Ladies’ Home Journal Website Review

Ladies' Home Journal magazine's website

I'll admit it: I read women's magazines. It's my guilty pleasure, my escape from the testosterone in my house (I have two boys). So I welcomed the chance to review the website for Ladies' Home Journal. I've picked up the print magazine a few times at checkout registers. It's usually filled with helpful advice geared toward making my life easier-quick and efficient cleaning tips, easy recipes, parenting and relationship suggestions, and sensible beauty and fashion advice. The site includes all of the usual expected topics, but there's so much more. I was surprised by how much content there was on the site. If I wasn't so partial to the feel of glossy paper between my fingers, I could spend days exploring lhj.com.

Strength of Content: 8
This site offers a wealth of content on topics related to style, health, relationships and food. There are slideshows, informative articles, blogs revealing the latest news and a database of recipes. Games, quizzes and videos round out the offerings.

One of the most built-up aspects of the site is an expansion of the print LHJ series "Can This Marriage Be Saved?", which features married couples and their counselors as they try to work out common marital problems. The topics and the advice are informative and helpful. These articles get a lot of comments from readers. There are also links to videos that open in a new window. When I first clicked on one of the Top 5 stories, I didn't know what I was in for: The link takes you to a dramatic re-enactment of a he said/she said commentary, done in a style similar to a segment on Dateline. It was fresh, surprising and a nice addition to the print article. And I'm glad it opens in a separate window, which reveals more videos for this series available for viewing.

My only complaint about the content is that it's a bit difficult to tell what's the latest information and what has been leveraged from the print magazine. One article on how to de-clutter had a link from the homepage when I was browsing, but it was first published in January 2009. This sparked comments from other readers suggesting that the tips and photos be updated.

Ease of Use and Navigation: 7
There's so much content on this site that it becomes unwieldy trying to navigate through it all. There's a navigation bar at the top; then, each section has a navigation bar running down the left side, which breaks down even further into subtopics. Check out this page for Beauty, under Style. And once you enter one of these different sections, you have to click on the magazine's masthead to return to the homepage. If you know what you're looking for or are in the mood to browse, the navigation's not a deal-breaker. But there is definitely room for improvement.

Use of New Technology: 8
There's a lot of technology on these pages: games, videos, tools and resources. Watch webisodes on better.tv, upload an image of yourself to try on different hairstyles or enter your measurements to do some virtual shopping. Set up a personalized weight loss plan and then share photos with your friends.

Design and Layout: 3
Sadly, LHJ's superior content and use of technology do not translate to a beautifully designed site. There's just too much going on! Everything is segmented out into blocks, with lots of ads and tons of links to other areas of the site. Some of the ads have continuously moving pictures or graphics, which is really distracting when you're trying to read an article or browse through a slideshow. I'm having trouble concentrating on writing this review thanks to the flashing images of a model's ever-changing hairstyle. And they're not making full use of their space. There are those outmoded strips of nothing on the sides of the visible page. It doesn't give air to the page; it just makes the usable space appear that much more crowded.

Level of Social Media Sophistication: 10
LHJ is definitely working its social media. The Ladies' Lounge features new blog posts quite regularly, averaging three a week. Various editors and contributors take turns writing these blogs and tweeting the latest news from their offices. They give updates on beauty and fashion news, as well as opportunities for readers to "Do Good" (a series of blogs letting readers know about things they can do to help various charities, such as buying certain products or attending benefit concerts). The editor even solicited questions from readers when she was prepping for an interview with Michelle Obama. There are numerous forums with regular postings. And LHJ has close to 4,000 friends on Facebook. It also uses its Community-centered site to link to other sites that might be of interest to its audience.

Overall Score: 36

Posted By: Melissa Bragg