When bloggers first start out, many think that posting articles is all they have to do. Within a few short weeks, they quickly realise they have an audience of one, and it’ll stay that way until something changes.
So they get their own domain and hosting, start learning as much as they can about their niche, improve their writing, get a new theme, promote their site, try to get backlinks, research plugins, tie their posts together, and build a brand identity (among other things). And that doesn’t even include monetising the site!
With so many moving parts, how can you measure your overall progress? Of course, there’s the average Alexa ranking and Google PageRank so you can examine your traffic and popularity progress. But what about the plethora of other intricate details of your site?
The Website Grader tool is one great way to get a score for your site.
HubSpot’s Website Grader is FREE!
I know, a free tool; how powerful can that be? Let’s take a look.The Website Grader looks at many parts of your blog to determine how you’re doing.
The top-level categories of how your site is being judged are:
- On-Page SEO – design and structure of the site
- Off-Page SEO – promotional and linking activities
- Blogosphere – marketing and interaction
- Social Mediasphere – bookmarking presence
- Converting Qualified Visitors to Leads – feeds and forms
- Competitive Intelligence – compares your site with competing sites
Sounds pretty comprehensive, right? That’s because it is! Over 50 variables are factored in.
At the end of the assessment, which takes all of 10 seconds or so, you get a grade!
The “grade” represents the percentage of sites the Website Grader thinks you’re better than. So a score of 50 means that your site ranks better than half the places it has graded.
Uncover and improve
In addition to the grade, the Website Grader will also identify areas where you could use improvement. This is where you can either work on them yourself or use one of their services.The great thing about it is that many bloggers don’t realise how many things they miss when trying to develop a site. Use this tool to see where the holes are and start filling them. Mostly, you do your best, get a score, make improvements, get a score again. Rinse and repeat.
Don’t get me wrong, this tool is just one way to assess a site. There are many other factors that it cannot determine through a quick scan, like the sense of community, usability, quality and usefulness of the content, stickiness, and branding … just to name a few.
Free Blog Help’s grade
OK, I’m going to try to not be immodest here. Sure, I love my grade but trust me, it wasn’t always this high. In fact, I’m sure many of you have better degrees than I do.When Website Grader gave me my grade several months ago, I wasn’t happy with my score at all (if I recall correctly, it was an 83). Even someone who’s been in the business for many years like me had a lot to work on to bring the grade up. The reason why I’m even showing you, my class, is that I’m proof that making adjustments can make your site a lot better.
It doesn’t mean that this site is perfect, but it does show that I’m making progress. Even the climb from 99.1 to 99.2 will be steep since everyone at this level is trying pretty hard.
I have a pile of work ahead of me, but at least I know which areas to focus my attention on.
Anyway, head over to Website Grader and type in your blog address. I would love it if you’d be willing to share your grade with us.
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