Website Publishing Paper 1: Content, Popularity & Traffic Paper Support

1. Noah Cooper
Intro to Web Publishing: Content, Popularity & Traffic Support
Gillette Venus Content & Traffic Analysis
Industry Overview
The direct-to-consumer razor blade industry provides an easy and affordable way for
consumers to purchase razors online (Startups Shook up the Sleepy Razor Market. Here's What's
next). Razors can be purchased directly from the company, and get delivered to the customer’s
doorstep within days. Instead of consumers having to take time out of their busy lives to drive to
the store and purchase shaving products such as razors, the direct-to-consumer industry provides
them with the opportunity to do so within minutes from almost anywhere. This process cuts out
the middleman, such as retailers like Wal-Mart or Target. Aside from convenience, the direct-to-
consumer business model also allows both businesses and consumers to save money.
Company Information
Gillette Venus is one of many direct-to-consumer razor companies competing near the
top of the industry. Gillette Venus allows its customers to choose from either a basic starter kit or
a customization plan when purchasing online. The Venus starter kit begins at $7 a month and
allows for color customization on the razor handle. The options include colors from more of a
“female friendly” palette including mint, green, and pink. Aside from the color customization,
the starter kit comes with a holding hook for the shower, shave gel from Venus and Olay, and an
extra smooth five bladed refill.

2. The package also allows customers to pick from a variety of delivery options based on
how often each customer shaves. The options include once a month delivery for everyday
shavers, two month delivery for people who shave a few times each week, and three month
delivery for individuals who shave once a week. Finally, the starter kit allows for the purchase of
accessories including extra shaving cream, travel handles, body wash, body lotion, and face
products. However, half of these accessory products are currently sold out on the Gillette Venus
website. Accessory products range from $3-$8 on the site. Aside from the $7 purchase upfront
for the starter kit, the recurring 4-count blade refills of the product are $15 with each delivery.
The customization plan features a variety of blade options along with accessories for a
better shaving experience. The higher the price, the more Gillette Venus includes in the package.
The cheapest customization option alone features a higher price-point than the basic starter kit, at
$10 upfront for the smooth original blade. The second option is a smooth sensitive blade for $17.
The next option is the ComfortGlide White Tea blade, which includes three bladed refills as well
as flexible soap bars. The last three options all feature a $23 price point. The first is an extra
smooth blade, which comes with five bladed refills. The next option is an extra smooth sensitive
razor, with five refills and various other inclusions The final option of Gillette Venus’s
customization plan includes a Comfortglide blade plus Olay coconut. It also comes with five
refills and flexible moisture bar that releases Olay butter. Each customization plan also allows
for the purchase of a platinum handle for an extra $2 upfront.
Gillette Venus’s products can either be purchased online either on the Venus website,
gillettevenus.com, or various other online locations such as Amazon. Venus products can also be
found in a number of traditional box-stores and drugstores around the world, such as Dollar
General, Walmart, CVS, and more. However, customers won’t get the same customization

3. options they would find on gillettevenus.com, when buying online via another retailer or in store.
When compared to other razor companies that specifically target women, Gillette Venus features
the ability to add accessories from outside brands such as Olay onto an order. The Wire Cutter
also reviewed one Gillette Venus razor as having the most “lubrication and flexibility” of any
razor, making it easier to shave hard to reach areas of the body (Imbler, Sabrina).
Unlike some other direct-to-consumer razor blade companies, Gillette Venus mainly only
markets to women. The Venus website features bright colors, numerous images of women, and
quotes from women who use Venus razors. In this aspect they set themselves apart from some of
their competition like Dollar Shave Club and Harry’s. Both of these companies offer facial and
shower shaving products on their websites, which drastically varies from the seemingly all
women-centric branding and products Venus sells. This is more than likely not the best way for
Venus to set themselves apart from other companies, due to a large audience Venus could be
tapping into when excluding an entire group from its branding.
Brand Trust & Authority
Gillette Venus is authority on its topic, based on the expertise of the company, given how
long they have been in the razor industry. Gillette alone has been in the razor industry since the
early 1900s (Gillette and TerraCycle Partner to Make All Razors Nationally Recyclable).
Throughout the years, the company has served over 800 million customers around the world with
a variety of shaving products including razors, foams, creams, and gels (Gillette and TerraCycle
Partner to Make All Razors Nationally Recyclable). Gillette is also owned by one of the leading
Fortune 500 companies, Proctor & Gamble. P&G has locations in over 70 countries around the
world (Gillette and TerraCycle Partner to Make All Razors Nationally Recyclable). Gillette
Venus has been around for much longer than a number of competing direct-to-consumer razor

4. brands. They first launched nearly twenty years ago, in 2001 (Designed Just for Women: Gillette
Venus). Given each company’s vast history in the razor/shaving industry, along with the wide
reach of P&G, the companies have been able grow their brand trust to be known as an authority,
due to the long and successful history.
A number of trusted news sources have also written reviews and opinions on Venus
products. The Gillette Venus Original was reviewed as the best all-around body razor by the
New York Times owned company, Wirecutter, in 2019 (Imbler, Sabrina). Venus razors have also
been covered by Business Insider, the Wall Street Journal, Yahoo Finance and many others.
Major co-signs from trusted news sources such as the New York Times owned company,
Wirecutter, have allowed overall brand trust for Gillette Venus to increase over time, given the
credibility of a company like the New York Times’s support of Venus products. The Venus
website also includes a number of awards and reviews given out by magazines and websites,
including Refinery 29, Allure, and totalbeauty.com (Venus).
Competing Site
One competing site, Billie, offers similar services in the razor blade industry and price
points when compared to Gillette Venus. Both sites run direct-to-consumer, and feature a
majority of branding marketed towards women. Billie’s starter kit is slightly more expensive
than Gillette Venus at $9 for two 5-blade razors, a magnetic shower holder, and one handle. Like
Gillette Venus, Billie gives the option of choosing between different handle colors. However,
Billie offers six different handle color options, compared to Venus’s three in its starter kit. Billie
also offers the same delivery methods of once per month, every two months, or every three
months. Each Billie shipment comes with four replacement blades, no matter which delivery

5. option a customer chooses. Both sites also offer accessories, but Billie only offers a shaving
cream and a travel case, compared to the eight products offered by Venus.
The biggest difference between the two direct-to-consumer razor companies is the
available options. Mybillie.com offers more of a minimal approach to shaving products. They
only feature one starter kit option, and offer less customization options in orders outside of the
razor handle’s color. The prices between the two companies are similar for the starter kits, but
Billie’s option would be cheaper in the long run when compared to Venus, because it is only $9
for each delivery. On the other hand, Venus’s basic starter kit costs $15 for each 4 blade
delivery.
My Billie is currently owned by its co-founder Gerogina Gooley. This is a stark contrast
when compared to the ownership of Gillette Venus, which is owned by a major fortune 500
company in Proctor & Gamble. However, it has been reported by a number of news
organizations such as Business Wire, Yahoo Finance, Forbes, and Fox Business, as of last
month, that P&G has plans to obtain Billie in the near future. This could mean both direct-to-
consumer razor businesses could quickly be owned by the same company before long.
Quality Content Assessment
Content Overview: The Gillette Venus home page does not include a lot of text or information
about the product, which I find strange, but feels warm and inviting due to the large image of the
smiling women models on the beach beneath the text. The content Venus’s site includes the most
of are images, along with descriptive text about the product, company, and reviews. A majority
of the informational content can be found once a specific razor plan is chosen. Not only are there
pictures of every razor option available, but there are clear descriptions of what each razor head

6. and kit includes. The site also includes a slideshow of magazine reviews on the homepage, and
the ability to sign up for Venus’s monthly email club. Finally, the site offers various tabs near the
top of the screen where users can go to find out more information for tips when shaving, contact
information, find more information about the company, or read customer reviews.
Value-Added Content: Gillette Venus includes some value added content throughout the
website. Value added content is content that adds value for the consumer. Examples of this might
include images, charts, videos, interactive portions of the site, and more. This content adds value
the visitors might need to know, such as how often a visitor needs to change razors, how the
product works, reviews of the product, and more.
The reviews tab on the Venus website, shown above in examples from two screenshots, fits the
description of value added content. This tab includes various reviews including both customer
reviews and magazine reviews. The magazine awards and reviews section offers links to outside

7. sources that give positive reviews of Venus products. This section features an interactive
slideshow where users can click through four reviews. The customer reviews under the magazine
reviews and awards section on the Venus website only highlights positive reviews from
customers. These reviews almost seem forced in the way they are presented to the visitor,
because there is no specific rating system, and only highlights from a short quote about why the
customer enjoys the product is shown. However, according to Sumo, positive reviews have been
shown to be the number one factor customers consider when buying a product online (Misenas,
JP). The decision to include the positive reviews on the site instead of some negative opinions
from customers was more than likely based on similar data.
TRAFFIC ANALYSIS
Visit Analysis
Definitions: To better understand the data above, it is important to know the definitions of
monthly visits, unique visitors, and unique users. Gillettevenus.com saw an average of 146,600
monthly visits to the site in the last six months (Traffic Analytics: Gillettevenus.com). A visit on
a website is the number of times users visited the site during a month. Each user should not be
seen as an individual person, but instead, an individual device such as a smartphone or laptop
that visits the site. Gillette Venus then had an average of 135,183 unique visitors over the last six
months (Traffic Analytics: Gillettevenus.com). A unique visitor is each unique user who visits
the site. Finally, Venus had an average of 1.084 visits per unique user (Traffic Analytics:
gillettevenus.com mybillie.com
6-Month Average Monthly Visits 146,600 555,550
6-Month Average Unique Visitors 135,183 327,350
Average Visits Per Unique User 1.084 1.697

8. Gillettevenus.com). This represents the number of times each unique user visited the site per
month.
Comparison: When comparing gillettevenus.com and mybillie.com, a vast difference can be
found in nearly every visit statistic. Billie saw an average of 408,950 more average monthly
visits over the past six months than Gillette Venus. Billie also had 192,167 more average unique
visitors in the previous six months. Finally, Billie had a higher average of visits per unique user
at 1.697. These statistics show that by every margin, Billie has the upper hand against Venus in
visit statistics. This could be from a variety of factors including advertising, marketing, and the
value added content included on each site. Billie’s trendy packaging and cheaper prices, fewer
options, and cheaper cost could also be a contributing factor as to why mybillie.com outpaced
gillettevenus.com by such a wide margin in the six month averages in every category listed
above.
Returning Visitors: Visits per unique user is found by dividing the 6-month average monthly
visits by the 6-month average monthly visitors. Gillette Venus only has an average of 1.08 visits
per unique user over the previous six months (Traffic Analytics: Gillettevenus.com). This
number shows that a majority of individuals who visit the site, do not come back a second time.
The average visits per unique user is hardly over one visit, meaning each user only visits the site
one time before not using the site again. Returning visitors provide value to a business, because
the more often customers visit a site, the more likely they are to be engaged with and purchase
the product again. Gillette Venus could be experiencing such a low returning visitor rate, because
of a higher price point than other direct-to-consumer razor companies, and less value added
content keeping visitors involved on the site.
Engagement Analysis

9. Bounce Rate: The bounce rate percentage of a website represents when a consumer only visits
one page before exiting. When compared to the web average, both gillettevenus.com and
mybillie.com have a higher average bounce rate over the past six months. Both sites are more
than double the web average. However, Venus has the highest average bounce rate by more than
twelve percent over Billie (Traffic Analytics: Gillettevenus.com).
Venus has a 76.35% average bounce rate during the last six months, while Billie has a
64.19% average bounce rate over the same time period (Traffic Analytics: Gillettevenus.com).
This percentage means more users exited Venus after only accessing one page when compared to
Billie. The screenshot above might be example of why the average bounce rate on Venus is so
high. This image is placed right on the home page provides no links, information, interaction,
and is not engaging for the user. No information about the product is told by a picture such as
this. Fewer opportunities for interaction on the website on the homepage, with little value added
content, could be attributed to the higher bounce rate
gillettevenus.com mybillie.com
Web
Averages
Bounce Rate (%) 76.35 64.19 30
Pages Per Visit 1.74 3.14 4.6
Average Visit Duration (sec) 65 172 190

10. Pages Per Visit: Pages per visit is defined by the amount of webpages on a site an individual
visits each time they visit the site. The web average is 4.6 pages per visit. Both gilletevenus.com
and mybillie.com are below the average in pages per visit when compared to the web average.
Venus averages 1.74 pages by visit, while Billie averages 3.14 (Traffic Analytics:
Gillettevenus.com).
The pages per visit for both companies is likely a bad sign for the company overall.
Although, its less likely to affect Billie, because its webpage is close to the web average, whereas
Venus is well below the average. The decreased page visits could be from the lack of value
content such as an abundance of interaction, videos, and longer product descriptions. Both sites,
in this aspect, lack the explanation of more than just simple descriptions of the product, and give
no real reason the consumer would need to spend extra time on the site. These sites are also
drastically different from news organizations or blogs where an individual might click around for
hours reading stories or posts. I would expect someone shopping for razors to already have a
general idea of the product they are looking for, and would not need to spend as much time
visiting an abundance of pages on the site to purchase the product. One final reason the pages per
visit is below average for Venus, could come from customers only visiting their shipment page
or purchase confirmation page to find out when they will receive the product next or when their
shipment will be sent the following month. This scenario would not be as bad for Venus, since
these customers already purchased the product and are just visiting one page for additional
information regarding their order of Venus products.
Average Visit Duration: The average visit duration is defined as the average time spent on the
site by a user. The web average for visit duration is 190 seconds. Mybillie.com is relatively close
to the web average for visit duration at 172 seconds (Traffic Analytics: Gillettevenus.com).

11. Gillettevenus.com, on the other hand, is well below the web average at only 65 seconds spent on
the site per visit, on average. (Traffic Analytics: Gillettevenus.com).
Gillette Venus’s average visit duration is well below the overall web average, which can
be seen as a bad sign for the website. Again, this could be due to the lack of value added content
on the site. Gillettevenus.com only gives simple descriptions of its products with only three
bullet points about each razor. While the website does have pictures of women, none of these
images help add any additional information about shaving.
The screenshot above shows where shaving information that visitors need to know would be
located. This information is positioned under the help tab near the top of the page. One of the
positives about the shaving tips section is the amount of articles provided with valuable
information. However, it would take users a few clicks to be able to see the information they
might want to know. Since the bounce rate of Gillette Venus is so high, most users will not even
be finding this information before they leave the site entirely.

12. Visitors need to be able to watch videos, share the product, or use some sort of interactive
features on a website to stay engaged and involved on the site. Consumers need to make a few
clicks before they are actually able to find this content, which may be one of the reasons
contributing to why the average visit duration is much lower than the web average. One positive
addition on the website is the inclusion of videos, as shown by the screenshot above. Customers
are able to share their stories about why they use Venus razors. Once again, this information is
not on the home page, which may be a contributing factor to the low visit duration. Overall,
outside of shaving tips and a few short videos, the website provides very little towards user
experience to enhance the visit duration of the site.
Value Content and Engagement Improvement Recommendation
When deciding on a meaningful piece of content I believe would improve the
engagement metrics on gillettevenus.com, I went to other popular direct-to-consumer shaving
companies. Dollar Shave Club has a larger market share than any other direct-to-consumer
shaving company, so I wanted to find out why their brand was so popular, and what could have
made their site so engaging for consumers (Trop, Jaclyn). The biggest factor I noticed was how
the front page of Dollar Shave Club’s website got right down to the basics of why people would
be on the site in the first place. Instead of providing its potential or returning customers with

13. seemingly useless pictures of people, Dollar Shave Club’s homepage makes its users fill out a
short questionnaire about what body parts a specific user might shave, issues they have had in
the past with shaving, what other body care products they already use, and more, as shown by the
screenshots below. This way, Dollar Shave Club can take the results from the survey and give its
customers an idea of what products might best suit them.
One 2018 consumer research report about product experience and customer trust found
that 78% of consumers are more likely to buy a product if there is more personally relevant
product page content (Why Product Experiences Are What Win Consumer Trust in the Digital
Age). The addition of a customer survey might be as personal as it gets for some visitors, and
could lead to a higher chance of a potential purchase of Venus products. Another report, by
Digiday, found the New York times had an average 89 million unique visitors per month (Benes,
Ross). Digiday estimates the high number of average unique visitors per month could be related
to the Times’ inclusion of interactive charts and other value added content on its site (Benes,
Ross). Adding this survey would add to the interactive content Gillette Venus currently lacks.
My proposal for engagement improvement would be for Gillette Venus would add a
questionnaire on its homepage. Users would have no choice but to stay involved and interact
with the content to obtain the products they came to purchase or look into in the first place.

14. Example questions would be extremely similar to Dollar Shave Club’s questionnaire. Questions
would include asking customers what part of their body they shave, if they have any issues when
shaving, and what products they came for. Engagement metrics such as average visit duration
would likely go up due to the time it takes to fill out the survey and learn about the suggested
products.
POPULARITY ANALYSIS
Definitions: The data above shows that gilletteenus.com currently has over three times as many
backlinks as mybillie.com. In total, gillettevenus.com has 35,400 total backlinks, while
mybillie.com has 11,700 backlinks (Backlink Gap). A backlink is a link on one website that links
back to another site. In this case, it would be a webpage which incorporates a link that links back
to gilletevenus.com or mybillie.com. Venus also has a higher number of referring domains, or
web addresses, with 2,200 (Backlink Gap). Billie, on the other hand, has 1,500 referring domains
(Backlink Gap). Finally, Venus also has a higher average number of backlinks per domain than
Billie. The average number of backlinks per domain can be found by taking the total backlinks
divided by the number of referring domains. In total, gillettevenus.com has an average 16.1
backlinks per domain, while mybillie.com has an average of 7.8 backlinks per domain (Backlink
Gap).
Analysis of Link Quantity: As mentioned above, gillettevenus.com has far more total backlinks
than mybillie.com does, however that number does not tell the whole story. First, Gillette Venus
Total
Backlinks
No. of Referring
Domains
Average No.
of Backlinks
per Domain
gillettevenus.com 35,400 2,200 16.09
mybillie.com 11,700 1,500 7.80

15. has been around longer than Billie has been. By the time Billie had its first backlink in
November of 2017, Venus already had over 24,000 backlinks to its site (Backlink Gap). Since
then, both have steadily grown the numbers of backlinks to the respective sites at nearly the same
pace. At its peak in December 2019, Venus had its most backlinks at nearly 47,000, but has since
seen a sharp decline, allowing the difference between Venus and Billie to be closer than ever
before (Backlink Gap).
Another reason for the large difference in total number of backlinks, is ownership.
Gillette Venus, as mentioned earlier, is owed by an extremely large parent company in Proctor &
Gamble. P&G is able to provide numerous links back to Gillette Venus on sites across the globe
because of their reach. Venus can be linked on a number of press releases by P&G and numerous
stories about Proctor & Gamble, making its reach wider pertaining to backlinks.
Analysis of Link Quality: The top ten referring domains for gillettevenus.com are nearly all
similar. Seven of the ten referring domains for Gillette Venus are other gillettevenus.com URLs
from around the world (Backlink Gap). Some of the countries on the list include Russia, Poland,
Portugal, and more. The other three referring domains do not seem high quality, and are not
sources with restricted domains. Billie, on the other hand, has one referring domain in its top ten
from a restricted domain, “nationaleatingdisorders.org” (Backlink Gap). As mentioned earlier,
since Billie is not yet owned by a parent company, such as P&G, they do not have any referring
domains similar to Gillette Venus where a majority of its referring domains come from similar
website URLs across the globe from essentially the same website. In conclusion, mybillie.com
seems to have a better variety of referring domains in its top ten, as well as higher quality
referring domains with the inclusion of a restricted domain.

16. Works Cited
“Backlink Gap.” SEMrush, SEMrush, Jan. 2020,
www.semrush.com/analytics/gap/backlinks/?q=gillettevenus.com&searchType=domain&c
ompareWith=mybillie.com%3Adomain&range=all&sort_field=backlinksnum.
“Backlinks: Gillettevenus.com .” SEMrush, SEMrush, Jan. 2020,
www.semrush.com/analytics/backlinks/overview/?q=gillettevenus.com&searchType=dom
ain&compareWith=mybillie.com%3Adomain.
“Designed Just for Women: Gillette Venus.” Designed Just for Women | Gillette Venus,
www.gillettevenus.com.au/en-au/about-venus-history.
Gillette and TerraCycle Partner to Make All Razors Nationally Recyclable | P&G News | Events,
Multimedia, Public Relations, Proctor & Gamble, 9 Sept. 2019, news.pg.com/press-
release/pg-corporate-announcements/gillette-and-terracycle-partner-make-all-razors-
nationally-.
Imbler, Sabrina. “The Best Women's Razors (for Every Body) for 2020.” Wirecutter, 19 June
2019, thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-womens-razors-for-every-body/.
Misenas, JP. “How To Use Product Reviews To Sell Your Ecommerce Products.” Sumo, Sumo, 19
Jan. 2019, sumo.com/stories/ecommerce-product-reviews.
“Startups Shook up the Sleepy Razor Market. Here's What's next.” CNBC, CNBC, 26 Sept. 2018,
www.cnbc.com/2018/09/26/startups-shook-up-the-sleepy-razor-market-whats-next.html.
“Traffic Analytics: Gillettevenus.com.” SEMrush, SEMrush, Jan. 2020,
www.semrush.com/analytics/traffic/overview/gillettevenus.com?competitor=mybillie.com.
Trop, Jaclyn. “How Dollar Shave Club's Founder Built a $1 Billion Company That Changed the
Industry.” Entrepreneur, Entrepreneur, 28 Mar. 2017,
www.entrepreneur.com/article/290539.
Venus, Gillette Venus, www.gillettevenus.com/en-us/.
“Why Product Experiences Are What Win Consumer Trust in the Digital Age.” Salsify, Salsify,
2018,
www.salsify.com/hubfs/2018%20Consumer%20Research%20Report/2018%20Consumer
%20Research%20Report%20-%20Final.pdf.
Benes, Ross. “How The New York Times gets people to spend 5 minutes per visit on its site.”
Digiday, Digiday, Dec. 21, 2017,
file:///C:/Users/s526603/Downloads/How%20The%20New%20York%20Times%20gets%
20people%20to%20spend%205%20minutes%20per%20visit%20on%20its%20site.pdf.