The exciting Sky Sports website, which has been online since July 1998, comes under the spotlight through our website analysis. As a website that offers comprehensive sports coverage about sport that range from football to boxing, it is important that the site makes navigation as easy as possible, that it provides the information required by its users in an easy to understand and use format, and that it ensures a high level of accuracy through good quality content.

The Sky Sports website analysis will reveal whether the site through excellent website design techniques, sound search engine optimisation policies, and adequate Internet marketing strategies provide the above.

The Sky Sports home page provides support for the domain name through the colour usage of blue in the main banner. For a home page that contains videos, images, and a large amount of text, the Spy Sports website loads incredibly fast. From the moment that the user enters the website until leaving he or she will know exactly where they are at the website. Navigation has been made as simple as possible, but it doesn’t mean that the website design does not include sophisticated features.

The stylish website includes a cascading style sheet menu on top with the main categories which highlight to show which page is current. It offers the much needed home link and a search facility to aid in quick location of information.

The standard features of good website design are present and include:

In addition the Sky Sports website design goes beyond normal accessibility features to include a high contrast view option, keyboard access options, and compatibility with screen reading software. When it comes to visual appearance, the newspaper type lay-out ensures a quick overview of the latest hot issues while also serving the purpose of guiding the user through short introductions to what is available on the website.

Users have the option of several sport topics such golf, tennis, cricket, and rugby to name, but a few. It becomes evident through the website analysis that Sky Sports have gone the extra mile to ensure that users can get the maximum viewing abilities which include:

Interactivity is further promoted through the following:

Sport fans need to see that scoreboard and by catering for the specific need, return visits to the Sky Sports website are guaranteed. Fun is another element of the site which ensures that users don’t only use it for the information, but also because they can enjoy a variety of quizzes and games including sport games and betting online.

User feedback is important for CRM in Internet marketing and once again the Sky Sports website comes through for its users through quick polls and surveys as well as allowing feedback, comments at blogs, and email contacting. In addition, the Sky Sports website also ensures convenience for the user, branding and the building of a loyal user base through the provision of RSS feeds and email account options.

When it comes to sports, fans will not settle for poor quality images and by offering amazing sports pictures with ALT tags and accompanied text descriptions the Sky Sports website does well in catering to the needs of its users. Packed with sought after tools and features such as photo galleries, mobile alerts, free videos, and the Sky Sportzine there will never be a dull moment at the website.

The combination of excellent lay-out, easy navigation, orientation help, assistance regarding downloads and software required, browser compatibility, impeccable language and grammar, as well as the inclusion of interactivity features as part of the Sky Sports website design contribute to its high standing at search engines and its popularity as an online sports resource.

Sound search engine optimisation methods should however, also be present and are used by the Sky Sports website as can be seen from the website analysis. The site further employs title tags, has a main keyword in its domain name and has excellent keyword placement as well. The site has a Google Page Rank (May 31, 2008) of 6. The incoming links from Google stand at 6 110 and the site is listed at DMOZ and Yahoo! Directory. Although JavaScript is employed in the website design as well as Flash, the website still does extremely well. A Metatag is present with the main keywords and an appropriate description. All of the above contribute to excellent SEO, website design, good quality content, and exceptional functionality.