I recently received the Yellow Pages directory in the post. After some initial surprise – I didn’t realise the physical version still existed – I marvelled, for a while, at how small it had become. Why? Simple; because most of us search businesses and services online!
If you own or manage a website you need to ensure that it has optimal health.
To provide a little perspective the Office of National Statistics estimate that the internet was used daily or almost daily by 82 percent of adults (41.8 million) in Great Britain alone in 2016. The same study also found that:
- Mobile use now surpasses laptop use
- 75 percent of adults access the internet ‘on the go’ from hand held devices
- The most common activity on the internet, second to checking email, is finding information about goods and services, which was undertaken by 76 percent of adults in 2016.
Let that last bullet point sink in. If you’re a business or service that has an online presence the opportunities for securing custom online are evidently plentiful, but the need to be more visible, competitive and provide an exceptional online experience has never been more crucial. This, in a nutshell, is the definition of website health.
Why do I need a website health check?
One of the first priorities for most businesses is to create a fantastic website, which I’m certain, yours is! However, no matter how well designed, how stunning the images, and how well written the content, you may have missed vital technical considerations that could be hindering your ability to rank highly in Search Engine results. This, coupled with usability and customer experience all contribute to how well your website performs.
You should therefore assess your website health for the follow reasons:
- Google changes its algorithm about 500 to 600 times per year (which is essentially the criteria and information that it looks for within your site in order to rank it on search engine pages.) If you don’t adapt or are unaware of these changes this could hinder your visibility or worse, result in being penalised by Google.
- You could be losing custom to competitors who have better optimised their site for specific search terms used by potential customers.
- You may rank well on search engines but find that many visitors simply don’t engage with your site. This is also known as a high bounce rate and could be a result of a poor or confusing user experience.
- You won’t appear in a high position in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) if your site isn’t regularly assessed and optimized. This is also known as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM).
What does a Yabber website health check assess?
A Yabber website health check assesses the key areas that have the most impact on your site’s ability to rank highly on search engine result pages. These include:
- Website structure: Navigation, site maps, indexing.
- Website design: Call to actions, usability.
- User experience: Do your users get a good experience across all devices?
- Keywords: What are your keywords and where do you rank?
- Images: Are your images being found on google? Are they friendly for visually impaired users?
- Social presence: Are you making the most of social channels and are they relevant to your target audience?
- Linking: Assessment of internal and external links.
These are all areas that can be easily remedied which will, over a period of time, carry the most success to improving visibility.
Why should I choose Yabber for a website health check?
Granted there is no short supply of online SEO specialists offering website checks. Most use sophisticated programmes to check a range of criteria to provide a hugely comprehensive report at the end of the assessment. However, there are several issues that emerge when using such tools that particularly affect my clients – mainly being small to medium enterprises.
- Information overload: Many tools assess over 500 different criteria so the results look like an unmanageable amount of website issues with no way of determining which to prioritise. That’s why a Yabber assessment provides only essential and critical recommendations that will have the biggest impact on your site.
- Jargon, jargon and more jargon: Although it isn’t impossible to learn all of the technical ‘ins and outs’ of SEO, digital marketing and web development the chances are you simply won’t have the time to invest in optimising your site. A Yabber assessment is free from technical jargon with issues explained in clear English.
- It really is FREE: Unlike many tools that are free to use for 14 days or for the first assessment Yabber assessments are continually FREE of charge.
- A mixture of manual assessments and advanced tools: Unlike automated tools and programmes available Yabber website health checks are conducted manually by me. I use my instinctive flair for design, business acumen, working knowledge of SEO and a wealth of B2B marketing experience along with some of the industry’s best tools to conduct full assessments of your website. I will construct a personalised report with a complete list of recommendations, explain how they can be fixed and even provide workable and realistic time scales to complete tasks on your behalf.
- Continued Optimisation: As part of the recommendation supplied with your assessment I also include long term recommendations that may include some on-going optimisation, should your business and industry benefit from such suggestions. These are also included as optional extras and include building your brand and establishing a highly competitive online presence.
A health check which can highlight key areas of development can be the difference between a site that simply exists to show to potential clients and a site that is working as hard as you are at attracting new visitors, pitching business and closing deals.
So, what are you waiting for? Complete the form below to get your very own assessment. I aim to complete assessments with recommendations and estimates within a couple of days and will contact you to let you know that I am working on it.
You can also contact me if you would prefer to talk to me about it first and you can also take a look at the website health check process.
