looks great and also make sure the phone number will work on a cell phone as well.
SEO – I don’t really take this all too seriously because clearly, that’s my entire discipline. But it does tell me if there’s a keyword consistency on the page. Very important.
Security – Remember that HTTPS at the very top. Every page on the website should be HTTPS. If it is not, you will get a 0 here. Don’t panic. It doesn’t mean your website can be hacked. It doesn’t mean anyone’s done anything deceivious too. You just have to think about, “I gotta call my hosting site or have someone call my hosting site and get me on a secured server.”
Now when you look at the report, look for the red, get the red out. Very simple, Your webmaster will know what to do.
Now, we’re going to bump over to my next favorite grader which is WooRank. W-O-O-R-A-N-K .com. Now, this tool is a little more grumpy than a website grader, you’re going to have to go in there. They’ll let you want to run one report before it’s going to bump you to a paywall and they want you to sign up, be judicious.
Woo rank is a much more discerning, specific assessment. I pay big bucks for this guy every single month. The Website Grader is kind of more fluff and fold. It’s a little higher level. This is like the nitty-gritty. I’m always working on client stuff and not on mine. This is not an excuse but you know, I always have to go back and you know, take a look at what I need to do.
If your engine is humming and smooth and you are looking good to Google than any kind of findability and content creation you do on top of that is just golden. But if that engine ain’t pouring like a kitten you’re never going to rank the way you really deserve to rank.
If your engine is not purring contact me and we can have a conversation, book an hour session with me at https://bookme.name/findability
WATCH the full video here: Grade Your Website: Are you an A+ to Google?