More and more people are turning to tools like a web grader to help determine the fruits of all their SEO and online marketing labor. Website benchmarking tools like a web grader allow you to determine how your web site stacks up to the competition. And that data is extremely important to help you figure out what changes you should make to your web site and your online marketing strategies to improve your rankings and maintain your competitive edge.

There are lots of opinions on what makes a web grader valuable. And what was important a few years ago many not be as important today. So with the various web grader tools out there, how do you know what to look for?

1. Onsite SEO. You need to have strong onsite SEO to be in the ring. It includes things you do to your actual site, such as title tags and keyword density tags, to improve search engine rankings. While important for strong rankings, onsite SEO is not the only thing you need to benchmark. Offsite SEO is important, as well.

2. Offsite SEO. Onsite SEO are things you do to your site. Offsite SEO are the things that are not on your site, but help improve your rankings. Backlinks are one of the big offsite SEO factors that should be included in a web grader tool to help you benchmark.

The rankings for your site are not determined by only onsite or offsite SEO tactics. The two are related and you need to have both strong onsite and offsite SEO to go head to head with your competitors. For that reason, you need a web grader that helps you benchmark both onsite and offsite SEO.