So. You’ve researched a suitable domain name and registered it, sourced a viable web host and purchased their services upfront. WordPress is installed on your little corner of the web, and you’ve already begun blogging.
That’s great. But what next?
Well, now it’s important to accurately assess the performance of your blog; as page load times, the presence of an RSS feed, and other vital data can all make a difference when it comes to getting Google to index your hard work. And in truth, that’s why we’re all blogging. It’s for the audience. If you’re a tech-savvy person, you could discover all this data manually. But why dedicate more time and effort to a task than it’s worth, especially when there’s a service out there that’ll perform this same job faster, and for free.
How to get checking
Is My Blog Working is the web service in question, designed to provide you with server stats, markup, security and performance data for any blog you throw at it. As an example, here’s the data provided when you search for TechCritic.co.uk:
Report generated by IMBW
As you can see from the screenshot above, the report created by IMBW is divided into sections. The first section, dubbed ‘important stuff’, is incredibly useful for assessing your blog’s position in the Google search index, as here you can check for the presence of a robots.txt file and an RSS feed. Fortunately, if you’re blogging with WordPress, then this should already be taken care for you – but it’s important to check nonetheless.
Below this, you’ll find the technical details. Important stats here include the homepage download size – where smaller is better, search engine wise – and also the content ratio, where you’ll want a larger percentage if possible. This section is also useful if you’re attempting to discover what theme a rival blog is running. However, this feature will only work if the blog in question has installed the theme as standard, without modification. Also, some older themes simply cannot be discovered in this way.
To the right, you can see features supported by your blog and web host, and also a trio of further web apps (HTML verification, feed validation and HTTP header checks) that’ll test other aspects of your blog for you. Be warned, though, although these further reports are easy to read, the actions required to fix any potential problems raised by them may be complex.
At the very top of the report, you will also find the description of your website and a collection of keywords that you have used. This is particularly useful to ensure that you’re capturing the right audience through a Google search, and also to make sure that changes you’ve made to your WordPress blog have been reflected online.
IMBW also provides a bookmarklet which will allow you to quickly access the service by dragging any website to it. This could certainly come in useful if you begin to use the service regularly.
How to go compare
For further statistics about your blog, you could also look towards the Binary Canary service, which will allow you to compare the speed and size of your blog against larger websites; such as Google, or Wikipedia. You can also submit your own choice of website as a comparison.
Report generated by Binary Canary
Signing up for an account with Binary Canary will grant you access to a dashboard full of performance monitoring options. Opt for a free account and you will be able to monitor five websites at a fifteen minute frequency – more than enough for the average blogger.
How to get an answer
Finally, if you’re having difficulty connecting to your blog, but are unable to determine the cause, then you could try Down For Everyone Or Just Me instead. The premise of this service is simple, it’ll check the domain of your choosing to see whether it’s available. This service doesn’t offer stats, granted, but it’s still a useful tool to add to your blogging toolkit.
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