Website Analysis 3 - www.cosmopolitan.com

 The Cosmopolitan website is designed to appeal specifically to younger women. Although the colour scheme is bland – plain black and white – there is an appeal based on the content of the website. It is less focused on the magazine itself, but rather on stories and their accompanying high quality images. The sections have a focus towards content that is likely to also feature within the physical magazine. These sections are targeted to young women; style, beauty, pop culture and similar topics are the primary focus of the tabs. Most of the content is either gossip focused, or appearance focused. Content such as love and astrology emphasise the magazine being provided to the younger audience. 

Cosmopolitan provides the option for readers to subscribe to its service. This helps to provide exclusivity to the fans who would be willing to pay. It acts as another source of revenue for the brand, outside of selling physical copies of the magazine in stores. At the bottom of the page, there are social media links which are targeted towards primarily women, with a slightly wider audience included. The primary links to target women are TikTok (888.1k followers), Pinterest (885.4k followers) and Instagram (4.3m followers). This allows Cosmopolitan to reach out to its audience, forming an official active audience through the use of online interaction. 

A black and white palette for the website is likely used to create a minimalist appeal. It emphasises a sense of sophistication, which is a key part of most fashion magazines’ brands. Moreover, it helps for content to stand out and prevents audiences from being overwhelmed. It is likely a primary feature of the style magazine industry to have websites in mostly black and white. 

Notably, Cosmopolitan features its own unique selling point on its website, allowing it to distinguish itself from other magazines within the industry. It advertises itself as “the global authority on love and relationships” - it claims it is the expert magazine in relation to these topics. This helps to emphasise the brand as a whole.  

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• Black and white layout – primarily picture focused 

• Many fashion magazines presumably keep their website simplistic – sophisticated and easy to view 

• Attention is supposed to be drawn to the images and stories, rather than the rest of the website 

• Likely targeted towards a younger female audience – content such as astrology and love  

 

• Subscription for readers – exclusivity for audiences who are clear fans of the magazine 

 

• Unique selling point to distinguish from other fashion magazines 

 

• Social media targeted towards women 

• TikTok: 888.1k followers 

• Pinterest: 885.4k 

• Instagram: 4.3m  

• Clear focus on the female audience in terms of creating the active audience