Gap Year Opinion Peice

Website analysis of Grazia Daily.co.uk

Grazia Daily.co.uk is a young, modern and colourful website which is the online version of Grazia. I will be analysing this website’s business model, looking into what aspects of the site make it successful with its audience and how the website makes money. This website analysis will focus on viewer statistics, the efficiency of navigation around the site, links, promotional strategies and who the target audience are and what they expect. 

Arriving on the homepage it is clear that this website like the magazine is female orientated, aimed at a middle class, female audience, most likely between the age of 17- 35. I have interpreted this from the use of colour, content and layout. The titles, boarders and fonts use a scheme of three main colours; black, white and yellow. Pink is used solely for background colour around the magazine, newsletter and Grazia TV subscription information; emphasising the website’s aim to gain loyalty with the audience. The navigational links consist of fashion, beauty, opinion, TV, experts, shop, win, shows, blogs, video, travel, book club and magazine.  Jacob Nielsen states that if a homepage link is available from the homepage it should not be clickable this ensures no confusion of the page changing. Grazia Daily allows all of its navigational icons to be clickable and refreshes the page; this could prove confusing for some viewers.

 The navigational usability of this website is simple and easy especially if you know what you are looking for, with a search bar available. (Nielsen, 2002)“Give users an input box on the homepage to enter search queries, instead of just giving them a link to a search page, users expect and look for an input box”. From first hand experimentation on the site I thought that the load time and usability was quick and simple and I was able to locate desired information. Nielsen states that the load time should be a maximum 10 seconds; the site took less than 3.

From researching statistics on alexa.com the company that provides information on website traffic and more. I have found majority of traffic running through Grazia Daily is global views rather than those from the UK. Global traffic at 67,992 and UK views at 4,270. These figures are calculated from an average of daily views and views over 3 months. The bounce rate of Grazia Daily is 58%, this means that more than half the percentage of views are of one page only. An average of only 55 seconds is spent on a single page and a total of approximately 3 minutes is spent on the site by each viewer. These figures could indicate that its audience know exactly what they are looking for on the site, finding it quickly and efficiently. Although this could show that the site may be difficult to navigate resulting in users leaving.

To increase loyalty with Grazia Daily viewers and build a following, Facebook and Twitter are used as links to the site and to publish current Grazia news and blog updates. Promotion via these social networks expands the audience overseas. Celebrity news is a key focal point of the website; this news interests people around the world. Promoting via Facebook and Twitter also enables arenas for user generated content; blogs (Grazia Daily producing 10), audience participation with comment boxes and the option to upload eye witness material.

The website produces free content; therefore their method of profit is by using banner adverts and advertising subscriptions to the print magazine.  These banner ads are fashion orientated, advertising sales, newly released items and trends from high street shops such as River Island, and also designer brands such as Burberry. This specifies the target audience as both mid to high wage earners. This shows that the site catering to its audience.

The travel section is also where the website makes its money. Viewers can see handpicked holidays and book the holiday via the Grazia travel club, which can also create tailor made holidays specifically for the Grazia reader. The Grazia travel club is operated by Black Tomato, an ATOL protected Travel Company. Prices per person start at 1800 pounds, reflecting an audience with a substantial amount of disposable income.

From my analysis it is clear that this website is a hybrid model, a mixture of several business models. Content model by using banner adverts, providing free and updated content. Aspects retained from the community site model, using promotion via Facebook and Twitter and gaining loyalty from those sites users. The site could also be viewed as a basic commerce model providing sales from the travel club section. Evidence from alex.com shows that viewers are spending a little amount of time on this site this could be proof of competition from similar sites such as Cosmopolitan.com providing similar services but with a wider range of content and advertisements related to its target audience other than fashion. For example Cosmo online features adverts for car insurance rates aimed at women through Shelia’s Wheels. Grazia Daily’s loud use of colour, compact and overflowing layout could put viewers off, reflected in its 58% bounce rate compared to Cosmopolitans simple, feminine colour scheme and layout and a bounce rate 8% lower than Grazia Daily.

Figure 1:  Screen grab featuring Grazia Daily Home page showing adverts, main content and navigation keys.

Figure 2: Screen grab featuring the Navigation icons and website content.

Figure 3: Screen grab featuring Travel page and handpicked Grazia holiday choices.

Figure 4: Screen grab featuring links to Facebook and Twitter, the magazine newsletter subscription text box and a link to order the latest issue of Grazia.

Figure 5 & 6: Screen grabs featuring a Nivea advertisement and an Asos advert for a competition.

Figure 7: Screen grab of drop down box featuring the available Grazia blogs