How to Write a Website Review

Writing website reviews is an effective way to increase your writing income. You can publish them for payment or shared advertising revenue to several websites or you can publish them yourself on a blog or website. When writing website reviews, there are several elements that should be included in the review, depending upon your audience. Your audience is your primary concern when writing a website review. If your audience is a group of webmasters, your review should be different than if you are writing for the general Internet user. Don't take on more than you can handle. If you do not have the technical expertise or vocabulary to write a review for website developers, then don't. Keep your reviews simple, for the more common Internet surfers. You can even create a template to include all of the elements you wish to include in every review.

Introduce the website, its purpose and your overall opinion on the effectiveness of it providing its purpose. Explain what it is the company does and how effective it is at providing that service.

Review the design. Design is the first thing you notice when you open the website. Is it appealing? Does the color scheme work? Consider how easy it is to navigate the site. Share your opinion on how the design and navigation work. Did you find anything that didn't work? If so, make note of it.

Focus of the site. The focus of a website is the site's intent. Is the intent or purpose of the website clear? Can a first-time visitor easily discover what the website is trying to accomplish? If the website is advertising a product, is it clear and appealing? Would you purchase a product from the website?

Fundamentals of the site. The fundamentals are the basic operation of the website. Do the hyperlinks work? Is the navigation easily understandable? Large websites should have a "site map" for the user to easily see the navigation scheme.

Content is the "meat and potatoes" of the website. Is the content relevant to the purpose of the site? Is it well written? As a visitor to the website, the content should be pertinent. Read through several pages of the website's content, like anything that is published professionally, it should be free of grammatical, spelling and formatting errors.

Evaluate the website for its overall effectiveness. Can you as the user easily accomplish your reason for visiting the website? Was the information or product you were searching for easy to find? Was that information up to date and accurate?

Most websites will have an "About Us" page or other page that introduces the company, its qualifications and writer's profiles. Is the website written by one or multiple authors? With as much information that is available on the Internet, it is important to understand whether the website is accurate and that the writers are qualified to write about the content displayed. Can you easily discover whether they are qualified to write about the website's purpose? Writers should have their own byline or profile page.

Beyond the basics. If your audience is a group of website developers or other group of information technology professionals, you should delve a little deeper in your analysis of the website. Along with the basics discussed in the previous steps, you should discuss: color schemes, alignment and visual organization; marketing capabilities and branding; functions of widgets, forms and html; browser capability and resolution.