We get asked regularly about how our services compare with Siteimprove. There are two key triggers for this contact: as part of procurement standards around market testing, which require a market test every 1 or 3 years or following publication of one of our Quarterly INDEX.

Here are some of the key areas that we keep being asked about so, to save our time and yours, we have addressed these questions in this article.  

We have more detail at https://www.siteimproveupgrade.com/assets/docs/comparison.pdf  

1. Price

   For many customers, unfortunately, price is the most important factor and its common for customers to review pricing every 3 years or even annually. We like things to be simple, so we have our SiteimproveREPLACEMENT Offer, which includes;

   • Our accessibility and link checking capabilities, which have been quoted by our clients as being more thorough and considered more accurate.
   • Sitemorse Prioritisation Intelligence including Role Based Priorities
   • SMARTVIEW

   To qualify for this offer, you simply need to provide us with your renewal quote, and we will reduce your Siteimprove renewal price by 66%. You’ll then be up and running with Sitemorse and receiving prioritised actions the next day.

   There is a minimum annual subscription of $2,250.00. For other service limitations (yes, we have to dumb down the service a bit) see the notes.

   Answer;

   If you want to save 66% move to Sitemorse.

2. Service

   1. Number of pages (full site / every 5 days)

      Sitemorse only assesses the top 125 pages of my website. Siteimprove assesses my entire site every 5 days.

      Initially, it may be worth checking if they are really assessing your full site; perhaps ask for a list of every page they have assessed.

      Sitemorse can assess as many pages as you want, and as often as you want – go wild, be free – re-run your site / section every day, if you wish.

      Some years ago, we pioneered the staged running of pages, to focus on what is possible and practical. Our experience shows this is the best way to drive improvement. However, if you must, you can run all the pages all the time – the challenge is not to become lost in the depths of endless reporting.

      Answer;

      Our SiteimproveREPLACEMENT Service does exactly the same, it runs your full site every 5 days.

   2. Accessibility

      Siteimprove is giving me green XX% (often 80%+) yet Sitemorse is showing I’m not doing quite so well, for example, only 36% of my pages passed Level AA.

      We believe and this has been supported by client feedback – our Accessibility auditing is more thorough, we assess content to a greater extent. For example, we look at the detail of the code (one of the A check points) so if you don’t pass this you will score lower.

      If you want a warm fuzzy feeling that you’re doing well then perhaps we’re not the service for you. If you would prefer to have the facts to help you improve then you’ll be welcome to become a client.

      Answer;

      Ask Siteimprove to improve their capability, or if you want a more through service move to Sitemorse.

   3. Links

      Siteimprove are saying that everything is OK, yet Sitemorse is showing there is content needing action.

      In terms of link checking, you may not like our findings – please don’t complain that you believe all is well and that we have provided the detail showing otherwise.

      With Sitemorse services (not the SiteimproveREPLACEMENT offer) you also have access to link profiling, great to understand what’s changed or removed.

      Time and time again we have demonstrated failing links – please do not ask us to ‘prove’ it, as refusal often offends.

      Sitemorse is very through in the way it checks links, it starts by understanding the page (we need this to break out the actions by content, technical role) and included in this we deep into the detail of the CSS / style sheets / templates – an area we often find challenges for others to report the detail.

      For fun (as we’re privately owned and don’t have VCs to please, we can be) We used to love the Siteimprove tweets, sending doughnuts (for clients free of link errors) as in the majority of cases we were still finding link errors it felt a bit like a Homer Simpson doughnut ‘doh’. One of the great things about Sitemorse is our clients have access to a historic record of results (we keep the pages for up to 7 years).

      How about a guarantee? Siteimprove are probably telling you everything is OK and that you should renew – yet you have a niggling doubt because we are saying ‘it’s not quite as good as it can be’. If we are wrong, we provide the service for free (with no silly technicalities either). If we are right, you move to Sitemorse, start improving and save 66% off your Siteimprove renewal.

      Answer;

      Ask Siteimprove to improve their capability; or cast your doubts aside and become more confident with a move to Sitemorse. 

   4. Brand

      Our Brand service is not really supported in the same way by Siteimprove, nor do they have an equivalent offering. 

      We have used the specific publishing guidelines ‘rules’ for Government Content (a very good set of guidelines for all to embrace, or at least consider as a starting point). We assess your site against these brand guidelines. Since Siteimprove do not have an equivalent service they cannot provide an equivalent score.

      Corporate clients of our DIGITALCONFIDENCE service are able to define their own set of brand guidelines that should be enforced across their website(s).

      Answer;

      Ask Siteimprove to improve their capability, and add the publishing rules standards, or move to Sitemorse.

About Sitemorse

Sitemorse isn’t a legacy ‘reporting’ (some say endless) limiting service.

Sitemorse is a UK-registered privately-owned company, with no external investors – our shareholders are our staff. We provide Content Quality & Digital Governance automation to clients around the world, 

Sitemorse was probably the first company to bring automation to the digital governance market (with our first services running nearly 15 years ago and our oldest current client joining us 13 years ago) along with being the first to introduce Data Science and Machine intelligence capabilities.

Most importantly we make compliance achievable for all with a proven 3 stage process – its principles being; understanding, prioritisation and continuous improvement. 

For more information, visit Sitemorse.com

 

NOTES

1 or 3 year terms supported, no monthly option. Minimum service investment $2250.00, annually.

1. You can try, experience and use our intelligence-based method (you could also move away from endless reporting).
2. Ongoing recording of the actual pages and issues on the page – allowing historic review, not included.
3. Performance testing, by page excluded. We do offer uptime and availability monitoring, it is included if your renewal includes SI response.
4. Analytics, we don’t do or offer an analytics service. We focus on what we do best - arguably Google’s great and it’s free (heat mapping aside).
5. Email - we list the emails but exclude examining their operation.
6. Code Quality / HTML – you will find this essential on the journey to accessibility compliance and it also helps you make your site better. We can’t really reduce the depth of accessibility capability – guess we have to provide this.
7. In terms of link checking, you may not like it - don’t complain please if you think all is well and then we provide the detail. You also have limited access to link profiling – it’s great to understand what’s changed or removed.
8. SOCIALQA - unique to Sitemorse (as is recording) this isn’t included.
9. SMARTVIEW- we can’t keep dumbing down our service.... Anyone can run all the tests checks and measures, any time, any browser, any page. 
10. Yes the service includes prioritisation of actions and the rather helpful training videos. (just in time PDF linked from here)