We usually write CSS website reviews for small businesses, nonprofits, and the small ventures that seem to be doing the most interesting things with CSS. However, this website review is for a venture that we all will recognize (especially after last spring): the British Monarchy. That’s right, folks, this is the website of the Queen of England.

Website Address: http://www.royal.gov.uk/

The Queen of England is not exactly considered the most modern character, but the website is very well done. It includes a variety of pictures, information on the history of the monarchy, information on the Commonwealth, and a database of information including all of the Queen’s modern-day speeches. If a person wanted to learn about the monarchy and had no interest in tabloid gossip, this would be the place to start.

The photos used throughout the website are lovely and indeed present the Queen and her family in the best possible light. The Queen seems to be quite the trooper, shown in a variety of not-fun-looking official situations.

While we can always come up with areas to criticize, the fact is that this is a website that simply has to be a little stuffy, a little fastidious to the less tradition-bound Americans among us. It is difficult for an American to understand the complicated nature of the monarchy, but this website really helped.

Creativity: 4 stars. The website has a pretty boring color scheme, but this is not an artist’s website after all. Even so, we think that this website could do well to have a few more fun elements rather than fact after fact. One interesting element that may or may not have been intentional is a slight difference in color scheme from page to page. The home page is blue, but other pages have royal purple (no pun intended) and some a duskier blue.

Ease of use: 4 stars. This website’s categories feel a little gratuitous—that is, they don’t feel logical to those of us who are not familiar with the British Monarchy. Because these people are the ones or whom the website was likely intended, this is unfortunate.

Functionality:  5 stars. Did you know the Queen has a Facebook? This just one fun function of the website. It also has a map with parts of the Commonwealth (what we used to call the British Empire) marked and even a list of vacancies for Palace staff. However you want to interact with the British Monarch, you surely will find a way here.

Content: 4 stars. All wording is impeccable; after all, it is called the Queen’s English after all. The writing may be a little too formal at times. A job announcement, for example, does not have to be quite so stuffy.

Appropriateness: 5 stars. This website, for all of its stiffness and formality, is absolutely perfect for its subject. Whether you are familiar with the Queen or not, you will find this an educational corner of the web.

Overall: 4.4 out of 5 stars

Related posts:

1. The Key to a UK Branded Website?
2. Branding Your Website
3. The Queen’s Logo Design

According to the latest research at Sedo, a domain marketplace, there is one essential way of establishing your business as a player on the UK market: having a .uk website. Two thirds of people who responded to the survey felt that having a specifically British website extension made them feel more trusting and secure at a business website. This may be bad news for companies that have been using other web extensions such as .com, .org, .biz, and .eu. However, developing a website branded specifically for your UK audience can take your business to a level of success that you never may have imagined.

Your website branding is essential to its success—and often, that of your business as well. First, people must be able to look at your website and identify it with your brand. This can be done through prominently displaying a logo design and using brand colours, but there are other aspects as well. Because your brand makes a promise and a bold statement about your business’s personality, you must be sure that these are carried over into your website as well.

Another important part of your business website’s brand is how often it inspires sales, also known as its conversion rate. Raising your number of conversions can be accomplished by carefully wording your landing page as well as by having a web design professional design your site to create a sense of urgency in the viewer. Again, the logo is a key part of this equation, because an effective logo design will inspire people to invest their hard earned cash in your products.

Your domain name is another crucial part of your website’s brand. Ideally, your web address should be yourbusiness.uk for a British landing page with variations for pages that are created to attract customers from other countries. This will give you the credibility of this UK specific web extension without limiting your company from international expansion.

However strong the .uk domain extension may be, the .com extension is not going anywhere, with eighty percent of business websites worldwide using this generic yet well recognized gold standard. Two thirds of the remainder have top level domains such as .org and .eu. However, it is easy to see that people in London and the UK are looking for something a little closer to home. By adopting a specifically British website with a professional logo design and a British web address extension, you can speak directly to consumers in the UK while making other provisions for those located elsewhere.

The most important part of having a website that reaches out successfully to customers in the UK is having your logo, brand, and website designed by a logo design agency that is based in your country. Only a UK agency can understand the unique marketing issues of the British, as well as unique cultural differences between us and the rest of the world. While there is definitely a time and place for going global, sometimes home truly is where the heart is—and where the profits are as well.

Related posts:

1. The British Monarchy Website Review
2. Branding Your Website
3. UK Auto Website Gets New, User Friendly Logo