How does Google actually see my website and what can Google see there? This question comes up every now and then and at the latest when you start to deal with the placement and optimization of a page within a search engine (SEO), you quickly realize that you don't even know if your own actions correspond to what Google expects. 

Google itself provides hints and tips to follow that can help optimize a website. For example, the start guide to search engine optimization. Here, Google also addresses how a website is viewed from a technical and machine perspective and what should be taken into account. But a crucial question arises: How do I approach this as a company?

Analysing a Website

Basically, there are different ways to do this - manually or technically supported. If you choose the manual way, you need two things: Background knowledge about the structure of a site and time.

And often it fails because of the time that many companies do not have. If a website has been in its current form for a long time and has grown historically, the scope of the analysis thus becomes larger and larger, and the chance of accomplishing this the manual way becomes smaller and smaller. And not every question, like measuring readability or speed, can be answered manually either.

So it's nice to see that the possibilities of a comprehensive inventory of a website can also be done in a technically supported way. And by this we mean a data-driven analysis based on the data and information a website provides. 

The advantage? Questions about the performance of a website, readability of texts, keywords, which pages are intact and which are not, can not only be answered, this form of analysis is available very quickly. What exact details come to light, we still look at in detail. The fast availability is possible because the analysis is algorithm-based - of course, the development of such an algorithm requires time, but the results for the respective page do not have a lead time of months. And: a data-based decision-making basis for both SEO and user experience is created.

Different ways of analysis 

When an analysis is performed, it is important that this inventory is as comprehensive as possible, so that the current state of a website is really captured. And the nice thing is that not only are there different options, but more can be developed. So what is possible in detail? 

Create an overview 

With the help of a survey and an analysis of the technical aspects of a site, the following information comes to light: 

• What are my top 10 sub and external domains? 

• What is the navigation depth (click depth) of my site? 

• What are the top 10 categories of my site?

• What is the quantitative distribution of content on my site? 

• How big is my site, how many pages are available and how many are intact?

• How fast does my site load? 

• ...

This and more is part of the overview - all from Google's point of view on your own site.

Information Flow

Google looks at a website and sees different things, but if Google were a human - what would the information on the different pages look like and how does that information flow? 

The flow of information, simply explained, is the navigation through the page, which is created by the structure, among other things, but also by the menu and the placement of content. 

This form of analysis is equally possible and it provides many important insights: 

• Does the structure of my page ensure that...? 

  • Topics that are related to content are also technically related and presented accordingly? 

  • My offer to customers (products/services) is presented accordingly and also balanced? 

If a prospective customer or potential new customer visits a website, then you want to ensure that an appropriate action is taken - such as a purchase, or even a contact. And with the help of the information flow, it can be determined, among other things, that this prospective customer is presented with the information on the website too late, as a result of which no purchase can be made. 

Content, content, content 

At the content level, there are several ways to see how well or poorly a website is positioned. 

• What is actually the ratio between images and text? 

• How many descriptions and titles does my website actually have? 

• How many links do I have in proportion? 

• What are my keywords used and how often?

• Are all images and videos properly named in the context of SEO? 

• ...

This and much more can be found out by analyzing the content of a website with technical support. Always from Google's point of view. 

If you want to know how Google sees and evaluates the connection from your own website to your own social channels such as Instagram, Facebook or YouTube, you can get more information based on a content analysis - and also prepared in a Wordcloud with the most common terms.

Performance 

Speed is crucial. For this reason, Flank 7 not only offers fast websites, but also various performance marketing options for this purpose. So if you are interested in a fast, new website, you will benefit from knowing where you stand. Because only then can targeted optimizations be made.

Measurable is e.g.:

• How quickly is content visible to a user (= prospect or customer)? 

• When can my page be fully interacted with? 

• How do the elements on my page (e.g. banners) move? 

• ... 

In this way, corresponding, possibly also negative adjusting screws are identified, which can then be specifically bypassed on a new page.  Always to improve from Google's point of view.

Readability 

Who is actually my target group - is probably the most central question in marketing and often not so easy to answer. But it is enormously important, because if I don't know who I'm developing a product for, I can't influence whether it will be bought. 

And now that's in contrast to an increasingly important statement, "Content is King." 

Yes, content is very important and it also has to fit the needs of the target audience. And on a website, it's all about the text content and its readability, among other things. If I know my target group, I know whether they are looking for simple or sophisticated texts. Basically, the content on a page should be one thing above all: easy and quick to consume.

And how do I know which text on my website is perceived and how? With the help of a technically-supported inventory that finds this out. This is based on Rudolf Flesch's method and calculates an index for the readability of the texts accordingly. 

So what do we know afterwards? Whether my texts are quick and easy to consume or not, and also how many of my texts are demanding.

Algorithm Analysis vs. Market Tools 

There are a variety of providers for tools that are used to examine and analyze websites. Like for example Ubersuggest in the SEO area or also Hotjar.

What is the difference and the advantages compared to our possibilities of analysis and the tools available on the market? If you want to keep it very short and answer it, it is in the type of information and perspective (symbolizing from Google's point of view) and flexibility. 

A little more detail? No problem. 

Many of the tools available on the market look at a website as an overall construct from an SEO perspective and provide little or no insights into the technical factors of a page or even the content in detail. For example, they consider all keywords of a page and their ranking in relation to the overall ranking of a page on Google. But how, for example, the thematic distribution of the most important content is presented to a user remains answered. Also, the loading and latency time is not specified. Despite everything, it is important that such analyses can be performed using the tools available on the market, because they provide important insights. 

However, from our point of view, a different perspective can be taken, providing valuable insights for customers from a different point of view. 

The developed analysis products offer the advantage that they holistically illuminate the website from the content point of view and SEO point of view and also consider the user experience. 

So you not only have the opportunity to learn a lot about the keywords used, but also to look at them in the flow of information or in terms of social media and thus a content marketing strategy. In addition, there are many other details that are available just for a decision to optimize or restructure in the context of a relaunch.

So it's about more than taking a different perspective, because the details are very comprehensive for customers - and always designed to be able to make a data-based decision afterwards. In this way, targeted optimization becomes possible in the first place.

Another advantage? We currently have a number of analysis products - the expansion of our range to answer even more questions in the future is already on the agenda.

Summary

Those who decide to have their own website technically analyzed receive valuable information based on the data of their own site. And thus creates a real basis for decisions and actions.

In a second part, we will look in detail at the analysis options for the data-driven inventory of a website and go into more detail about the advantages. 

If you want to read more in the meantime, feel free to stop by at our blog.