What’s Your Marketing Grade?

Hubspot replaced their popular online website evaluation tool, Website Grader, with the new and improved Marketing Grader. Why? Because – your website is only one component of your online marketing presence. You will often hear us say that your website is your online storefront. If people can’t find it then it doesn’t matter how beautiful your storefront is, you aren’t going to generate the business you need and want.

Many companies come to us after learning the hard way that the mentality of if you build it they will come just doesn’t work. Having a website is only the beginning. Having a beautiful website doesn’t mean instant online success. In fact, with the right marketing tools and SEO a $2,500 website could generate a hundred times more business than a $5,000 website. Yes, you want a website that reflects who you are and what you do – just don’t stop there!

Hubspot’s Website Grader was always a favorite of ours. We recommended the free tool to anyone who felt they weren’t getting the website traffic they felt they deserved. At the time, it was a great low risk way to show them some of the missing links between having a website and being successful online.

With the trillions of websites out there and hundreds of thousands more being built every day, it is becoming more and more difficult to stand out in a crowd. Our guess is that Website Grader couldn’t keep up with all the new marketing methods and tools being used to get to the top of search engine results. So what happened is companies would come back with a website grade of 95, but not have the online results you might expect with someone whose website is 95% effective.

The reason for this was Website Grader only took a few things into account such as Twitter, blog posts, Facebook, etc. But with an ever changing marketing landscape it wasn’t enough to keep up with the growing competition. As a result, a grade of 95 on Website Grader is closer to a 65 on Marketing Grader.

Even Hubspot, an industry leader, didn’t get a perfect score from their own product. It doesn’t mean they aren’t great at what they do, it just means the competition is steep – and getting steeper.

If you haven’t already checked out Marketing Grader, you should, but don’t be discouraged if your grade is low. Marketing Grader will show you where you are lacking so you can make improvements. If you are not sure what to do or need help getting started contact us.

BTW, be sure to check out this month’s special on SEO backlinking services!