Just before the holiday we received my oldest son’s current school progress report. (Thankfully he is a good student and always does well.) This reminded me of a useful tool I’ve found to help measure websites with regard to best practices for search engine optimization (SEO) and web marketing. The tool is the Website Grader.

This tool essentially scans your site for common HTML related to best SEO practices. It combines that data with other data from around the web, such as the web ranking in Google, the number of inbound links on your site, and where your site stands in relation to social media. It then generates an overall grade and a summary report.

Using a tool like this can help you gauge your site’s current rank and determine where you can most effectively put additional resources and time to improve the SEO of your site, and also to get more inbound traffic and converted leads.

Here are some screen shots of what you can expect if you use the tool to generate a report.

After entering your URL, you get a summary grade for your site:

The grader tracks on-page SEO:

It also tracks off-page SEO:

It determines whether you have a blog, and if you do, grades it:

It analyzes what’s happening on your site with regard to social media:

It helps you track information about your competitors’ sites:

Finally, the grader looks at the forms on your site that help convert visitors to leads:

A website is more than just an online presence. Properly created by a professional team, it becomes a valuable investment. Take care of your website, and it will take care of you and your brand for years to come.

So, what are you doing to tend this precious resource? You’ve probably put a lot of effort into coming up with a great design and assembling a marketing team to realize your vision. But have you taken the time to ensure that your site has been built using the most up-to-date standards and best practices?

Many small business owners don’t even consider questioning the coding quality of their websites, simply because they don’t know what to look for. But in a rapidly changing landscape like the web, you’d be well served to stay on top of best practices for a few key reasons:

1. Using Standards Creates Consistency
   If your site is cleanly and consistently designed, it makes a good impression. As a developer, I know that at some point everything I’ve coded will be looked at by at least a handful of other coders. By using standard naming conventions and familiar patterns, you can make the work of the next coder easier and provide a clear road map. This saves you time and money—and ensures that your enterprise looks professional.
2. Future Proofing
   Websites built with solid standards tend to look and act much the same for years, even as technology advances. A well-designed site is likely to weather changes in platforms with grace. Once you have created a solid foundation by becoming W3C compliant (more about this below), your site should be able to bridge the gaps between different and newer versions of web browsers, as well as devices such as PDAs and cell phones, with greater ease.
3. Your Site Looks Great….So should the Technology Driving It
   What use is a beautiful site that frustrates the user with error messages and layouts that are broken from browser to browser? Although it’s easy to get caught up in analyzing the visual aspects of a site, that same quality of critical analysis needs to be applied to the coding. Both parts need to be in sync.
4. Leaner Code Means Better Performance
   Greater visibility on search engines is key to successful growth. And the less time those search engines spend hunting through your HTML code for your content, the more time they can spend indexing your content and keywords. Separation of style from content by way of an organizational format called CSS (”cascading style sheets”) is the almost universally preferred method of achieving this enhanced visibility.

Now that you know the benefits, it’s time to take action. You can either enlist the services of your favorite web design agency or go it alone. If you do, here are some helpful resources:

Basic Web Standards:
http://www.w3schools.com/quality/default.asp

HTML/CSS Best Practices:
http://www.htmldog.com/
http://www.alistapart.com/topics/code/htmlxhtml/
http://www.alistapart.com/topics/code/css/

W3C Validation:
http://validator.w3.org/
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

Website Optimization Tools:
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/

Just One More Note On WC3 Validation
W3C validation is one of the simplest ways to check whether a page is built in accordance with current web standards, and provides one of the most reliable assurances that future web platforms will handle it as designed. Validation actually saves money. Creating web pages or applications according to a widely accepted coding style makes them easier to maintain, even if the maintenance is performed and the evolution is overseen by someone else. And last but certainly not least, validation is a sign of professionalism.

Until next time, check out some of our best practices at www.loewydesign.com/work/recent/