In our first two blog posts, we talked about the importance of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and some key terms people used to discuss it. But how can we tell how well our websites are currently performing?
Here are three tools that our AKIN’s marketing folks have picked out (plus an extra mention), which you can use to measure how optimised your content is. And yes, they are all FREE!
Why three? Because each tool prioritises differently, so it is best to run tests across all the tools and see if the results are coherent. Plus, having more tools equals to having more ground covered!
Neil Patel Site Audit Tool
Designed by Neil Patel, renowned digital marketer and creator of Kissmetrics, this tool is ideal for those rather unfamiliar with SEO. It looks at the SEO issues within your site and provides a comprehensive yet clear report with exact actionables. Furthermore, their recommendations come with step-by-step tutorials and even instruction videos — so you can definitely create some SEO magic like a pro!
While the tool is beginner-friendly, it is still highly useful if you are working with an SEO specialist or team as it also digs deep into the error source and doesn’t just recommend surface wins. Its only downside is that the tool is primarily focused on uncovering faults within your site — if your site already has a good score, it has little to value add.
AKÏN’s Evaluation
YEAH: Idiot-proof. Highly-actionable. Prioritises the errors.
MEH: Not useful for good websites.
When to use: If you have not done any SEO before! (and need to seem a little more pro than you really are)
Google Mobile-Friendly Test
There’s a good chance that you are reading this post on mobile… In today’s smartphone era (thanks to the iPhone revolution), most online searches are performed on the move. Sites that do not optimise for mobile speed and have a light bandwidth are heavily penalised for its search ranking. Therefore, testing for mobile-friendliness is a must for new and revamped websites.
Backed by the king of search engines, Google, this tool pin-points mobile-related issues at its source, taking a lot of the guesswork out of the equation.
The flip side is that it does not give a lot of details in its recommendation. It expects you to already know the solutions, leaving you pretty much on your own. You definitely need a good developer or webmaster to do good with the audit results and optimise your site for mobile afterwards.
AKÏN’s Evaluation
YEAH: Backed by Google. Pin-points source of problems.
MEH: Highly technical. Not for the layman. Limited recommendations.
When to use: If your site needs to be on mobile (which ought to be everyone, really, seriously, we mean it!)
Google Test My Site
This tool is essentially a speed tool. It looks at the site, page and load speed of your website and benchmarks it against industry standards. The results come with a whole lot of recommendations to help your site runs faster.
But some recommendations are better than others; you will need your developers or webmaster to make sense of it and carry out the changes.
Why is this so important? Simple: slow sites never have a good ranking
AKÏN’s Evaluation
YEAH: Great for speed. Offers clear recommendations.
MEH: Only for pros.
When to use: When your website crawls like a tortoise.
SPECIAL MENTION: SOOLVE
Aside from site speed and mobile optimisation, introducing keywords to your web content is another must to secure a good SEO ranking. You can use Soolve to kickstart your keyword research and figure what terms to focus on.
While Soolve is not an SEO calculator, it is an excellent complement to your self-audit, particularly for what comes after. Using similar technology to Google’s auto-complete, you can get a good hint of what people are searching online. The amazing plus point is that it also shows searches across other major search-based platforms such as Amazon, Bing!, Yahoo, and YouTube.
A minor downside is that you cannot filter the results based on specific countries or regions. So, some localised knowledge and common sense is needed to self-filter the terms. But hey, it’s free!
So, what’s your website’s current SEO score?
Check out our free downloadable checklist here for some pointers on what you need to optimise your website. You can also reach out to us at oh@helloakin.com for some help!
Written by Hanson Ng
