WA Site Health Explained (Don't Worry Too Much about it!)
This will be a very quick blog post explaining the different aspects of the Wealthy Affiliate Site Health because I've seen a number of members being troubled by this.
So let's take a look at what you should look out for and focus on...
8 WA Site Health Components
There are 8 factors determining the Site Health within Wealthy Affiliate:
- Publishing Frequency
- Content Quality & Variety
- Visitor Engagement (Comments)
- Your Engagement
- Plugins
- Site Trust
- Google Ranked
- Website Feedback
For those of you who are new, you can access your website Site Health by clicking on the "Website" tab on the left hand site > Site Manager, and click on the "View Details" under the Site Health bar as shown below:
I'm not going to explain what each factor means because you can read on that yourself.
What I'm going to talk about are the things that most people are struggling with.
What You Should Focus On...
You should only focus on the first 4 factors:
- Publishing Frequency
- Content Quality & Variety
- Visitor Engagement (Comments)
- Your Engagement
Basically, the more content and comments you have on your site, the more likely you're going to be ranked well in Google and get more traffic to your website. That's why you should focus on this ONLY!
Controversial Topic: Number of Plugins?
As you can see from my Site Health screenshot above, my Site Health for "Plugins" is ZERO.
This is calculated based on the number of plugins you have on your site. Wealthy Affiliate recommends you to have less than 5 plugins. The more you have, the lower the Site Health.
My advice to you is don't bother about this because for 99% of the successful bloggers, affiliate marketers & WordPress website owners out there, I can tell you that they have more than 5 plugins for sure.
Having more plugins does not necessarily mean that your site will be slower unless you're using low quality plugins.
Today, if you're only using those popular plugins with many installs and good reviews, your site speed won't be affected. Even if it does, the impact is so small that it's impossible for you to notice.
What plays a much more crucial role in your site speed is the Media you upload to your site. Make sure you optimize all the Media especially images before and after uploading.
You can follow my training here for that:
How to Drastically Speed Up Your Website? Here's How I Did it.
To answer the question: How many plugins should I have on my site?
My answer to you is it depends on your needs. You install what you need on your website. But make sure you check out the ratings and reviews of the plugin before installing.
Personally, I have 15 plugins on my site for now.
I'm not recommending you to have more plugins. Your goal is still to have minimal plugins. But don't let the number of plugins be a restriction to you for building your website.
How Does Site Trust Work?
Another frequently asked question is how to increase Site Trust.
Basically, Site Trust inside Wealthy Affiliate will increase by 10% every month even if you don't touch your site at all. So, I would say this indicator is pretty useless when you understand how it works.
The thing about Site Health is that it's JUST AN INTERNAL INDICATOR & A GUIDELINE within Wealthy Affiliate.
It gives beginner a rough idea of how to improve and optimize their sites.
But, having a 100% Site Trust within WA doesn't mean Google now trust your website 100% because this Site Trust system is NOT related to Google at all.
It just means your website has been around for at least 10 months.
The older your site, the more POTENTIAL authority it has in the eyes of search engine.
Take note: It's just "potential". Ultimately, your site's authority in the eyes of Google still depends on the amount of effort you put into and amount of quality contents you have.
Google Ranked?
This is just a simple indicator telling you that if your site has been indexed by Google.
Being indexed by Google means that Google can now find your website in their algorithm and Googlebots can start crawling your website.
Get Feedback for Your Site...
Finally, you can use the SiteFeedback tool to get people's feedback about your site.
But to be honest, this is not directly related to how well your website can perform in Google because it's just an internal tool within Wealthy Affiliate for you to improve on your own website design, layout, content, etc.
Take note: Comment & Feedback are 2 different things in Wealthy Affiliate.
If you are new and are confused between the two, please check out this post:
Site Comments vs Site Feedback - The Battle Continues
Conclusion
I just want to conclude by saying that Don't Worry Too Much About Your Site Health!
It's just an internal indicator in Wealthy Affiliate to help beginners understand how to improve their sites.
It's just a GUIDELINE, my friend. The performance of your website in Google has no direct relation to this Site Health.
Just follow closely with the training here at Wealthy Affiliate, FOCUS on building the foundation of your website and create quality content that ranks in Google.
If you need help with SEO and ranking, here are some resources I recommend you to check out:
I wish you all the best and let me know in the comments below if you have anymore questions or need any clarifications, alright?
P.S. June is another awesome month for me. This is my first 4-Figure passive income month, thanks to Wealthy Affiliate. Stay tuned for my June Monthly Update :)
Recent Comments
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Another post that's worth reading. Thanks Jerry.
I always look forward to your posts and training. :)
Thanks Jerry.
Awesome training and info.
Congratulations for your first 4-figure passive income month.
I wish you continue to success.
Cheers.
Thank you for the explanation on Site Health. I'm a bit disappointed that Site Trust has nothing to do with google x). But it makes sense as per your explanation that the whole Site Health thing is just an internal tool.
Congrats on another awesome month for passive income. May you continue to prosper :)
Hey Jerry,
I just recently changed my SEO from All In One SEO to Yoast. My husband and I are very happy with Yoast. Can you tell me if you think we did the right thing and what do you use? Thank you for this article. It has helped clarify some of the information and is pointing us in the right direction. There is soooo much work to do and it is great not to waste time on things that will not make a difference.
Great question Connie! I've actually written a post comparing AIO and Yoast here: Yoast VS All in One: What is the Best SEO Plugin for WordPress? To be honest, it doesn't really matter which plugin you use because both of them are great.
As long as you're using one of them, set it up properly and FOCUS on your content, you're good!
Take a look at my post for things to look out for with Yoast :)
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Interesting post Jerry, the two links you have shared, I can confirm work, when applied definately, site health is a very good guide to how your site is doing.
As for the plugins issue, yes, what you say about quality plugins, is in my opinion & experience of using wordpress, the difference with site speed and yes, the top gurus all use more than 5, just one look at Kyle and Jays training which shows their back office, says what you need to know.
Thanks for sharing
Yea, glad you agree with me Dave :)
I do, because it makes sense Jerry.