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If you want you want your website to work smarter then you need a StartingPoint

Tuesday 27 July 2010, 11:22PM

By Spark Consulting

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Do you need a StartingPoint?
Do you need a StartingPoint? Credit: Spark Consulting

"Before you start marketing your website you need a starting point to know where you are, only then will you know where you need to focus your attention."

A website marketing & online visibility analysis can provide an in depth review of your website complete list of specific actions related to your website marketing and online visibility sorted by importance to consider and work through. It should cover every aspect of a website, from accessibility to marketing, content to design. If the report is comprehensive you may see recommendations covering areas you may not have considered.

The Stuff We Can't See

You should get a professional to check the invisible aspects of a site that are often overlooked. Websites are more than words and pretty pictures but rather a strategically structured environment where the culmination of both visible and invisible elements works together towards the success of your Website Marketing and Online Visibility.

“Why do I have a business website?”

If the answer has anything to do with creating more sales i.e. getting people to contact you after visiting your site then the next question should be:

“Is my website doing its job?”

Chances are if you had a salesperson that wasn’t selling you would perhaps invest some time into first understanding why they weren’t selling and then look at what needed to be done. A website is not really any different, if it’s not selling your business then you need to know why and then you can understand what needs to be done.

So what is a website analysis?

A website analysis is a full, objective review of your website providing testing and reporting about marketing, search engine placement, spelling, design and more. Each page in a website should be checked not just the home page as well as all of the links within that site. By doing this you are able to see all of the content, imagery and code the site uses. This is called 'spidering', and is the same approach used by Google, Yahoo and other search engines to categorise the web.

Understand what makes your website tick

Making sense of the elements of your website that make up the formula for your Website Marketing and Online Visibility can be overwhelming.

A website marketing & online visibility analysis” can give you information like:

  • Alternative text
  • Amount of content
  • Analytics
  • Broken links
  • Freshness of content
  • Headings and Meta Data
  • Image usage
  • Incoming links
  • Keywords to content
  • Link states
  • In-Bound Links
  • Popularity
  • Readability
  • Redirections
  • URL format
  • Search engine results
  • Site structure
  • Spelling
  • Visual interest
  • Social Media
  • Search engine placement

Can I do this myself?

Given enough time, you could prepare an amazing report on your website. You'd need a bunch of different tools, and an awful lot of time, but you'd get there in the end. What's nice about getting a professional top prepare this is that not only is it all done for you but they understand the relevance of various elements around website marketing and online visibility;

What can a website analysis be used for?

Starting Point – See what needs to be done to get more visibility online.
On-going monthly/quarterly status reports – Measure your progress.
Independent Analysis – Are you looking after your SEO and marketing? Check your progress.
Competitor analysis - Run reports on key competitors.
Quality Assurance - before / after a website launch to ensure you are going to be effective online.

If you want you want your website to work smarter then you need a StartingPoint