Today we would like to introduce an exciting new tool which Google has put live which may help your website for the better. The tool works by considering how your website performs relating to SEO characteristics and what impact this could have on your website. The tool is currently a test (beta) version and is available for access at the following site, so you can have a look at it for yourself.
According to Google the idea behind the reasoning for this tool is simple. It is designed to help website owners and web developers with detailed analysis and recommendations for their site. This will be based on over a decade of learning about what users really need and value from websites in terms of SEO parameters.
The tool looks at many factors when determining whether your website meets SEO best practices. Some of main ones are discussed below:
– SEO factors. This is probably one of the main ones and which most people will be interested in. Is your website fully optimised for SEO so users have the best chance of finding it or interacting with it? You will most likely find out the answer by viewing this section.
– Accessibility factors. This will look at what may stop users from gaining access to your site, and how this can be overcome to ensure as many people as possible are reaching it.
– Performance factors. Many performance metrics are accessed including ‘first paint’ and ‘time to interactive’ to access whether your site is optimal.
– The PWA check. This looks at whether your website works and is in line with the ‘progressive web app’ (PWA) criteria.
– Best practices. This will look at whether your website stacks up against what Google regards as some of the things that the best websites should have, such as the use of https or whether images on your pages use the correct aspect ratio etc.
Whether your website is for business or for pleasure, any website can be checked by using this tool, and below is an example of what an audit will look like after the test has been run.
As you can see from our example, below the list of audit main results, a more detailed list of recommendations can be found along with guides which detail what exactly the issues are and how remedying them can help with the website. If you check your website and find you haven’t got a clue about what half the terms mean, then the guides should at least aim to give you a clearer understanding of the problem.
The audit is fairly ‘current’, meaning that if you enter your own website and find problems, then remedying these straightaway and running the audit again the next day should show that these issues no longer apply and your score will have improved.
Why not take the test now and see how your website fairs?
To find out more on SEO visit our dedicated section where you can discover why your business needs an SEO strategy.