Overview

Web site analysis consists of many different variables; its page rank, broken links both inbound and outbound, accessability, useability, compliance, SEO compliant, server errors, scripting errors, spelling errors, use of discriptions, use of anchor tags, search engine guideline violations, download speeds, your comptetion and attention or eye tracking.

Web site analysis should be done before and after a redesign in addition to quarterly reports taken to give an idication of the direction and effectiveness of any marketing campaigns you have engaged in.

Competitive Analysis - Who Are You Competing With?

You should give your consultant or who ever you have hired to do your analysis for you, a list of competitors. You are the best advocate to know who your competition is but sometimes an analysis can bring light to competition you didn't know existed as well. You probably already have a list of companies your know as your main competiton, your "nemesis list"; a list of companies you'd like to leave eating your dust; every company has them.

You should also include competitive company's sites which are also simililar in function as well as those which are duplicates of your business. As an example, if your company is in the hotel business, you should also look at sites or portals belonging to companies such as condo rentals, time shares and bed and breakfast companys because they all share the same functionality of registration and heads vs beds. It would also a good idea to include companys like Orbitz, Travelocity, and Priceline because they also have functionality on their sites which are universal to the trade.

You may also want to include a list of items you want your analyst or consultant to focus on such as, the number of sellable items they have, customer service access, mouse over images which enlarge products, etc. Please resist the compuslion to panic and wonder how soon you can equal what they have in quantity; the reason being their inventory could be outdated, badly explained or irrelevant to their consumers.

If you are a new company and don't know who your competion is you will need to have your analyst do some digging. The best way is to give them your company SIC code which determines what type of company you are. This way they can look up other companies with the same SIC classification code and determine some important data which will help to narrow down your competitive search. These are their geographic location, their total annual revenues, total annual profits, number of employees, what conumers are saying about them, and whether or not they have a strong brand.

Next your analyst would write up a list of variables to analyse across each site. These should at least be;

• Home or index page. Does it answer the 6 W's; Who are you?, When are your products or your services available...(when are you open for business?), What are you?, Why should consumers buy from you?, Where are you?, and most important, What's in it for me?
• Navigation. Is the global navigation consistent from page to page? Do major sections have local navigation? Is it consistent? Can you find it? Are your links to your navigation hidden from page to page?...meaning, is there a subset of navigation which only shows up on an obscure page?
• Site organization. Is the site organization intuitive and easy to understand? Is there so much content on the pages consumers can't figure out what to do or where to go? Is it easy for consumers to find how to purchase items?
• Links and labels. Are the labels of sections and subsections easy to read? Are they blurry or too small? Are links all over the page with seemingly no organization?
• Search and search results. Does the search engine work and is easy to use? Are there basic and advanced search functions? Are search results organized and easy to understand? Does the search results give you items relevant to what you searched for or is it just a bunch of irrelavent data?
• Readability. Are the fonts too small? Does the context go from one column to the next leaving you hunting for where it is? Do images cover up the text in places?
• Performance. How fast do pages download? What's the breakdown?
• Content. Is the content aimed or geared toward the consumer or client or is it filled with "I love Me" statements leaving them with mounds of irreleant content? Is the context solely BUY BUY BUY or other superfluous content such as press releases, marketing and advertising ads? Is there anything the consumer can benefit from coming to the site?...white papers, downloads, freebies, useful applications? Is there a call to action anywhere?

I suggest you use a rating system for each question for each site you analyze and compare. It can be one to five stars or just a numerical system such as;

1. Excellent
2. Good
3. Fair
4. Poor
5. Pathetic

We are here to help and assist you in your web analysis needs but regardless whether or not you hire The Remington Agency or someone else, your analyst or consultant should consider using a set of similar protocols to perform the actual examination of sites such as these I've listed below.

1. Visit each site one at a time, using your checklist as your guide, making sure you are consistent from one site to the next. Try not to be distracted by things, links or images which can take you off task. Be committed to a path of continuity and structure.
2. Take lots of notes by using a seperate sheet which will be stapled along with each sites questionaire. These notes will help when it comes time to put together a final report, outlining specific details.
3. Tally the scores at the end of each sheet and give a final average score.
4. Always do your site last...it will give you a better feel and objectivity after reviewing all the others. Regardles of the outcome, the score is your window to see where you stand; where your weak, where your strong and where you need to change.

On and Offsite Analysis and Consulting

We work closely with your business or firm to analyse and review its current technologies on and offsite regarding usage efficiency, staffing, objectives, marketing strategies, etc. and make non-biased recommendations based on your current situaltion in relation to what you have vs what your current needs are now and what we perceive them to be in the future based on your past growth rate.

Call us today and schedule a time when we can discuss your analysis needs, your goals for your business and how we can best assist you.