So you invested a few dollars in owning a website. Congrats, you are now capable of having your website viewed by the billions of people searching the internet. But how do you know if you have a good website? That is what I will cover today.
There are a few things that will determine if you have a good website. They aren’t really rocket science but they are so simple that often people just overlook these basics.
- Is your website Responsive?
- Does your website make it easy for people to connect with you via social media?
- Does your website make it easy for people to share with their friends on Social Media?
- Is it SEO Optimized?
- Are you publishing often?
Those are just a few things to consider. But what about your websites actual grade? Have you had it graded yet? The answer is most likely no. Well if you haven’t, then now’s the time to do so. Fortunately it is very easy to get your website graded and it is actually free to do so.
There are two websites that I recommend when analyzing your website.
Pingdom Tools
This website is one that I use often since it gives you a wealth of information about your website and any potential issues that might exist on your site. All you have to do is enter your url and click test now. It will analyze your website and let you know if there is anything you should try and resolve. It also provides you some insight on how to do so.
It gives you a waterfall of all the assets it’s searching for when visiting your website. It also gives you your performance grade and a description on what’s good and where you can make improvements. It provides you a page analysis and allows you to choose where you want to test your server from. Here is the link. Pingdom Tools
GTMetrix
Is another great option when looking to check out various aspects of your websites performance. It provides you with similar information as Pingdom Tools does but checks out your Pagespeed and YSlow score. The waterfall is also more in depth and a valuable tool that can help you gain deeper knowledge on what your website is doing right or doing wrong. I like testing websites with various tools so I can get an accurate reading and gain insight on where I should focus my attention when improving my site. GTMetrix
Why does this matter?
Good question. Short answer is because would you rather your website have a good grade or a bad grade? Somewhat longer answer is because it can mean the difference between a website that is properly coded that provides users with an optimized experience, a secure website that’s properly configured. A website that is viewed by the search engines as a professionally developed website. Yes Google cares about your website performance and overly code efficiency / server configuration.
How did I get my site to perform so well?
The magic of WordPress and my custom theme / server configuration. I go over it in more detail in this previous article on How to Improve your websites performance and when you’re done with this article, you should definitely check it out. I also created a YouTube Video that you can check out on using these two websites. Note: I upgraded the code on my site after making the video to address some of the recommendations from the two websites.
In Conclusion
The takeaway is, get your website graded. If your website doesn’t score a 90 or above then it’s time to make some changes to optimize your website for your current and future visitors. It just might help with your SEO and CRO Search Engine Optimization and Conversation Rate Optimization efforts.
Hopefully you enjoyed this article. Let me know what you think and don’t forget to check out the video.