This planet was just barely one month old when I first used a free online tool called “The Website Grader” (owned by The HubSpot Company). The grader analyzed my site and gave it a grade. The result was expected: a low mark. Two months later — I’m posting my site’s grade again.

As of writing, this blog is graded 72%, still low if you base it on the “academic” grading standards; but allow me to brag a bit — that is a major improvement, considering that my previous grade was only 41%. My goal is to reach a grade of around 80%-85% before the year ends.

The rest of the post contains technical terms and blogging-related jargons, so if you are one of my non-technical and/or non-blogger readers, feel free to skip to the conclusion below.

What is Website Grader?

This is according to their website….

Website Grader is a free seo tool that measures the marketing effectiveness of a website. It provides a score that incorporates things like website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors. It also provides some basic advice on how the website can be improved from a marketing perspective.

If you are a new blogger, this is a good start to learn about SEO, internet marketing, and traffic.

A snapshot of my grade. Click for more details.

What I Noticed

There are a few things I noticed. It’s normal to get a low score if your site is new. Your grade will gradually increase if you regularly update your blog. I learned this by checking my site a few hours after I post an entry. In simple words: More Content = Higher Score.

I also noticed that my Google PageRank (PR) went up to 3 from 0. I was kind of expecting it. New blogs/sites start with a 0 PR. If your site hits 3 months and Google updated the PR, you may be given a ranking, like what happened to this planet.

I also found out that the Delicious Saved Count remains at 0 even though I saved some of my pages in my account. The Subscriber Count is also reading 0, mainly because they are using the WordPress built-in feeder as the basis, not the FeedBurner, which is what I am using. It is minor, though, since I have access to that number.

Checking Out Popular Social Sites

Out of curiosity, I checked out some of the most popular social sites among bloggers. You will find below their scores as of this writing: (click on their names for full report)

• BloggingZoom.com - 95
• Digg.com - 99
• StumbleUpon.com - 96
• Reddit.com - 86

CONCLUSIONS

My score is increasing simply because I am updating my blog on a regular basis. The more content I post, the better grade I get. But is that what I really want?

If you are a blogger, this grading system is a good motivational tool to improve your technical blogging skills and social strategies as it also reports your traffic ranking and the number of sites that are linking to your blog. If you want to be in the thick of serious bloggers around the blogosphere, then use this tool to find errors in your site and try to correct them if you can.

However, this is not the only tool available for learning. Broaden your perspective and read a lot. If you are serious about SEO and related topics, there are other good websites and blogs that offer excellent tips to increase your scores and traffic. Also, getting a high grade doesn’t mean you have to be complacent. Don’t jack up your blog with meaningless posts for the sake of increasing your score. Remember, quality content is still the champion in the hearts of your readers.

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