Discuss description, category: web site reviews

G

geopilgrim

First, thanks for this forum. It's a great resources.

Before I submit my site to dmoz, I'd like some feedback about my description and possible categories.

Web site: http://www.newvistapoint.com

Description:
Insightful web site evaluation services to help businesses improve their web sites; practical analysis of performance, content, usability, and visual design.

Possible categories:
http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Consultants/
http://dmoz.org/Computers/Human-Computer_Interaction/Companies_and_Consultants/

My services are probably most similar to those found in usability-related categories. At the same time, my approach is broader than just usability.

I'm open to suggestions. This is my first time submitting to dmoz.

Thanks
 

hutcheson

Curlie Meta
Joined
Mar 23, 2002
Messages
19,136
Re: Discuss description, category: web site review

I'll do my usual adword-versus-informativeword analysis on the description:

>Insightful
... sorry, that's not a description of the website, that's a description of the company's services. But is it objective? Or, to put it another way, try a though experiement. Suppose we contacted every company listed in that category, and asked them, "we're breaking down our category into providers of 'insightful' services and providers of 'non-insightful' services. But your website doesn't specify which kind of service you provide. Which category should it be placed in?" What would happen? Is "insightful" in any way, form, or fashion a description an ODP editor should put on one site and not another?

>web site evaluation services
no argument there.

>to help
As opposed to your competitors who would prefer to be described as "unhelpful" or "harmful"? No way acceptable.

businesses
OK, you evaluate commercial websites.

>improve their web sites;
There's some other reason for doing a website evaluation? This is pure adspeak, and I know that's what they teach in Marketroid 101, but it's not what they teach in Technical Writing 101. Think of the ODP as a technical document, not an advertisement. And just omit speculation as to the customer's goals or desires.

>practical
As above: if nobody wants to be known as "impractical", this is adhype and not information.

>Analysis of performance, content, usability, and visual design.
Now, no single word of that is wrong, of itself. And any single class of analysis would be listable -- that is, if you focused on performance (as I have done, as a programmer) or on visual design (as you might, if your people were mostly graphics designers) or on usability (again, a well-established academic and professional specialty) then we'd WANT to list that specialty. But ... to make an analogy with Arts/Painters, we would allow a description like "Imitation of Picasso's blue style" or "black and white oil paintings" or "pointillist art using only primary colors" but on the other hand a description like "uses red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, white, and mixed colors" positively screams KEYWORD STUFFING ALERT.

I think your list of specialties looks more like blanket keyword-carpet-bombing than an informative indication of specialty.

That's only a review of the words you used. I can't review the words you didn't use, and often people omit genuine information about their site that we'd have been happy to include in the description. Is there anything truly unique about your company? Any genuine specialization -- a certain kind of business, perhaps, or a focus on ONE or TWO (rather than all) kinds of analysis? Something objective that distinguishes your business from others in the same ODP category? (In other words, if we had enough sites to subdivide that category, what subcategory would your site go in?)
 
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