Alexandra Melo-Mora Introduction to Web Publishing My site: woodmagazine.com WEBSITE OVERVIEW General site/company information: The purpose of woodmagazine.com is to deliver knowledge to a finely tuned audience based on quality, customer service, and trusted value. As you can tell from the title of the site it's finely tuned audience is for wood workers. They provide quality in many ways. They do this by creating a community base and from there narrow it down even more to forums, blogs, newsletters, and more. As well as having communities they have information for projects from trusted sources and as well as information on tools to purchase for the projects that are shown. Providing customer service is an important service to provide so that those who still require more information on something can easily contact those in with answers.
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Transcript
Alexandra Melo-Mora
Introduction to Web Publishing
My site: woodmagazine.com
WEBSITE OVERVIEW
General site/company information:
The purpose of woodmagazine.com is to deliver knowledge to a finely tuned audience based on
quality, customer service, and trusted value. As you can tell from the title of the site it's finely tuned
audience is for wood workers. They provide quality in many ways. They do this by creating a
community base and from there narrow it down even more to forums, blogs, newsletters, and more. As
well as having communities they have information for projects from trusted sources and as well as
information on tools to purchase for the projects that are shown. Providing customer service is an
important service to provide so that those who still require more information on something can easily
contact those in with answers.
The content of this site varies from projects to tips to supplies and areas in between. Within
each menu tab are multiple sub categories. Here is a screen shot to demonstrate the vast number of
subcategories the site provides.
Woodmagazine.com is one of many sites owned by Meredith Corporations. Meredith Co. has
been around for more than 110 years. Meredith accesses the public in many media platforms such as
internet, magazines, television, and more. Outside of woodmagazine.com Meredith has Better Homes
& Gardens, All recipes, Parents, Meredith Beauty, and more. Each individual site owned by Meredith
focuses solely on one area and going as in depth as they can. For example this is shown above with
woodmagazine.com and their subcategories.
Competing Site:
In my opinion a site that is most like woodmagazine.com is americanwoodworker.com. I
believe this site is a big competitor, because they feature many of the same options as
woodmagazine.com, one of which include a subscription to their own magazine. In the screen shot
below you can see the comparison of the home pages of both sites. You can see that both sites
emphasize the title of their site, have multiple roll over tabs, a search bar in the upper right corner, and
similar information. The major difference that in my opinion makes woodmagazine.com a better
competitor is that their site seems more up to date. Americanwoodworker.com looks more like an
outdated site with up kept information and I do not feel like that is enough.
DESIGN & LAYOUT ANALYSIS
Browser Type:
When using my preferred browser, Google Chrome, in comparison to Mozilla Firefox
and Internet Explorer there were very minor differences. The first and most noticeable difference is that
Chrome was much larger then Firefox was only a bit smaller therefore allowing a little more
information below the main image to be seen. Then Explorer was much smaller than both browsers
before. I feel like that would cause huge issues with older people or those with poor eye sight. Out of
all three browsers Explorer took the longest to go from one page to another within the site. The font is
another difference between the browsers. Chrome and Explorer seem to have a thinner font while
Firefox looks as if the text is in bold.
Monitor Resolution:
With an original resolution of 1920 x 1080 the amount of information able to be seen on
each browser was different. Once I changed the resolution to the lowest, 1024 x 768, there was a huge
change. Woodmagazine.com was the same size therefore showing the same amount of information on
each browser. In the screen shots below you can see the difference between the two resolutions. Both
screen shots are taken on Chrome.
1920 x 1080:
1024 x 768:
Layout:
◦ Page Elements:
The lower two screen shots have boxes and numbers surrounding the areas that are
depicted in Above the Fold. 1. Header – Due to the fact we learned to read left to right our eyes
naturally begin looking at the upper left corner of a site. That is generally why the title of the site is
placed there in the header. The header is the first thing that we naturally look at and is typically
consistent throughout pages in the site. A few pages within this site the header shifts, but it is styled the
same. 2. Navigation – Navigation is the next important area in a site. While the navigation can be
considered a part of the header as it stays consistent through the pages as well it is its own separate
area. Without navigation people can't move about the site in an orderly manner. This also allows people
to find things much more easily. 3. Feature – The feature in this site is a scroll-able slide-show.
Typically the feature will have the most important or recent additions to the site. The feature on a
website is comparable to what newspapers would feature above the fold to grab readers attentions and
get readers to choose their newspaper. 4. Body/Content – The body and content contains other articles,
projects, tips, and more from the site that may also be featured. The body would be the next few stories
below the fold. The pictures add a focal point that grab readers attention which leads to the heading and
hopefully from there the reader will want to know more and continue to that area of the site.
5. Sidebar – The sidebar is typically where sites will put advertisements, social media links, and
promotions for the sites magazine as shown below. 6. Footer – In the second screen shot we see the
bottom of the site where the footer is located. The footer while it can be an after thought can also prove
to be very useful. Typically the footer has features such as site information, subscriptions, contact
information, and any other factual elements necessary. and 7. Background – The background to this
site is very simple. Everything is on a white rectangle with an outer grey and a few shades of an
attention grabbing red in the most used areas. This works well with the site, because there is a lot of
information and pictures a loud background could be very distracting and cause legibility issues.
◦ Above the Fold:
As mentioned before and in the book using the term “above the fold” refers to
newspapers and the content that editors found the most attention grabbing that would be placed literally
above where newspapers were folded. When referred to a website the fold would be where the web site
ends due to the browser. On woodmagazine.com I feel like some of the content is very appropriately
placed here. There are one time offers and daily contests that subscribers or regular visitors will want to
know about. Then there is information on random pages that could be a hit or miss for visitors. It could
be something very useful or information that a visitor isn't interested in or looking for.
◦ Upper Left:
In the upper left corner we see the title of the site, woodmagazine.com, a Facebook
“like” button, and a Twitter and Pinterest “follow” button. As you go throughout the site the same
images present themselves. As we know the upper left corner is important, because it is typically where
our eyes travel to. By placing these buttons in the same place throughout the pages it provides a
stability so that if someone needed to go to the home page they would know to click on the title of the
website or if as they went through the content they realized it held very helpful information they can
click the social media buttons and get more content from different social media platforms. I do believe
this is good placement on their part, especially with the social media buttons. While there are also
buttons on the sidebar of the homepage for their social media, having them on the upper left corner
provides convenience.
◦ Ads:
Below are three screen shots depicting advertisement on one page alone. In the first
screen shot there is an advertisement to buy their magazines. In the sidebar there is a payed
advertisement that changes occasionally based on time or if you go to a different page. These two ads
are above the fold so as to stand out and immediately catch the users attention. In the second screen
shot we see more advertisements in the sidebar, but below the fold. These deal with the site whether it
is a chance to win money or monthly prizes. In the last screen shot we see another advertisement to buy
their magazine. This advertisement is at the footer of the page. By spreading out the advertisements as
such they become less overwhelming, but still give a constant reminder of their magazine, prizes, or
other companies paid advertisements.
TRAFFIC ANALYSIS
Traffic Source: Quantcast.com
◦ Woodmagazine.com Average Unique Visitors: 1,733 per day
◦ Analysis: In the traffic statistics Quantcast says that globally there are 75,464 visits per
month which calculates to only 1.82 visits per person a month. When looking at the whole
picture it looks as though woodmagazine.com would get quite busy, but it does not seem
like there is a very good return rate.
◦ Americanwoodworker.com Average Unique Visitors: “This site has not implemented
Quantcast Measurement”
◦ Analysis: Due to the fact the competing site hasn't established itself on Quantcast tells me
that it isn't as up kept or possibly not viewed nearly as much as woodmagazine.com.
Traffic Source: Alexa.com
◦ Woodmagazine.com Bounce Rate: [45.50%] Page Views Per Visitor: [3.21] Daily Time on
Site: [2:38]
◦ Analysis: The bounce rate is almost at 50% this shows that about half of the people that
come to the site do not go any further than the first page. The statistics for that are not very
good. The rest of the people that go beyond the home page visit approximately 3 pages and
the average time a user spends on the site is 2 and a half minutes. Compared to sites used
daily by many users such as Facebook these statistics do not prove to be doing so well.
Compared to other sites similar to woodmagazine.com the statistics say something much