Overview
In this article, we’ll review DailyWritingTips.com. This perfectly named website’s purpose is to provide anyone who is required to write correct English with a continuous source of tips and writing techniques that will ensure self-improvement over time. In their own words: “Every day we publish a new article, with topics ranging from grammar to punctuation, from spelling to usage and vocabulary.” It’s worth noting that the content itself is 100% original and free, though there is a paid option which allows access to additional features and material. Let’s put this site under the microscope.
Visuals and Style
Visually, the site is your standard WordPress blog, albeit without any graphical component beside the those present in the banner ads. The theme uses a dual color scheme with high contrast and a lot of whitespace for ease of reading. The site itself is simple and highly accessible — it can be navigated easily using only the keyboard. The resulting site is, as you would expect, text-heavy; luckily the size of the font makes it easy to browse the content without a specific intent.
As with the majority of publisher’s website nowadays, dailywritingtips.com is paid for using ads from the Google network, as well as advertisement of the publisher’s own extended service offer. The amount of ads varies substantially from one page to the other. Some ads tend get in the way of the layout, which we found a little annoying, considering how simple it should be to fix those issues. Otherwise, visitors using mobile devices will find the website minimally responsive: the content blocks will stack properly, but there’s no mobile-specific feature designed to make it easier for visitors equipped only with a phone to locate content of interest.
Site Structure
The site is laid out in a very typical WordPress blog fashion. The homepage is populated with a list of the most recent articles. Each article is presented with the standard set of components: title, teaser, author and date of publication, read-more and comments counter links. Quick access to the most popular articles and listing by categories are available through blocks in the sidebar.
-
- The Home Page
-
- A Category Listing
-
- The About Page
-
- The Subscription Page
Content and Audience
The site has been around since 2007 and as of this writing, receives around 2 million visits a month, which is quite substantial considering the niche it targets. The publisher has a very good reputation and is looked up and often referenced by many bloggers as one of their main source of tips.
Each article is relatively lengthy (500-800 words on average). The content targets standard English; users might find that it has a tendency to use British variants, since the majority of the site’s editors live in Europe. The prose is consistent across, as the content is written solely by the 5 editors: there are no guest postings and the only source of user-generated content can be found in the curated comment threads that live underneath each article. As with many websites of similar nature, a lot of good information can be found in the comment threads, so those should not be ignored.
As a result, the overall content is well researched and sufficiently entertaining to retain the reader’s attention. This general approach makes for content that is of hight value
for visitors who want to dig into a particular subject; on the other hand, users looking for highly structured, segregated information about a single subject (wikipedia-style) might find the path to immediate knowledge relatively tortuous. The internal search engine relies entirely on WordPress’ basic settings: there are no advanced options available. Users looking for a particular subject might be better off using a generic search engine, as those often do a better job for this purpose.
Conclusion
DailyWritingTips.com is a great source of information if you love the English language and you need to improve your writing skills in different contexts. Making a habit of visiting the site on a regular basis will undoubtedly provide visitors with the maximum amount of benefits. Users looking for very specific information or quick answers sporadically will probably find more suitable resources elsewhere.
Rating
Visuals: 3.5/5
Style: 3/5
Structure: 3.5/5
Content: 4/5
Score: 3.5/5