Website Design Reviews

Bottom Line Secrets: America’s best source of inside information is also a lesson on how to sell newsletters online. … Continue Reading »

Giving credit where it is due: a cornucopia of useful information for industry professionals and an exemplary business-to-business website. … Continue Reading »

BabyCenter LLC, is just what it sounds like. Much like the community center in the local church, this site helps anxious parents and parents-to-be find answers to everything they need. This well-designed, interactive website brings reliable advice to a consumer audience, along with peer-support for the most anxiety producing experience many of us will ever have—parenting. … Continue Reading »

Although similar, the content of Advertising Age and AdAge.com is not the same. AdAge.com does not contain the full editorial content of the print edition. Nor does the print edition contain all that is in the online edition each week. However, text-only articles from the print publication are available on AdAge.com approximately two weeks after publish date. … Continue Reading »

It’s a truism that income opportunities from trade books, i.e. books sold through channels like Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com, are very limited. To earn a fair and reasonable living, even if a book is successful in publishing terms, enterprising authors who desire more have to develop their own back-end revenue-generating opportunities that capitalize on their book’s visibility. … Continue Reading »

Providing news and information on how to comply with Federal laws and international banking regulations is the niche addressed by this subscription website … Continue Reading »

Established print publications, especially trade publications, typically have a hard time letting go of their print roots and embracing all the new functionality and usability features that are required for a great content website. This is why we use a tool like the Mequoda Website Scorecard, to give us unbiased rules to sleuth out the good and bad of the online design. … Continue Reading »

TheBookStandard.com describes itself as “the all-inclusive online destination for publishers, retailers, librarians, agents, authors, distributors, studio executives, screenwriters, publicists, book groups and more!” It’s an accurate description.

VNU Business Media, publisher of The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, Computing, and other trade titles, launched TheBookStandard.com, its first solely online publication, in January of 2005. … Continue Reading »

Since we’re now coming out of a long, snowbound New England winter with a few more pounds on the frame than we had in September, we thought we might take a look at the weight loss websites and see if there’s a site that exemplifies a Mequoda Website Network. There are several popular diet sites: eDiets.com, WeightWatchers.com, Lowcarbfriends.com, JennyCraig.com and Atkins.com. In terms of popularity, and controversy, Atkins leads the pack of the low-carbohydrate movement. … Continue Reading »

I’ve had spinal meningitis, cancer, diabetes and attention deficit disorder. OK, not really. But I think I might qualify as a hypochondriac, along with a certain percent of the WebMD readership. (An issue that they write about, calling it “Cyberchondria”.) So, it was with joyful anticipation of all the new diseases I could self-diagnose, that I picked the task of reviewing the WebMD Health content site. … Continue Reading »

Insurance.com claims to be the largest online auto insurance agency in the United States. In a May of 2004 press release, it announced results of a survey showing that its customers have saved $600 or more a year on auto insurance. Through its marketing partnerships with AOL, MSN, Yahoo, eBay and Google, Insurance.com said it has sold more than 100,000 auto insurance policies, resulting in millions of dollars saved by consumers. … Continue Reading »

With a final score of B, BLR.com is a site, or a “network” of sites, that is already far better than average, but could be truly outstanding if only they implemented a few simple changes. Creating an editorial hub alone would be enough to spiral more opportunities for traffic, revenues and happier users. … Continue Reading »

Waterfront Media has developed a series of profitable websites, one of which is Denise Austin’s fitness and health website, DeniseAustin.com. … Continue Reading »

When Editor Don Nicholas asked me to review BlueDolphin.com, I was a bit hesitant. After all, he served as the Company’s CEO from its inception until 2003, when he ventured off with other business plans… plans that led to our successful “parent” company, Mequoda Group, LLC. … Continue Reading »

Reviewing WSJ.com, the “largest paid subscription news site on the Web,” feels a little like the being the kid in the children’s story “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” In the story, the proud Emperor had fallen for a sly tailor’s flattery. He was sold imaginary fabric: fabric that was so soft you couldn’t feel it, so fine you couldn’t see it. … Continue Reading »

Of all the dot-com companies that were launched in the 1990s, it can be argued that eBay.com is the most successful. Twenty-four percent of all e-commerce in the United States in 2004 took place on eBay.com, up from 16 percent in 2000, according to IDC, a global market intelligence and advisory firm in the information technology and telecommunications industries. … Continue Reading »

At first blush, Monster.com appears to be an unemployed person’s best bet… hundreds of thousands of jobs just a few keystrokes away. But let’s take a moment to run it through the merciless Mequoda Website Scorecard™ system and see how Monster.com stacks up. For this test, we’ll be visiting the job seekers’ section only. … Continue Reading »

A confession: I am not the target prospect for bluenile.com, an online marketer of jewelry, because I don’t like or wear jewelry (my wife is not a jewelry “nut” either, and I have two sons and one nephew, and no daughters or nieces). I’m going to try hard to make sure that doesn’t color my review of their site. … Continue Reading »

At first glance, it looks like they are generating revenue primarily through Google’s AdSense program, as “Ads by Gooooooogle” are taking up a good portion of the homepage real estate.

Once I dive deeper into the site, I realize that they may also be making money through affiliate commissions by referring users to Hotwire.com to book flights.

Let’s see how this website is constructed and just how successful they are as an Editorial Hub by running it through the Mequoda Website Scorecard. … Continue Reading »

The first criteria is to analyze how quickly and clearly the site’s intention is communicated to first-time visitors. The BookReporter.com banner is immediately followed by a clear and unambiguous tagline: “Where readers and writers click.” … Continue Reading »

There are two things in life that make us feel successful and powerful, or weak and ineffectual: sex and money. Today, we’re talking about money.

The very thought of going to a bank for a loan has often been enough to make us feel small and powerless. It is asking for help. It requires disclosing intimate, personal information—stuff you won’t tell your mother—about how you spend your money and pay your bills. … Continue Reading »

The Accounts Payable Network serves its members very well. There is an enormous amount of content here, creating an invaluable resource. It’s hard to imagine an AP professional not wanting to join this member site or objecting to its $695 initial one-year membership fee. … Continue Reading »

Winespectator.com is a great example of a successful Mequoda Membership Website Publishing Model™. The website, while similar to the print magazine, offers more functionality and added features than their print counterpart. Wine ratings and tasting notes on the website are sortable by score, price and vintage and there is web-exclusive content and commentary. A website user can also create a personal cellar, where they can save the wines reviewed by winespectator.com to a personalized list. … Continue Reading »

eDiets Doesn’t Feed You Enough Reasons to Join Their Program. I had mixed feelings when Don Nicholas asked me to take a look at eDiets.com as my first website review for the Mequoda Library.
The reason is my weight. You know those height/weight charts you see in the doctor’s office? Well, according to that chart, I am 7-feet, 8-inches! … Continue Reading »

Ragan.com is Strictly Business. Few organizations have done more to improve the quality of corporate communications than Chicago’s Ragan Communications. And, I suspect, few firms have done as much to maintain the morale of corporate communicators than Ragan Communications. … Continue Reading »

Seth Godin, Father of Permission Marketing and Internet Pioneer, Delivers a Dysfunctional Website

Why is it that some of the best, most commonsensical and trusted marketers don’t practice what they preach? Or put more politely, why do they sometimes act counter-intuitively to what are generally agreed to be “best marketing practices”? Why don’t they walk their talk? Why are they so incongruent?

Why is it that some of the best, most commonsensical and trusted marketers don’t practice what they preach? Or put more politely, why do they sometimes act counter-intuitively to what are generally agreed to be “best marketing practices”? Why don’t they walk their talk? Why are they so incongruent? … Continue Reading »

ClickZ is a Formidable Online Resource for Internet Marketers—It Publishes Internet Marketing War Stories, Told in the First Person, from the People in the Trenches of the Internet Marketing and Advertising Industry … Continue Reading »