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During Tuesday's website optimization webinar, Mike Volpe and I reviewed four different types of websites that had Website Grader scores ranging from 84 to 18 (three of which went down recently and only a little bit). Should the owners of those websites be concerned about lower Grader scores?
Mike Volpe, HubSpot's VP of Marketing, said, "People should look at their website's score not as an absolute number but as a relative score to be used as a benchmark and referenced in much the same way as a quarterly check-up. What should be looked at more closely is the authority your website has on the Internet and the progress you are making on the metrics related to authority."
Mike continued, "Search engines look at websites through two lenses - Authority and Context. The context is everything on the page of your website including the page title, the keywords, all the content that you create. The authority is a measure of the value of your webpage in terms of the number of links and the quality of those links that link into your webpage. Authority is much more difficult to improve, but it also has a bigger effect. Roughly 75-80% of the reason why most web pages rank highly in search is because of authority (the number of links and the quality of those links). Context alone will only get you so far."
"For example, a link from CNN.com or NYTimes.com will increase your website's authority a lot more than a link from your cousin's blog (unless your cousin is a top blogger). And the more authority your site has, the greater the likelihood that Google and Bing will place it higher in their organic results."
Want to hear the full commentary on each of following websites? You can listen to the recording here.
URL: www.ahaProcess.com | Grader Score: 84
Recommendations:
1. Reduce the number of calls-to-action on the Home Page (currently 10 in the right-hand column alone!) and concentrate on what actions you want the website visitor to take. In this case, it is "Attend a Seminar".
2. Modify their Meta Description. An optimal length is 150 characters for search engines. Aha! Process' weighs in at a robust 552 characters. A lot of content (402 characters) going to waste.
3. They enjoy a lot of authority with a Moz Rank of 4 and 671 Inbound Links but we think they have enough content to fully utilize a Twitter account attached to Aha! Process and not an individual (in this case, Ruby Payne).
URL: GoodLifeMedical.com | Grader Score: 55/33
Good Life Medical Equipment recently moved their website from www.goodlifemedical.com (Website Grader score of 55) to www.good-life-medical-equipment.com (WSG score of 33, which has increased to 56 in the past couple of days). The new site has 400+ indexed pages with Google.
1. Start a blog to gain authority in your space.
2. Revise the meta-tags on your product pages to reflect the content. Currently, all pages have the same descriptive information.
3. Work on gaining Inbound Links by working with others in their market, possibly going to the manufacturers of the medical equipment they sell to get links to their new website from distributor or reseller listings. Or, ask to have information from these companies on your blog. Lots of ways to work together.
URL: www.ultimateinsuccess.com | Grader Score: 62
A very recent HubSpot customer, Ultimate in Success was worried about the loss of a few points in their Website Grade. We told the founder that he had a few key things to focus on in the next 30 days to improve his authority.
1. Start a blog. He is working on blog posts and planned to make several additions this week.
2. A Moz rank of 2 and 10 inbound links is not an authoritative position to Google. They have 1000+ indexed pages, which shows the content is valuable. Now, they need to get others to link to the site. A good way to get links is by commenting on other bloggers posts.
3. Create a Twitter account and use it in conjunction with your blog to create visibility, authority, and "buzz"
URL: www.massbayspeakersguild.com| Grader Score: 18
A local company, we wanted to get a handle on this organization. This is a relatively new site that could benefit from some simple tricks.
1. Fix the Home Page title tag by concentrating on the location and what the organization does (Speakers, Mass Bay), not a value proposition (Fast, Easy, No-Cost). Put the important words a meeting planner would search for at the front of the tag, not the end.
Mass Bay Speakers Guild Title Tag on Home Page:
2. Start a blog (starting to see a pattern here?) by utilizing the speakers on your site. Have them write blog posts or repurpose some of their content on the site.
3. Link your "new" blog to your Twitter and Facebook accounts. Both social networks are ideal for this type of offer. Meeting planners are going to look for speakers that have a following.
Join us on Tuesday, May 4 for our next live website optimization webinar.
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