How Good (Or Bad) Is Your Website?

Whether you’ve spent a great deal of time and money to make your website exactly how you want it, or haven’t updated your site in years, it’s always helpful to analyze your site to see if there are opportunities to make improvements. Even if you’re satisfied with your site’s current performance, you may discover ways to achieve even better results.

Auditing your website may sound complicated and time consuming, but it doesn’t have to be. In fact, there are many free tools available that make it easy to audit your site and learn what you can do to improve its performance.

Here are some helpful (and free) tools you can use to take a closer look at your website:

CHECK OVERALL PERFORMANCE | HubSpot's Website Grader

If you want to get a sense of your website’s overall performance, HubSpot’s free Website Grader tool is a great place to start. Simply provide your website URL and your email address, and within a matter of seconds, you’ll get an in-depth assessment of key factors including:

• Security | Security and authenticity are important to your website visitors. An SSL certificate protects your website but also signals to users that your website is authentic and trustworthy. Sites with an SSL certificate will receive a higher grade.
• Search Engine Optimization | In order to get results from your business’s website, you first need to make sure that potential customers can find it. Through search engine optimization, or SEO, you can improve your website’s ranking in key search results. Using Website Grader, you can get a better sense of how easily users can find you online.
• Mobile Responsiveness | If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, you’re missing out on valuable traffic (and the revenue that traffic could bring to your business). To make sure your website is properly optimized for mobile, Website Grader will check the overall mobile-friendliness of your website and provide you with recommendations.
• Site Performance | HubSpot’s Website Grader will also assess your site’s page speed, page size, and more in order to gauge your website’s overall performance. Optimizing these various performance factors will help you increase traffic to your site, improve conversion rates, and generate more revenue from your website.

Once you’ve received your personalized results, you can check out the provided recommendations and start making improvements to your site.

CHECK SEO PERFORMANCE | Raven Tools

While HubSpot’s Website Grader can provide you with a snapshot of your site’s SEO, you may be looking for a more in-depth analysis. To take a deeper dive into your SEO, Raven Tools’ Website Auditor is incredibly effective. Raven will scan your site and assess your on-page technical SEO, providing you with clear next steps you can take to improve your SEO.

Raven Tools’ Website Auditor will check your site for visibility issues, meta issues, page speed issues, and more, leaving you with an in-depth analysis that will make it easier to refine your SEO strategy. The Website Auditor tool can be accessed by signing up for a free trial, but does require an ongoing monthly fee if you decide to keep the tool for ongoing use.

One benefit of signing up for ongoing services is that you can more easily track your progress and analyze how your efforts are impacting your site’s performance. You can even schedule regular, ongoing audits so you never miss out on an opportunity to optimize your site.

CHECK MOBILE FRIENDLINESS | Google Search Console's Mobile Friendly Test Tool

The ever-increasing popularity of mobile devices has had a tremendous impact on the way people find and interact with businesses online. In order to have an effective online presence, it is crucial that your website is mobile-friendly.

Google Search Console’s Mobile-Friendly Test Tool is a fast, easy, and totally free way to learn whether a page on your site is mobile-friendly. To use the tool, all you need to do is enter the URL of the specific page you want to test.

Once completed, the test will provide you with detailed results, including a snapshot of how that page appears on mobile, and whether Google found any mobile usability issues that might affect the user when they visit that page. From there, you can start making updates to correct these issues and provide your users with a better experience, regardless of what device they are using.

CHECK CONTENT READIBILITY | WebFx's Website Readbility Test Tool

There’s more to creating great website content than making sure it’s optimized for search. The quality and readability of your website’s content is just as important. Search engine optimization can help you draw more visitors to your site, but well-written content is what keeps them there and ultimately helps drive them to convert.

Using the Readability Test Tool, you can enter a specific URL or input your copy directly. Your text will be quickly scanned and then scored for the most commonly-used readability indicators. By assessing the readability of your website content, you can more easily tailor it to suit your target audience.

Your website serves as the hub of your overall digital presence, so it’s important to routinely audit your site to make sure it’s as effective as possible. Each of these tools can help you gain valuable insight about your website, and all of them are free.

If you’re not sure that you want to take on the task of routinely auditing and updating your business’s website, we’re here to help! Simply reach out to us for your free Digital Marketing Plan. We’ll provide you with a free, in-depth analysis of your current digital marketing efforts, as well as recommendations to help you reach more customers online. With our web design and comprehensive digital marketing services, we can develop a tailored strategy based on your specific goals.