How to Review a Website
Forward: In this article I explain the paragraphs that are necessary to write when reviewing a website.
By: Chrysanthus Date Published: 31 Aug 2012
Introduction
The Introduction
The introductory paragraph should talk about the purpose of the website. You can always get information for this at the home page of the website. It should be more or less as long as the introduction of this article.
Agreement
Any decent website has terms of use. You read the terms of use from the website. In this paragraph in your review, you write the pertinent features of the use of the website or the company (organization). All of this should be one or two paragraphs.
Presentation of the Web Pages
Here you say how the web pages present themselves (i.e. styling). You can talk about the layout in non-technical terms. For a good website the layout of all the pages are the same or similar. If there are any illustrative images or videos, you may mention them. You can talk about the overall color. Below I give you a link to names of colors. You can talk about the position of the titles in the pages – not page by page, generalize. Are the titles at the top-middle, top-left, top-right, bold or small? You can say a bit more about the home page here. You can talk about the content of the main pages here. The copyright information and when the site was last modified or published goes into this paragraph, as well. Note: this paragraph can be very subjective. Whatever is the case, you have to talk about the presentation (looks) of the pages in non-technical terms, in this paragraph.
They say the Internet would not exist if it were not for hyperlinks. You talk here about the important hyperlinks – their uses and where they are positioned in the pages – you generalize, you can pay more attention to the home page.
How to use the Website
Use of the site involves the use of hyperlinks and forms. The use of the hyperlinks should have been mentioned in the above paragraph. So in this paragraph you talk about the use of the important Forms, and possibly what links to click to get to the forms. If you know the kind of feedback the user will get from a form you say it – you do not have to talk about confirmation (message sent) feedback unless it is absent. If you know whether it is automatic or manual feedback, you say it. For this paragraph it is good to know whether the site has a database or not. You say what kind of feedback is got from the database; is it stored data or an employee has to reply to a login page or by email. If you know if the reply will come as a web page you say it. If you know if the reply will come as email you say it. If you know when a feedback will come you say it. For this paragraph and the rest of the paragraphs of the review, you can get the information from the site (and nature of site and business) without logging in or contacting a personnel of the site. The aim of a website review is usually to promote a site. However, nothing stops you from writing a review criticizing the site (criticisms will not be assimilated well by the site owner, but nothing stops you from doing so independently).
Any Special Feature
This paragraph is optional. In this paragraph, you talk about any special feature offered by the site. If the site has anything different from other sites, in terms of how the site runs its business or how the site is used, how the site is presented or any special service or good offered, you say it here as a special feature. Some people will prefer to place this paragraph just after the introduction of the review especially if they are reviewing for the Internet. Internet readers usually do not want to read much and many at times they do not read to the bottom of a post or article.
This paragraph is optional. You will hardly be able to know whether the site is doing good business, unless somehow the site owner gives you an account. You will hardly be able to know if the site is a scammer site, unless you are one of their accomplices. However, if you know if they are doing good business, say so here and say how they are doing it; in this case you should be sure of what you are saying. If you know the number of workers they have, you say it here. As I said, this paragraph is optional. However, if the site is the first of its kind and/or if the business is the first of its kind, you say so in this paragraph or in the “Any Special Feature” paragraph above. In this paragraph you say whether the site has competitors in the country of the site and/or all over the world – you can get this information just by searching the Internet. A small site is considered to have at least 1000 visitors a day; however, you may not be able to know this for the site. So good business starts from 1000 visitors a day. It is not all the visitors who purchase or consume. In my opinion today, it is about one quarter of the visitors who purchase or consume. So, if you are promoting a site, you have to be very tactful with what you say on visitors. If you are not sure, do not say anything on visitors.
In the conclusion you talk a bit about all the paragraphs – say one sentence each for each paragraph without copying any sentence from the paragraphs. You may omit some sentences here, if you think they are not important. If you know anything about the site’s future, you say so here. The conclusion must have a hyperlink to the website’s home page.
If the site is a very big site, then you will have to repeat much or all of the above for any sub-site of the site.
Note: In reviewing a site, you typically have one paragraph for each point. You can have more paragraphs for each point if you find that necessary; however, one per point is typical. The headings for the paragraphs in the review can be the ones above or similar.
Agreement or Disclaimer
You can never be sure if all what you get from a site is true. You can never be sure for how long the site will exist or when the pages and terms of usage will be modified. So it is good to type an agreement or disclaimer at the end of the review like, “This review has been written to the best of my knowledge at the time of writing.” The heading should be Agreement or Disclaimer depending on what exactly you write. Remember, in a review you can also type your opinion in paragraphs.
Chrys