You have the popular TV show, the top car magazine and also the online version of
Top Gear. Branding hasn’t stopped with traditional media and from user reviews it becomes evident that
the Top Gear website is just as popular as the printed form. The website analysis will focus on the
features that promote Internet Marketing through interactivity, branding, and usability. It will show
just why the Top Gear website is so popular with online users.
As a car related website, the Top Gear website has as its main audience male car lovers.
This does not mean that the ladies won’t find the site to be pure exhilaration and packed from page to page
with useful information, only that the website design includes some masculine qualities and that the content
speaks to the hearts and minds of car lovers.
Although the television show is not around anymore, the Top Gear website has made it
possible to enjoy some of the popular features of the show, whilst at the same time also taking the best
of the magazine to Internet users. With numerous reprints of articles originally forming part of the Top
Gear magazine, it is now possible to have the convenience of road test results on screen. The archive
houses in-depth analysis of group road assessments. Blogs ensure lively discussions and comments.
Users can also relive the popular TV show online and instead of laying to rest the
good moments, can benefit from great tips. The Top Gear website includes several useful features and simply
stated, superb content, ranging from investigating the latest trends and news in motoring, to the knowledge
shared by experts at the website.
Buyer guides are indispensable as selecting the vehicle that will give the performance
required, enhance your image, provide the practicality needed when having a family or top the economic fuel
usage rate, can be difficult. Not so when using the buyer guides at the Top Gear website. In addition, the
buyer guides also provide the much needed assistance for selecting vehicle finance, insurance and even
registration plates.
From the above discussion as part of the website analysis it is evident that when it
comes to content, which is an important consideration for evaluation of a website that the Top Gear website
is superb.
The presentation, usability, and access of the content however, should also form part
of a website analysis. If we look at the how fast the home page loads, even with the presence of loads of
images, it should already provide a clue to the ease of navigation that will follow. The Top Gear website
makes use of black and grey in its colour scheme which ensures visual attractiveness of the site. This may
hamper readability, but fortunately white text on dark grey does not seem to put a lot of strain on the eyes.
The lay-out of the pages is excellent. Columns are used where quick overviews are needed such as at the Top
Gear home page. Where there are full articles the column space is slightly smaller than for normal off screen
reading. This avoids the need for side scrolling. The articles are also written in a manner that makes
scanning of the content easier.
When it comes to accessibility through navigation the Top Gear website offers the
following features:
- Easy to use navigation menu with main categories only at the top of the page.
- Highlighting of current page in the menu.
- Guidance as to where the user is at the website.
- Large home link for getting back to the home page without having to use the back button.
- Site map organized according to main topics although it would have been helpful if it was broken up in more pages.
- Site search facility.
- Magazine type abstracts with text links.
- Clickable images which contain alternative text links as well.
Although the contact us page is comprehensive, there is no obvious help function for easier
browsing, text only versions or the browse aloud feature. The standard logo, license, copyright and terms and
conditions pages are present. Subscription and advertising options are clearly visible. Advertisements are labelled
to distinguish from content.
In terms of lay-out, website design for attractiveness, and content the Top Gear website performs
well. The website analysis shows that the website also performs well regarding search engine optimisation through
the inclusion of a site map, Meta tags with relevant keywords, title tags and alt tags used. It also contains enough
text for indexing by search engines. The domain is mature which provides it with credibility at search engines. It
is listed at DMOZ and Yahoo Directory, has more than 1400 back links from Google and had a Google Page Rank of 6 in
2007. If you love cars, this is one website you shouldn’t miss.
