NOTE: We have decided that the “How To Analyze Your Own Website” blog post that was linked here is too difficult for most non-experts to do themselves. So now we will begin offering FREE ANALYSIS of your small business website.
Or you can submit the form below.
Also, we now offer advice on how to find out whether you need your older website rebuilt.
This is something I do for a living. It’s actually pretty easy, and it doesn’t take very long at all. If you’re thinking of buying a website for your business, a little knowledge can keep you from wasting your money on a web design company that doesn’t do good work. Some companies do good design, but don’t know how to program search engine optimization (SEO). Some companies do SEO pretty well but couldn’t design themselves out of a paper bag. Some companies still design websites based upon old standards that they are still comfortable with.
You want a website that looks great, has modern features, and can be found by search engines. Here’s how to find a web design company that will do that for you.
Look at the following on the web design company’s own website. Then go to their portfolio page and do the same for their most recent, or their “featured” site. This will tell you if they know what they’re doing, and whether they apply the same standard of work to their clients as they do to their own site.
1. Look at the site’s title. This is the text at the top of the browser window. The title for this page is “How to analyze a website to judge its effectiveness and worth”. That title is 61 characters long, including spaces. Search engines usually stop looking at a page title after around 60 characters, so if the title is so long that it runs off the page, you know the SEO is old. Also, if the title is the name of the business, or “Welcome”, “Home”, or something similar, chances are that the company didn’t even bother with the title.
2. Look at the meta description. For this you need to view the code that makes up the page, but it’s pretty easy. Right click near the edge of the page and select “View source” in Internet Explorer and Safari. In Firefox and Google Chrome it’s “View Page Source”. Once the source is opened, search for the word “description” (hold the Control key – Command key for Mac – and click the “”f” key). If the search doesn’t produce results, the company didn’t bother with the description. Richmond Media’s Home page description looks like this: <meta name=”description” content=”Web site design in Richmond, Williamsburg and Hampton Roads Virginia, featuring WordPress, e-commerce, SEO, social media” and database applications/>. Just like the page title, there’s a character limit, in this case around 160 characters, including spaces. If it’s too long, or if it’s not there at all, the SEO for that page isn’t done correctly.
3. What kind of website is it? You can use a tool that I use a lot: http://webmastercoffee.com/en/
Paste the web address of the website you’re analyzing into the search field, click “check” and you’ll be taken to a page that tells you what kind of website it is. Here’s part of what you’ll find for the Home page of Richmond Media’s site: Quote from page description: “Web site design in Richmond, Williamsburg and Hampton Roads Virginia, featuring WordPress, e-commerce, SEO and database applications.”
Analysis results
The web site is using the blog software WordPress.
This is very useful information. If you’re serious about a business website, you need some kind of content management. We use WordPress, but we’ve also built sites with Joomla, and Drupal is another good content management system.
You will also see tips pointing out how the site could be better.
4. How effective is the site? Here’s another great tool: http://marketing.grader.com
You can paste the name of the website you’re analyzing and receive a detailed report on how effectively the site is being marketed. This is VERY useful, possibly the best tool out there. Do not expect any site to score near 100, the Richmond Media site scores a 79, which is a good score.
So there it is, a simple way to analyze a website in a short period of time. Even if you’re not an expert at this, you can get a good idea about how good a web design company is by this method. If you have any questions, please contact us.