A year or two ago I started using HubSpot’s Website Grader to evaluate the performance of client’s and suppliers ( potential and actual ) websites. HubSpot’s Website Grader has since evolved into Marketing Grader which looks at the wider picture of a companies Internet Marketing efforts including it’s website, blogsite and social networks, automation software, analytics and internet influence ( Klout ).

Having put quite a few websites and internet marketing efforts through the HubSpot Grader I now know that there are a lot of companies in the 30/40 out of a 100 range, quite a few in the 50/60 range and only a few in the 70/80 range.

Nikki Pilkington ( who designed this blogsite ) has a grade of 85/100. see  http://www.nikkipilkington.com/ and http://marketing.grader.com/site/www.nikkipilkington.com. This is a very rare score. Nikki’s website is based on Wordpress and she has large networks on e.g. Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Google + and Pinterest. She blog’s regularly.

Nikki’s Marketing efforts are a great implementation of what I call an “Internet Marketing Ecosystem “.

One of the companies that has most impressed me is Staffordshire IT.  http://www.staffordshireit.co.uk/ . The reason that I am impressed is because often, when I show people the HubSpot Marketing Grade, they go into denial. Many of them have not heard of HubSpot ( which I am not totally surprised at but you would think that Internet Marketing professionals would be aware of a company that has created a whole new way of looking at Internet Marketing - known as Inbound Marketing ) and whether they have or have not they often have a ” who are they to grade my internet marketing efforts ” ? sort of attitude. John Bryan, M.D. of Staffordshire I.T. was not like that - he took the report in his stride and actually grasped the points that were highlighted in the report and worked on them. http://marketing.grader.com/site/www.staffordshireit.co.uk .

When I first met John his score was around 75/100, Since he has worked on it he has reached 84/100 and has a stated ambition of reaching 90/100 which would be an amazing achievement.

Staffordshire I.T.’s website is also based on Wordpress and they have a blog, Twitter and Facebook accounts and use Google Analytics.

Some sceptics say that the only way that you can get a high score with HubSpot’s grader is when you use HubSpot software for your website. This is clearly not the case as we have two website’s in this example that are Wordpress based and which have high scores.

It is fantastic news that Staffordshire C.C. has decided to invest in Superfast Broadband for the Lichfield and Burntwood area as highlighted in the blog on Lichfield Live here:

http://lichfieldlive.co.uk/2012/04/15/broadband-speed-boost-as-staffordshire-investment-scheme-is-approved/

There’s a good blog here, on Staffordshire IT’s website which describes the sort of improvements that ” Superfast Broadband ” can bring to Internet speeds:

http://www.staffordshireit.co.uk/fibre-broadband/

This whole idea of improving the internet infrastructure complements my own thoughts on the promotion of ” Silicon Crossroads ” ( as I have dubbed it ). ” Silicon Something ” has become a global brandname for a High Tech. area. Probably the most famous is ” Silicon Valley ” in California in the United States. Here in the U.K. we have ” Silicon Roundabout ” ( London ), ” Silicon Fen ” ( Cambridge ) and Silicon Glen ( Scotland ) to name a few. The Irish refer to the whole country as ” Silicon Ireland ” or the ” Silicon Republic “. Well, the Irish are probably one of the most successful European nations to take advantage of the development and expansion of High Tech. companies out of the U.S. and into Europe.

Whilst we hear a lot about High Tech. companies being located in London actually these are mainly relatively small ” sales offices ” and the bulk of the administration and development people are located in Ireland and perhaps Belgium or Luxembourg for “tax” reasons.

One thing is for sure: High Tech. companies in Silicon Valley are beginning to struggle to find the talent that they need. They have to look to other parts of the U.S. and abroad to find that talent. In a recent conversation that I had with a Silicon Valley based C.E.O. of a High Tech. startup he said that he would be looking across the U.S. to where his ” alma mater ” ( his old University ) was based and also to Argentina.

High Tech. startup  http://hootsuite.com/ recently highlighted that what had initially appeared to be a negative factor in their startup profile ( to venture capitalists and angels ) - being based in Vancouver - had turned out to be a blessing in disguise because they were able to find hot local talent at bargain prices and that talent didn’t want to go anywhere else.

Silicon Valley took a long time ( 30-50 years ? ) to get to where it is today. Arguably the preeminent startup location in all the world. Talent runs deep in Silicon Valley as this blog highlights:

http://medriscoll.com/post/9117396231/the-guild-of-silicon-valley

The software engineers that are ACTUALLY building the products that we now know about over here - Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter etc etc are a secretive bunch and their wants and needs are probably different to a lot of people’s.

Internet ( communications ) infrastructure is going to be high up on their list though - from work AND from home AND in between.

According to this blog:

http://www.santaclaraweekly.com/2012/Issue-16/the_right_stuff_santa_clara_infrastructure_foundation_for_todays_stadium.html

The ” Holy Trinity ” that set Santa Clara to be the right location for High Tech. growth was:

“Gillmor calls that infrastructure the city’s “holy trinity of success:” city-owned land and electricity, and strategic use of redevelopment funding.”

More specifically what made Santa Clara such a great location was the road infrastructure; the electrical power strategy and the general utility provision  ( electric transmission, water and sewer lines - to be built in advance of development ). This when combined with a financial strategy ( bonds being sold to finance development which increased in value dramatically after developers built ) led to Silicon Valleys success.

The story of Silicon Valley is a blueprint for success for Silicon Crossroads. Many of the component parts are already in place and Superfast Broadband is another one of those key infrastructure pieces.

When SEO companies used to call me up saying that they could get my website to rank on the front page ( usually some poor salesperson who didn’t have a clue who I was ) and knew all about Internet Marketing I would casually say oh ok, so you know all about SEO ( Search Engine Optimisation ) then do you ??? of course the answer was yes. So, if I google ” SEO and Internet Marketing ” you will be on the front page will you ?? ( Usually I was doing it in the background ). Then I would give them the bad news and help them by saying well maybe if I Google ” SEO and Internet Marketing in wherever it is you are based ” you will be on the front page ??? Ummmm! Maybe .. was usually the response. ok then, last chance, what would I have to Google to find you on the front page ???

I am not TRYING to be cruel I am just saying that if you want to ring me up and tell me that you are the best at SEO and Internet Marketing then you had better be able to prove that you are !!

Nowadays there are many companies around the world who proclaim that they are Internet Marketing Experts. Previously, as explained above , I used to test this with Google,  but these days I have another tool that I use called ” HubSpot Marketing Grader “.

HubSpot is a Boston, U.S. based software company that mainly provides HubSpot based websites and promotes an Internet Marketing philosophy called ” Inbound Marketing “.

To promote the company ( and get leads ) HubSpot provides a number of free Tools like Marketing Grader ( a development of Website Grader ) and Twitter Grader.

I used Marketing Grader to look at a number of websites in the Lichfield and Tamworth area recently and that was how I came to ” rate ” Staffordshire IT as, probably one of the most knowledgeable companies in the area. I first came across them on Twitter ( where they have more followers than most other people from Lichfield and Tamworth ) and then looked at their website using Marketing Grader:

http://marketing.grader.com/site/www.staffordshireit.co.uk

When I first looked at their grade it was 76/100. They have improved it since then to 80/100. This is an amazing score and I have only ever graded one higher score ( not in the Lichfield and Tamworth area ) which is Nikki Pilkington’s website:

http://marketing.grader.com/site/www.nikkipilkington.com

which has a grade of 87/100 which is incredible. Nikki was the designer of this M&A Rainmaker blogsite.

Some info on Staffordshire IT

We are a professional website design firm based in Tamworth and Lichfield, however we are able to service clients nationally. We have very competitive prices, easy to use, clean and professional web design, and programming services.

Having a website is just the start of a good internet marketing strategy: now you need people to look at it! You need to get more visitors to your site, so you need good website ranking, and it shouldn’t need to take 6 months and thousands of pounds to get to the top of Google, Yahoo & Bing.

You need a company with many years in online marketing (check), very reasonable costs (check), who are diligent and hard grafters (check), and show a willingness to constantly monitor your site alongside you, to keep you at the top of the charts! (Big check!)

From the very start we can demonstrate proven white hat (legal) SEO techniques to you and we GUARANTEE we will increase your traffic. In fact, we are so confident in what we do, that you do not need to pay a penny until you have been shown an increase in visibility of your website online!

Good, savvy Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is not an option in today’s fast-moving markets– it’s essential and the key to success in any marketing campaign is pretty simple. The Return on Investment (also known as ROI) must outweigh the initial and ongoing outlay of funds. In a web environment, there are multiple ways in which this may be measured including online sales, enquiries through the website (be they emails, surveys or phone calls), website traffic and overall increase in brand awareness.

A well-optimised site can provide numerous benefits, as long as the site is designed well in the first place. It is important to optimise a site for the most relevant terms whilst at the same time including more popular, generic key phrases.

Please feel free to give us a call on 01827 313111 and we can provide a free SEO report for you.

When I wrote the blog http://mandarainmaker.co.uk/wordpress/2012/03/12/the-internet-marketing-ecosystem-this-is-the-way-it-is/ recently it was my view on the ” state of the art ” in terms of creating what I call an Internet Marketing Ecosystem.

Last Week I was involved in the XeeMe Xweek chat about Twylah. http://xeeme.com/_/system/appspub/XWeek/XWeek-Twylah.cfm This was a great event where Kelly Kim, co-founder of Twylah got to answer set and spontaneous  questions about Twylah. Based on this online chat session ( my first such XeeMe chat ) I highly recommend these chats.

Participants in the chat included Mindy Koch ( http://xeeme.com/MindyKoch ) and Irene Kimmel ( http://xeeme.com/irenekimmel ) and I was quite fascinated to see their XeeMe profiles ( the first time I had really seen anyone’s XeeMe profile ). As per my Internet Marketing Ecosystem philosophy they have a web/blogsite ( both Wordpress ) which are themselves pretty state of the art and then multiple social media accounts, bookmarking sites and Internet Influence summaries ( Klout, Kred, PeerIndex ).

XeeMe has little ” How active am I on this site ” indicators which I quite liked and it’s sort of good to see that Mindy and Irene are not as active on some as they are on others ( because I have no idea how they would maintain all these presences !! ).

Some of my influences in coming up with the description of the Internet Marketing Ecosystem include a number of ” auto-posting systems ” whereby a piece of content ( text, picture or video )  can be automatically posted to 10’s or even 100’s of social media and bookmarking sites automatically thereby creating 10’s or 100’s of powerful backlinks to e.g. a blog post almost immediately. I signed up to at least 2 of these auto-posting systems but I never actually used them in anger for loads of reasons including the fact that I thought Google would probably blacklist them at some point.

The objective of these systems always fascinated me though.

At that time I was focused on being FOUND on the Internet i.e. getting a high ranking position for a particular search word or phrase. Later on, with the help of HubSpot I became more interested in not only being found but also converting visitors to the content into long lasting subscribers and hopefully revenue generating customers.

Mindy’s ( Wordpress ) Blog at  http://social-drivers.com/ reflects her XeeMe profile in having Subscribe areas, Influence areas and Twylah trending ( Twitter ) topics.

The CONVERSION of visitors through appropriate Landing Pages and Calls to Action is an area that Twylah helps with. ( e.g. Posts on Twylah automatically convert into Landing Pages ).

The other area that I have not looked into is what Mindy and Irene are using to ANALYSE where visitors to their web/blog sites are coming from ( there are a lot of possible sources bearing in mind the extent of their ecosystems ).

It is also not obvious what systems they are using to MONITOR relevant conversations.

I also thought it was interesting that Mindy had XeeMe and Twylah as her ” summarisers “. Here is her Twitter summary:

Key components of the ” Internet Marketing Ecosystem ” are a Wordpress based web or blogsite; the Twylah page ( derived automatically from Tweets on Twitter ) and the use of Digg.com. ( Alongside Social Media sites like Facebook, Twitter itself, Linkedin and Google +.)

Wordpress currently ranks as 18th in the worlds most ” powerful ” websites. Digg ranks 186. Twylah ranks 10,935. ( http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/twylah.com ).

Google is the top website, Facebook the 2nd, Twitter the 9th and Linkedin the 12th. So, when you post something on a Wordpress web/blogsite
( like this one ) then re-post on Digg, Twylah and all four Social Networks mentioned it is not particularly surprising that a search on ”  Internet Marketing Strategy Lichfield ”  reveals that the Wordpress post itself is at search position  3, the Digg post at position 4 and the Twylah position 8 on the first page of a search that has some 244,000 results.

As we know getting Found for a particular search term or phrase is a function of a web or blogsite having relevant content, on page SEO, high quality links and a powerful platform. All of these ingredients are present in the ” Internet Marketing Ecosystem ”  that I have created.

The core or epicentre of the Ecosystem is the web/blogsite and the Twylah page the other websites mentioned are supporting players to the content posted on the web/blogsite. The Ecosystem is extraordinarily powerful when it comes to achieving a high ranking position for a particular word or phrase.

This is a content driven strategy - it is not an SEO driven strategy and therefore it is complimentary to Googles recent announcement that it will penalise over-SEO’d websites.

The Sunday Times Social List told me yesterday that I was 790th ( and rising ) in their list of the U.K.’s social business networkers and I was pleased to be able to say that I am based in Lichfield which is quietly becoming the ” Silicon Crossroads ” of the U.K.

The Sunday Times actually said ” Congratulations Titan! You tower over the world of social networking like a colossus. Even the most opulent Oligarch envies your standing ” which I thought was nice but a little weird  ;-)

Titans - 12 Gods that ran the Universe.

It also got me to wondering that if was described in this manner how were some of the people described who were above me in the Sunday Times list ?????

For example Paul Steele - a travel blogger from Oldham who heads the Social List and Thomas Power ( co-founder of ecademy.com ) who is the top friend that I have and 6th on the Social List. If I am ” towering over the world like a Colossus ”  what are they doing ??

The Colossus of Rhodes

I do know that they have enormous ( global ) networks. Thomas is certainly up there with the leaders in the world so Paul must be aswell.

How they manage their networks is another interesting question. ( I happen to know that Thomas has multiple phones in his bag and goodness only knows how many email addresses he is managing ).

According to the Sunday Times to get higher in the List there are a number of things that I can do ( and in Italics what I think of them ):

1. Follow lots of people because then they may follow me.

This is great except that I have max’d out the number of people I can follow on most networks

2. Make connections with everyone I work with.

This is very important - the people that I work with is a very extended, global network of people.

3. Be the first to share new things

I agree with this but it is actually difficult to be the first to ” break the news ” as I guess journalists know !

4. Make use of all four networks ( Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and Foursquare )

Hmm !! There is little chance of me using those networks like Foursquare that tell everyone where I am - no thanks. ( I do however have extensive networks that they do not monitor e.g. Google + ).

5. Update often

People tell me that I do that too much already !!

6. Get into pictures and then  get tagged in them

Oh! Like jump into people’s way when they are taking photo’s and ask them to tag me ???

7. Tweet big, Tweet often

Well now - using Twylah.com I can Tweet bigger than most and often !!

8. Accept event invitations

Oh !! Goodness me - some of them look pretty boring !!

I am going to be working on my tips for myself ( and others ) to not only get higher in the Sunday Times Social List but also to become more effective at social business networking - stay tuned !!

I always wondered how it was that Lichfield Trent Valley Railway Station was a portacabin and there was no cafe for refreshments !!  I sort of assumed that somehow the London to North rail line used to go through Lichfield City Station somehow but recently learnt that the old Lichfield Trent Valley Railway station burnt down in the 1990’s ( Apparently most of it was made of wood ) ?? Well I should remember that as I was around here then …..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lichfield_Trent_Valley_railway_station

Apparently this ( above ) was the first station built in 1847 and the photos below were taken in 1962. Now either of these looks more like the sort of railway station that Lichfield should have !!

STOP PRESS !!!!!

Coffee and cakes from Coco Meli Bakery now available at Lichfield Trent Valley Station

http://www.cocomelibakery.co.uk/

See a steam train passing through Lichfield Trent Valley Station in 1955 here:

http://myrailwaystation.com/RAILWAY%20STATIONS/pages/LICHFIELD%20%20TRENT%20%20VALLEY%20%20STATION%20with%2046131%20passing%20through%20c1955_jpg.htm

See a trainload of troops at Lichfield Trent Valley in 1954 here:

http://www.search.staffspasttrack.org.uk/engine/resource/exhibition/standard/child.asp?txtKeywords=&lstContext=&lstResourceType=&lstExhibitionType=&chkPurchaseVisible=&txtDateFrom=&txtDateTo=&x1=&y1=&x2=&y2=&scale=&theme=325&album=&resource=6142&viewpage=%2Fengine%2Fresource%2Fexhibition%2Fstandard%2Fdefault.asp&originator=%2Fengine%2Ftheme%2Fdefault.asp&page=1&records=630&direction=2&pointer=611&text=0&exhibition=1297&offset=0

Instead we have the portacabins that you see on the left here ( looking North )

and in the photo below ( looking South ) you can see the ” High Level ” line that goes to Birmingham via Lichfield City Station.

As can be seen from the railmap below Lichfield Trent Valley Station is a stop for Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

from: http://www.virgintrains.co.uk/routes-stations/ltv/

Local Bus Routes:

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/stations/ltv/localarea.html

Parking at Lichfield Trent Valley ( N.B. Parking is limited - Don’t leave it until the last minute to park here. Might be best to get a lift/taxi !! )

http://en.parkopedia.co.uk/parking/carpark/lichfield_trent_valley_station/ws14/britannia_enterprise_park/

Get a Taxi

http://www.taxiregister.com/Lichfield

Full National Rail Map ( You can get to and from Birmingham via Lichfield City Station - which is just down the road - walk up to the High Level crossing at Lichfield Trent Valley for this)

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/passenger_services/maps/OfficialNationalRailmaplarge.pdf

To get to Derby ( by train )  you have to go to Tamworth or Burton on Trent ( preferred I think ) .

Little known fact:

The train line that passes over the top of Lichfield Trent Valley merges with the Tamworth - Burton line near Alrewas. So Lichfield and Burton are directly connected by rail.

More on Lichfield Trent Valley Train Station here:

http://www.railaroundbirmingham.co.uk/Stations/lichfield_trent_valley.php

Hootsuite is one of a number of applications that now exist for people to monitor relevant activity on a number of social media networks simultaneously like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Google +. Competitors to Hootsuite include TweetDeck, PeopleBrowser and CoTweet. One of the major concerns for investors considering investing in HootSuite was it’s location in Vancouver, Canada.

You may know that Vancouver is  the home of many start-ups lots of which are ” high Tech. ” including HootSuite. HootSuite was ranked in the top 10 at the time of this survey.

Vancouver is a beautiful City located on the West Coast of Canada and a 100 or so miles away from Seattle, U.S. - the home of Microsoft and the original home of Starbucks Coffee . I have been to Vancouver a number of times - mainly to ski in Whistler. I sent my son David there to learn about Internet Marketing and I will also always remember it as the home of ” those otters “. You know the cute ones that float around holding hands and have over 17 Million hits on YouTube !! We tried to get David to visit the otters in Vancouver Aquarium but he never quite made it. He did however fly out to Vancouver and back on his own.

Anyway - back to HootSuite. One of the downsides identified with HootSuite by the venture capitalists, as mentioned earlier, was that it was based in Vancouver.  You can’t really believe that Vancouver is viewed ( by some ) as a backwater but it is. It’s vibrant start-up community is a drop in the ocean when compared with e.g. San Francisco, New York and Boston.

The biggest problem perceived ??? How would they get the talent needed ??

In fact this “disadvantage” turned out to be an advantage ….

“Up there, surrounded by quality dev talent with limited competition, HootSuite has been able to attract A+ people at a fraction of the cost of its competitors. This advantage has only grown as HootSuite now is one of the top tech companies to work for in Canada and can pull from across the entire country. ”

Similarly a ” Silicon Crossroads ” in Lichfield would be perceived as ” nowhere ” by the High Tech. community but it has major advantages in the talent pool, the location, access to transport and many other areas.

2007 article about Vancouver’s High Tech. start-up’s:

http://montrealtechwatch.com/2007/08/07/vancouver-canadas-greatest-start-up-city/

I was just watching the tv program about the Cutty Sark which will reopen this year ( in time for the Olympics ! ) which is great, great news. The Cutty Sark - named after a witch called Nannie who wore short skirts, was afraid of water and was disturbed partying with her fellow witches and warlocks by Tam O’Shanter  - has a significant place in my life.

As the tv program stated no one has quite worked out why someone would name a ship after a witch that was afraid of water - short skirt or no !!

http://www.thesmalls.com/cuttysark/the-clipper/index.html

Cutty Sark was a ” racing ship ” built to race from China to England with tea and beat another ” tea clipper ship ” called Thermopylae. Her most famous race against Thermopylae started on the 18th June ( my birthday ) in 1872. She lost this race due to losing her rudder.

Later she became a  ” wool clipper ” bringing wool from Australia to England and clocking up a record time of 67 days ( and some hours ) beating the fastest steamship of the time in doing so.

This time of 67 days stood until a yacht that I sailed on, Great Britain II , beat it in 1975/6 in ” The Clipper Race”.

http://www.sail-world.com/USA/Volvo-Legends:-Great-Britain-II—Her-builders-story/90648

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain_II

GB2 was built for the first Whitbread Round-the-World Race in 1973/4 and was crewed at that time by Royal Marines. In the ” Clipper Race ” she was crewed by a combination of soldiers, sailors and airmen. Interestingly GB2’s main competitor Kriter 2 lost her rudder in the Tasman Sea on the Sydney to London leg of the Clipper Race. I can still remember looking across the stormy sea from GB2 to Kriter as the crew tried to work out what they were going to with no rudder ( which we had actually seen floating away on the waves but could not reach ). We sailed on and they rigged a jury rudder with a spinnaker pole or something. The French have some great sailors. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivier_de_Kersauson was the skipper )

I had joined the Royal Navy in 1975 and managed to get into the crew of GB2 - at 19 the youngest crew member. Although I didn’t think much of it at the time it was quite strange that a boy who learnt to sail and race boats on ” ponds ” in the Midlands got to race one of the most famous yachts in the world in a race against the time set by one of the most famous sailing ships in the world.

Even stranger to think that a year or so earlier I had been sailing on The ” Hellship Captain Scott ” ( now known as the Shabab Oman )

probably the closest thing that you could get to a Tea Clipper in modern days.

My trip around Cape Horn in Great Britain II gained me entry into a rather exclusive club

The International Association of Cape Horners ( I.A.C.H. ).  http://www.capehorners.org/history2.html

A club that once consisted mainly of officers and crew of ” tall ships ” or ” windjammers ” that had sailed around the Horn

but has been widened to include yachtsmen who have sailed around the Horn.

The Cape Horners usually had their Annual General Meeting aboard the Cutty Sark until it’s refurbishment began. Owing to the fire that broke out on the Cutty Sark it has been closed to the Cape Horners for the last 6 years and I don’t know if or when they will return to her.

In 2006 I took the family and my old Captain and his wife ( Admiral Geoff and Mary Marsh ) aboard the Cutty Sark for dinner. Amongst my family members was my Uncle Les who had rebuilt a Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter called Marguerite T. See here for more on Les and Marguerite

http://mandarainmaker.co.uk/wordpress/2011/06/14/les-windley-of-marguerite-t-dies/

It’s interesting to wonder if Marguerite ever met the Cutty Sark at sea….

Lichfield in Staffordshire has a very Internet aware local government ( e.g. Lichfield District Council uses Twitter for Planning Applications ) and local business population. I thought it would be interesting to use HubSpot’s Marketing Grader software to grade the Internet Marketing Performance of a random selection of Lichfield based businesses.

I chose my random selection not so randomly, mainly from HubSpot’s Twitter Grader for Lichfield on the basis that if people were on Twitter then they were likely to be pretty Internet savvy and social media aware. Hence my selection was ( in order of best performing ) Lichfield Live  , Lichfield District Council , Executives on the Web ( our ” web ” company ) , InterVallum ( Paul Hooper-Keeley has the most Twitter followers in the area ) Hellmann ( Logistics ) and finally Framework Gallery ( who I spoke about in an earlier blog and who performed well in a local search on ” oil paintings “.

http://www.staffordshirehoard.org.uk/staritems

I wanted to get a bit of a ” spread ” of results i.e. from high end results like Lichfield Live ( who you would sort of expect to have a comprehensive Internet presence ) , through Lichfield D.C. ( who probably have a team of website specialists and as mentioned before are very pro. social media and the Internet ) to Executives on the Web ( who again, as a web based business, you would expect to be pretty high ranking )  to Hellmann’s ( who arguably don’t need a particularly strong web presence ? ) to Framework Gallery who, as I say performed well in some earlier searches.

I don’t propose to go into any detail on each of the reports ( they are all listed below if you want to take a look at them ) but you probably need to understand that these grades are relative to thousands of other websites around the world i.e. 78/100 means that the Lichfield Live website in conjunction with it’s associated blog and social media memberships  has a better internet marketing performance than 78% of the web presences reviewed by HubSpot. That’s pretty good !!

You also need to understand that HubSpot takes a pretty ” salesy ” view of life. Terms like Top of the Funnel and Middle of the Funnel may not mean much to some business people but they will be familiar to most salespeople. HubSpot’s mantra is ” Get Found ( on the Internet ), Convert ( Visitors to leads ) and Analyse ( how you did it and how you could do it better ).

To achieve this HubSpot recommends the establishment of what I call an ” Internet Ecosystem ” i.e. a combination of a website, a blogsite and various social media memberships and other sites that essentially drive visitors back to your website. ”

Marketing Grader Reports

http://marketing.grader.com/site/lichfieldlive.co.uk  - 78/100

http://marketing.grader.com/site/www.lichfielddc.gov.uk - 68/100

http://marketing.grader.com/site/www.executivesontheweb.com - 60/100

http://marketing.grader.com/site/www.hellmann.net - 39/100

http://marketing.grader.com/site/www.intervallum.co.uk  - 31/100

http://marketing.grader.com/site/www.framework-gallery.co.uk - 12/100