Insites is an automated testing tool and it is designed to remove as much of the human element from testing a website as possible. However, as with any automated testing tool there are certain limitations that all users need to be aware of, but understanding how to overcome these limitations and objections is key to the digital sales process.
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Think of Insites as an enabling tool that combined with your sales expertise, will provide you with the greatest possible outcome in the most efficient way.
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As with any sales process, understanding how the tools you use is key to success and the same applies to using Insites. There are a wide range of tests that Insites uses, and we highly recommend you become familiar with them as soon as possible, in order to get the most out of the tool.

When testing a business and looking at the results, you will find a wealth of information provided on the results page itself under the About this test link. Reading and understanding the information provided should be a priority for any digital sales professional.

Below are some common objections or questions you may face as a digital sales professional when using Insites:

“I have a Facebook \ Twitter \ Instagram page, why does Insites say I haven’t?”

Insites looks for social media accounts, such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, by looking for links to the page from the site being tested. When Insites fails to find a Facebook or Twitter page, the common reason is that the link is not implemented correctly on the site, either the link is not spelt correctly, links to a different page altogether or is simply not linked to at all. It may also be that the website is implementing social media links using an obscure plugin that uses JavaScript, or in an unorthodox way that we cannot detect.
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What can you do?

If Insites is not able to find the Facebook or Twitter page, then there is a very good chance that (human) visitors cannot too. As a digital sales professional, this presents an opportunity to sell your services and help the business owner rectify this issue and ensure that they promote their Facebook and Twitter pages as effectively as possible.

Explaining this and helping your client understand what is happening is key to turning a perceived negative situation into a sales opportunity and a positive outcome.

You can also override the settings for social media accounts within the report settings (click the small cog below the overall score, then select report settings), which is useful if a website is implementing social media account links in an unorthodox way. When adding social media accounts in the report settings, you will need to retest the site to show the latest results.
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Another common objection is:

“The company I’m testing has an active Google Ads / Display Ads campaign, but Insites says it doesn’t?”

We have recently changed the paid search and display ads test, to use Google Ads Library as the source of information. This means that so long as the Google ads account is verified it will accurately be detected by Insites.
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What can you do?

How to approach this topic is a key factor here. Rather than challenging your client and informing them that they do not have a Google Ads / Display Ads campaign, which may put you in a difficult situation, it may be more effective if you inform your client that they may have issues with their Google Ads / Display Ads campaign and a more detailed conversation may be beneficial.

There are a few reasons why we may not be able to find an ad:

This is also another common objection:

“Insites is not showing the correct mobile version of the site I just tested. I think Insites is wrong.”

Mobile responsive websites usually rely on the screen width for the device the site is being viewed on to determine how to display the site as this method is far more reliable than other methods, such as JavaScript. As a large portion of mobile responsive websites use the screen width to determine the display, Insites is designed with this in mind.

What can you do?

Again, how you approach this topic is key as understanding how mobile responsive sites work is essential. Modern web designers will typically use a device’s screen width to determine how the site is displayed. This method is more reliable and favoured for the majority of mobile-responsive sites online. A client with a site that is not built using this method presents an opportunity to talk about modernising the design of their site and using more reliable methods for mobile optimisation, especially if this is a key focus.
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It is important to understand what defines a backlink. Some clients may well say:

“My site has plenty of backlinks, but your Insites report highlights this as a fail.”

The reason being is that Insites is designed to mirror the way that Google ranks incoming links as closely as possible.

Google uses incoming links as a ranking factor and uses them as a “vote” for your site, but to prevent link farming websites spamming this feature to falsify rankings, Google will look at where the link is coming from.

For example, if a technology blog was linked to by Apple or Microsoft as well as linked to by lotsofrandomlinks.net, then Google will rate the link from Apple or Microsoft highly and ignore the link from lotsofrandomlinks.net.

Google will do this because it classes the link on Apple or Microsoft to be highly relevant, whereas the link on lostofrandomlinks.net are not so. This may also be the case for any links from online directories, as they are not always classed as relevant and will typically be ignored.

What can you do?

Ask yourself the following question:

“How many worthwhile websites link to mine?”

This is better than asking yourself “How many websites link to mine?” and should help clients think about how they can boost their backlinks through the best channels.
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If a client questions the number of reviews their business has on Yelp:

“My business has over 100 reviews, but Insites is showing I only have 3. Is this correct?”

In order to check Yelp for reviews, the Insites team utilises Yelp’s API to gather the required information. Due to limitations on Yelp’s API, it is only possible to detect a maximum of 3 reviews from Yelp, regardless of how many are present.

Another limitation of Yelp’s API is that it is only possible to pull a maximum of 160 characters from any review found on Yelp, so some lengthier reviews may be truncated or incomplete.

What can you do?

The simplest answer to this is to explain this to your client when discussing the reviews section with them. Rather than stating that your client has 3 reviews on Yelp, it may be more appropriate to explain that Insites has detected at least 3 reviews from Yelp.

If your client asks why, then simply explain that due to the limitations of Yelp’s API, it is not possible to detect more than 3 reviews but the important message is that Insites **was able to detected reviews for their business in Yelp, which is a positive thing.
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You will likely be asked questions about a website’s page speed:

“Why does Insites’s Page speed show a different result to Google’s?”

The simple answer to this question is that our page speed test works differently to Google’s, so the results will be different most of the time. Google looks for technical factors that could impact the page speed of a website, such as the presence of large files or poorly optimised pages etc., whereas Insites looks at the actual page load speed.

This means that, on occasions, Google will show a good score for a website but Insites shows a bad score. This could happen if the website is hosted on a slow server. Alternatively, we would show a good score for a website that is hosted on a fast server, but with little optimisation, whereas Google would indicate a bad score because of the lack of optimisation.

What can you do?

You should explain to your client that Insites’s Page speed test and Google’s Page speed test are measuring different metrics, so there will be some difference in the scores. We measure how quickly the actual page loads, whereas Google looks at the technical aspects of the site.

In an ideal world, a fast loading website would score well in both Insites’s page speed test and Google’s, so from a sales perspective different results identifies an opportunity to improve the client’s website as a result.
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The freshness of a website is a key search ranking factor, and Prospect can test for this as part of the analysis. However, there are times when your client may say:

“Prospect reports that my site has not been updated recently, but I updated it yesterday.”

We look at dates from the last modified header of your pages and assets (like images and css files) as well as dates contained within your pages. Given this information, we make a statistical analysis on the probable last updated date.

We use a wide range of methods to determine when the site was last updated. This includes technical indicators and machine-readable dates within the text. However, we cannot always know for certain the date a site was updated. It may also be that the page your client updated was not part of the pages tested when Prospect created the report. You can see which pages were tested by scrolling to the bottom of the detail view and looking at the “x pages tested” section.

What can you do?

The best approach is to advise your client on how Prospect estimates the last updated result. If the client does update their website regularly, ask them if included dates and times is appropriate, and if so, whether they should publicise them as it will also help inform a visitor of how recent any update occurred.
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Having a Google Maps listing is an important ranking factor as it allows potential customers to find the business online easily. However, there may be times when a client says:

“I have a Google Maps listing – I had to set my service area to be listed. Why are you not detecting that?”

In order for a business to become a “service area business” on Google, the business must be a claimed Google My Business listing and the owner / manager must have set it to “I deliver goods and services to my customers at their location” and have not ticked the “I also service customers at my business address”.

There is an issue with Google’s API at the moment, which does not show whether a business is a “service area business”, so when Prospect analyses the business, it is also unable to display the relevant information.

What can you do?

We recommend being honest with the client – explain that there is a known bug with Google’s API that is having an impact on how their business is detected in Prospect. You can also reassure them that Google (and Insites) are aware of the issue and will apply a suitable fix when possible.