Has your blog been in for it’s checkup lately?
Thankfully you don’t need to fight with your medical insurance, figure out how to pay an exorbitant bill, or care what the government is currently fighting over in order to get your blog in for it’s checkup.
With these tools you can “do it yourself.” Because once you know what’s wrong, you can fix it, and once you see what you’ve been doing right, you can keep moving in the right direction!
So, let’s get started, shall we?
Here are the tools you’ll want to use to measure your blog’s health & authority. I recommend adding a note to your calendar to check in monthly or so with these tools and tracking your progress.
Alexa
This one is much debated but it’s got value beyond the rankings. Some advertisers use it to see if they think your site gets enough traffic. But because it relies on surfers who have installed the Alexa toolbar, it’s not accurate for sites that aren’t popular yet.
With Alexa you can see who’s linking to your site, if people have added reviews, where your traffic is coming from, your bounce rate, and more. The cool thing is you can see it historically too, so you can see what’s trending up and down.
Check it out at: http://alexa.com
WebsiteGrader
I like this tool because it doesn’t rely on one particular tool or ranking but combines lots of different metrics. It checks for many important website basics and alerts you to important things you may need to add or modify.
Check it out at: http://WebsiteGrader.com
Blog.Grader
Another tool from HubSpot that measures some of the same metrics but more specific to blogs so it’ll look for an RSS feed and recent posts, for example.
Check it out at: http://Blog.Grader.com
PostRank
This is great for watching engagement trends including comments, tweets and other sharing of your blog posts. PostRank will send you a daily email showing who’s sharing your blog posts on Twitter, commenting on them, and other interesting data.
Check it out at: http://PostRank.com
Other Tools to Explore
You may also want to record and track these metrics…
PageRank: This is Google’s measure of your website’s influence and importance, on a scale of 1 to 10. You can check yours at http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php
Google Webmaster Central: From here you can check backlinks to your website, what people are searching for to find you, and more. http://www.google.com/webmasters/
Yahoo! Site Explorer: You’ll probably get a better look at who’s linking to you with this tool. http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/
Technorati: At Technorati each listed blog is given a rank score in different subjects. My favorite feature though is the “reactions” that allow us to see other blogs that have linked to us: http://technorati.com/search?return=reactions&q=michelleshaeffer.com
What Are Your Favorite Tools?
Your turn! Do you have favorite tools you use to track your blog’s traffic, social sharing, backlinks or other data? Do you use any of the ones I’ve listed here?
Quack Doctor Photo Credit: iofoto
Michelle,
Thanks for providing such wonderful and helpful tools! I meant to comment on your other post about driving your Alexa score below 100K – that was incredible. I’m trying to take baby steps toward that goal. Thanks again for the UBC!
Thanks, Tor, I was happy with the Alexa score. And you’re welcome! Glad you’re blogging along with us in the UBC. I’ve enjoyed your blog posts. My husband is a fan of Dual Survival, too.
Love new tools, Michelle. Thanks. I tried the free version of Website Grader from HubSpot and agree with you that it appears to be a great tool. Now, if I would take the time to follow some of the suggestions. :-) I didn’t know they had one for just blogs. I’ll check it out.
Sharing thins-thanks, Michelle!
Yes, as you can see from my blog score, I need to make some time to fix a few things, too. :) It’s got such great info but we do have to find time to take action on it.
More tests! I thought I was done with those years ago! Seriously, though, therse are great tools. Thanks for sharing them, Ms. S!
Interesting how life seems to keep testing us in one way or another… :) Thanks for stopping by, Roy.
I just tested websitegrader bandit was a brilliant tool. I got a 98% score and are quite happy with that. The next step is also for me to get bellow 100k in Alexandra rank. My favorite tool is Google webmaster tool, but that is probably a nobrainer for most webmasters.
A wealth of resources and their benefits. :) Thanks, Michelle!
You’re welcome, Julie. :)
That was a fantastic post full of amazing info. I checked out all my data (don’t know what half of it means) but I will keep checking my #s. I got great scores though lol!
Had no clue some of these tools existed. I will be looking into them. How did you learn all this stuff? How much time per day do you spend on your business?
Thank you for all you provide to help us newbies and others.
I had no idea on all of these wonderful resources. Thanks for sharing them
Michelle thanks for the tools. I have mixed emotions about these tools for me personally. It can make me a bit obsessive about looking at the numbers and forgetting to really get my message out from a place of connection. I get all hung up on the numbers!
( ie. Looking at how many fb likes. on my site, or going to my biz email provider to see how many people opened an email and clicked on it does not really tell me all the details entirely. Though I know these tools have the purpose of you doing something to change the numbers to a more favourable kind.
Anyhow. just another thought on the tools.. When I am ready.. I know where they are! thanks for sharing!
Peace and light
Elissa Joy
Useful tools. I’m off to try WebsiteGrader and BlogGrader since I’ve never heard of them.
Michelle – Thanks for all this information. I found websitegrader to be most useful. I appreciate all that you do to make blogging easier for us all. I’m so enjoying the Ultimate Blog Challenge too.
Thanks for this good compilation of helpful tools. It’s worth checking the health status of a blog to determine the scope for improvements from time to time.
Hey, Michell! I love the Blog.Grader. I didn’t know this tool, great share! I also use SeoSerp to see where my website is ranking for a certain keyword in Google.
Thanks for the share! Susane
this is great. I worked thru most of these. I got stuck on postrank. I signed up for beta, but I expected to get to a profile page, or at least type in my url. help?
LOVE it! I can’t wait until I have time to really explore these – hopefully tomorrow. This darn job gets in the way of so many fun things, haha! :)
Thank a lot.. You gave more essential points to remember during blog developing time.