Format

Your review will look like this when it’s completed:

First Impressions:

Here I will talk about what I first thought when visited your site. First impressions are really important and often determine if the visitor will go back to your site.

Avoid:

  • Flashing gadgets
  • Clutter
  • Bright colors

Go For:

  • A nice layout
  • A fast loading page
  • A clean, non-cluttered look

Enter Page

Here I will evaluate your enter page. Now, enter pages aren’t typically used, and are pretty useless. I won’t mark you down for having an enter page, that is, if it’s a good one.

Avoid:

  • Clutter! This is almost always what enter pages have. Tons and tons of junk.
  • Browser requirements. If don’t mind if you say “best viewed in ….. with a resolution of ….” That’s fine. But if you say “you have to view my site in … with a resolution of …”, that’s not okay. Your site has content to make the visitor happy. Therefore, your layout should also make the visitor happy.

Go For:

  • A nice, clean enter page that matches your layout.

Layout/Design:

Your layout is one of the most important parts of this review. A layout determines a lot of the visitors’ opinions on your site. If your layout is badly coded and doesn’t work in a lot of browsers, your visitors will think that you don’t take your site seriously and that you don’t care about your visitors.

Avoid:

  • Bright colors that blind people.
  • iFrames. Ugh. These might look cool, but they’re horribly annoying.
  • Layouts that don’t work in all browsers.
  • Unreadable fonts or small text. Can you say, eye pain?

Go For:

  • Nice colors that work well together, but have a little contrast. Remember, different shades of the same color look good together, but that’s too much of the same color.
  • Simplicity. You don’t need a ton of fancy widgets or a lot of pictures on your site. All you really need is a navigation bar, a header, a content area, and a footer. Three column layouts are confusing, and layouts with more than one navigation area are weird.
  • A “user-friendly” layout. To get a high score, you must have a layout compatible in all browsers, and a layout that loads fast.

Content:

This is the most important part of a website. You could have an excellent layout, but no interesting content to offer.

Avoid:

  • Cliche and boring content.

Go For:

  • Interesting content. And a lot of it.
  • Correct grammar and spelling. Does “hey evry1 im gonna be away 4 awile so don’t be acoming back herez” impress anyone? No, didn’t think so.

Summary:

I’ll sum up your review for you, and give you tips on how to improve your site.

Rating:

You’ll get a rating out of 5 “stars”.
flake.gif Your website is uh…. not so great. Most of your website needs improvement. Translates into an F.

flake.gifflake.gif Your website needs a lot of help. There were a few good things, but there’s still a ton of room for improvement. Translates into a D.

flake.gifflake.gifflake.gif Your website’s okay, pretty average. There were a lot of things I liked, but there’s still quite a few improvements to be made. This translates to a C.

flake.gifflake.gifflake.gifflake.gif Your website’s a pretty good one! There’s some minor improvements needed. Translates into a B.

flake.gifflake.gifflake.gifflake.gifflake.gif Excellent! Your website is a complete success! You either have no mistakes or very very minor ones. Great job! Translates in an A.