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writing.com website review

Visit site (opens in a new tab)Reviewed 11 October 202618 issues · 66 checks

This review found 18 issues worth fixing on writing.com, 1 of them high impact, across 66 checks. The most urgent: fails Core Web Vitals for real visitors. Your full playbook turns these into prioritised fixes alongside reviews, competitors and channels.

  1. Homepage
  2. Phone render
  3. Links and pages
  4. Google PageSpeed

Google PageSpeed Insights (opens in a new tab), mobile

Site score

92A

Closest competitors among reviewed websites

Compare side by side
Real-visitor load time (LCP)75th percentile, phones
572 ms507 msApr 18Oct 3514 ms
Show as table
DateReal-visitor load time (LCP)
Apr 18, 2026516 ms
Apr 25, 2026517 ms
May 2, 2026520 ms
May 9, 2026532 ms
May 16, 2026544 ms
May 23, 2026546 ms
May 30, 2026557 ms
Jun 6, 2026558 ms
Jun 13, 2026559 ms
Jun 20, 2026564 ms
Jun 27, 2026562 ms
Jul 4, 2026558 ms
Jul 11, 2026556 ms
Jul 18, 2026545 ms
Jul 25, 2026540 ms
Aug 1, 2026539 ms
Aug 8, 2026535 ms
Aug 15, 2026535 ms
Aug 22, 2026536 ms
Aug 29, 2026535 ms
Sep 5, 2026531 ms
Sep 12, 2026534 ms
Sep 19, 2026542 ms
Sep 26, 2026534 ms
Oct 3, 2026514 ms
Real-visitor tap response (INP)75th percentile, phones
70 ms64 msApr 18Oct 368 ms
Show as table
DateReal-visitor tap response (INP)
Apr 18, 202667 ms
Apr 25, 202668 ms
May 2, 202667 ms
May 9, 202667 ms
May 16, 202667 ms
May 23, 202668 ms
May 30, 202669 ms
Jun 6, 202669 ms
Jun 13, 202669 ms
Jun 20, 202669 ms
Jun 27, 202668 ms
Jul 4, 202668 ms
Jul 11, 202667 ms
Jul 18, 202666 ms
Jul 25, 202665 ms
Aug 1, 202666 ms
Aug 8, 202667 ms
Aug 15, 202667 ms
Aug 22, 202667 ms
Aug 29, 202667 ms
Sep 5, 202667 ms
Sep 12, 202667 ms
Sep 19, 202667 ms
Sep 26, 202668 ms
Oct 3, 202668 ms

Chrome UX Report (opens in a new tab): real Chrome visitors over rolling 28-day periods.

One score from every part of this review. How it works

www.writing.com (opens in a new tab)
Full-page screenshot of writing.com (desktop) rendered by Google PageSpeed Insights

How it loaded on a phone

  1. writing.com at 0.4 s0.4 s
  2. writing.com at 0.8 s0.8 s
  3. writing.com at 1.1 s1.1 s
  4. writing.com at 1.5 s1.5 s
  5. writing.com at 1.9 s1.9 s
  6. writing.com at 2.3 s2.3 s
  7. writing.com at 2.6 s2.6 s
  8. writing.com at 3.0 s3.0 s

Speed

1 to fix99

  • Improve image delivery

    300 ms · 187 KiB

    5 images could be 187 KiB smaller with modern formats (WebP or AVIF) and sizes that fit a phone screen. Google estimates it would make the page about 300 ms faster on a phone.

  • Use efficient cache lifetimes

    12 KiB

    7 files are served with short cache lifetimes, so returning visitors download them again (12 KiB).

3 checks passed

  • Mobile performance score: 99

    99/100

    Your mobile performance score is 99 (desktop: 100). That is in Google's “good” band (90 and up).

  • Main-thread work: 0.1 s

    A phone's processor spends 0.1 s on main-thread work while loading, 9 ms of it running JavaScript. That is comfortably low.

  • Server response: 2 ms

    2 ms

    Your server sent the HTML in 2 ms, well inside Google's 600 ms guideline.

Core Web Vitals

3 to fix100

  • Fails Core Web Vitals for real visitors

    Real Chrome users on phones do not pass Google's Core Web Vitals on this page (28-day field data from the Chrome UX Report (opens in a new tab)). Google uses this in ranking.

  • Real-user TTFB: 888 ms

    888 ms

    Real visitors wait 888 ms for your server to start answering (75th percentile). Good is under 800 ms.

  • 1 image without width and height

    1 image have no width and height attributes, so the layout jumps as each one loads.

  • Tap response (INP) held steady for real visitors

    +1%

    Over the last 25 four-week periods to 2026-10-03, real Chrome visitors' tap response (inp) went from 67 ms to 68 ms at the 75th percentile (Chrome UX Report (opens in a new tab) history).

  • Largest content (LCP) held steady for real visitors

    +1%

    Over the last 25 four-week periods to 2026-10-03, real Chrome visitors' largest content (lcp) went from 0.5 s to 0.5 s at the 75th percentile (Chrome UX Report (opens in a new tab) history).

10 checks passed

  • Real-user LCP: 1.6 s

    1.6 s

    Real visitors wait 1.6 s for the largest content to appear (75th percentile). Good is under 2.5 s.

  • Real-user INP: 97 ms

    97 ms

    Real visitors wait 97 ms for the page to respond to a tap (75th percentile). Good is under 200 ms.

  • Real-user CLS: 0.00

    0.00

    For real visitors the layout shifts by 0.00 (75th percentile). Good is under 0.1.

  • Real-user FCP: 1.5 s

    1.5 s

    Real visitors see the first content after 1.5 s (75th percentile). Good is under 1.8 s.

  • Largest Contentful Paint: 2.0 s

    2.0 s

    Your largest element renders in 2.0 s on a phone, inside Google's 2.5 s “good” threshold. The largest element is the image “Writing.Com”.

  • Time to Interactive: 2.0 s

    2.0 s

    The page is fully interactive after 2.0 s.

  • Cumulative Layout Shift: 0

    0

    The layout barely moves while loading (CLS 0, good is under 0.1).

  • First Contentful Paint: 0.8 s

    0.8 s

    The first text or image appears after 0.8 s, inside the 1.8 s “good” threshold.

  • Speed Index: 0.8 s

    0.8 s

    Visually, the page fills in at 0.8 s (Speed Index), inside the 3.4 s “good” threshold.

  • Total Blocking Time: 0 ms

    0 ms

    Scripts block the page for only 0 ms while loading. Good is under 200 ms.

Images and page weight

1 to fix90

  • 2 images far larger than shown

    34 KiB

    2 images are downloaded at several times the size a phone draws them, for example WdC-logo-fullcolor-fullwhite.png at 1,000 px wide, shown at 300 px. Resized copies would save about 34 KiB.

  • 4 images in older formats

    4 images (210 KiB) are JPEG, PNG or GIF. The same pictures as WebP or AVIF are usually much smaller at the same quality, and every current browser shows them.

  • About 0.07 g of CO₂ per visit

    0.07 g

    By the Sustainable Web Design model, a visit to your homepage emits about 0.07 g of CO₂e: 8.7 kg a year at 10,000 visits a month. It scales with page weight, so every byte cut lowers it.

2 checks passed

  • Page weight: 262 KiB in 16 requests

    262 KiB

    Your homepage downloads 262 KiB in 16 requests on a phone: images 253 KiB (15) and HTML 9 KiB (1). That is a lean page.

  • Images load when needed

    Images below the first screen wait until the visitor scrolls to them.

Accessibility

Google 100100
2 checks passed

  • Every image has alt text

    All 15 images in the HTML carry an alt attribute.

  • 37 automated accessibility rules passed

    axe-core 4.13.0, the open-source engine behind most accessibility testing tools, ran 37 WCAG 2.2 A/AA and best-practice rules on the phone render: 37 passed and 0 failed. 1 more need a person to judge. Automated rules catch about a third of accessibility problems; the rest need manual testing.

SEO

6 to fixGoogle 10073

  • Title is short (21 characters)

    Your title is only 21 characters: “Writing - Writing.Com”. Between 30 and 65 characters leaves room to say what you do and for whom.

  • No structured data

    No structured data (JSON-LD), so Google can't show rich results such as your logo, ratings or FAQs.

  • 2 H1 headlines

    There are 2 <h1> headlines (“Join a Creative Community of Writers” and “For Writing!”). One clear main headline is easier for people and search engines.

  • Meta description is long (182 characters)

    Your meta description is 182 characters; Google truncates after about 160, so the end of your pitch is cut.

  • No XML sitemap

    No XML sitemap at https://www.writing.com/sitemap.xml, so Google discovers your pages only by following links.

  • No favicon declared

    No favicon is declared in the HTML, so browser tabs and Google's mobile results may show a generic icon.

  • 24 internal links, 3 external

    The homepage links to 24 pages on writing.com and 3 external pages.

3 checks passed

  • Canonical URL set

    The canonical URL is https://www.writing.com/.

  • Open Graph tags complete

    Open Graph tags are complete, so shared links show a title, description and image.

  • robots.txt in place

    robots.txt is in place.

AI search readiness

1 to fix88

  • No Organization structured data

    There is no Organization (or LocalBusiness) JSON-LD, so search engines and AI assistants have no machine-readable facts about who runs the site: its name, logo, profiles and contact details.

  • No llms.txt

    There is no https://www.writing.com/llms.txt, a short Markdown guide to your key pages for AI tools (llmstxt.org). It is optional and few AI tools read it yet, so treat it as a cheap extra.

  • Opted out of AI training for 1 crawler

    robots.txt blocks GPTBot, which collect pages to train models. That's a legitimate choice and doesn't by itself stop the site appearing in AI answers, which the crawlers above handle.

2 checks passed

  • AI answer engines may read the site

    Your robots.txt lets the crawlers behind ChatGPT search, Claude and Perplexity read the site and cite it in answers.

  • Text is in the HTML

    Your server sends the page's text in the HTML (420 words), so crawlers that don't run JavaScript still read it.

Other pages

3 to fix88

  • 1 page without a meta description

    https://www.writing.com/main/signup.php has no meta description, so Google writes the search snippet from whatever text it finds.

  • 13 pages share a meta description

    https://www.writing.com/main/forgotten.php, https://www.writing.com/main/tools.php, https://www.writing.com/main/linktous.php, https://www.writing.com/main/mediakit, https://www.writing.com/main/privacy and https://www.writing.com/main/do_not_sell and 4 others use the same meta description. A description written for each page earns more clicks.

  • 1 page without an H1

    https://www.writing.com/main/archive has no <h1> headline, so visitors and search engines get no clear main topic.

  • 1 page with very little text

    https://www.writing.com/main/archive has under 150 words in the HTML. Thin pages rarely rank; if the text loads with JavaScript, crawlers that don't run it see even less.

  • 15 internal pages checked

    We fetched 15 pages linked from your homepage (of 21 found) and read each the way a search engine does.

5 checks passed

  • Linked pages load

    All 15 pages we checked loaded without an error.

  • Canonical URLs point to themselves

    No page we checked hands its ranking to a different URL.

  • Titles are unique

    Every page we checked has its own title.

  • No linked page is hidden from search

    None of the pages we checked carries a noindex tag.

  • Every page has a title

    All 15 pages that loaded have a <title>.

Best practices

1 to fixGoogle 10093

  • 1 small tap target

    1 of 5 tappable elements near the top of the page is smaller than 24 px, hard to hit with a thumb.

2 checks passed

  • No console errors

    No JavaScript errors were logged while the page loaded on a phone.

  • Mobile viewport set

    The page declares a mobile viewport.

Content and conversion

2 to fix86

  • No analytics detected

    No analytics or tag manager detected in the HTML, so you can't measure whether any of these fixes work.

  • No direct contact details

    No phone number or email link on the homepage, so ready-to-buy visitors have one fewer way to reach you.

  • About 412 words of copy

    The homepage carries about 412 words of visible text.

5 checks passed

  • Clear next step on the first screen

    On a phone, the first screen shows a clear next step: “Join Free”.

  • 3 calls to action

    The homepage has 3 calls to action, for example “Join Free”, “Register for Writing Season” and “Start Writing Today”.

  • 1 short form

    A short form (2 fields at most) is right on the homepage.

  • Social proof on the page

    Social proof on the homepage: a star rating, 4 trust badges and “5M+ Reviews”.

  • Risk reducer mentioned

    A guarantee or risk reducer (money-back, free trial, no credit card or similar) is mentioned on the page.

Privacy and tracking

  • 2 cookies set on arrival

    2

    Opening the homepage sets 2 cookies (measured from a US location before any click).

  • No consent tool detected

    No known cookie consent tool loads with the page. Some sites build their own banner, and some only show one to visitors from the EU.

1 checks passed

  • No known trackers before consent

    No known advertising or analytics trackers load before a visitor clicks anything (measured from a US location before any click).

Security, domain, email and software versions

The security, domain and email checks, software and plugin versions, and any app with a known security problem are visible only to people at writing.com, because details like these could help someone attack a site. Every review keeps them private, whatever they found.

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What your $25 Growth Playbook adds

This review found 18 issues on writing.com, including 4 speed issues, 6 SEO issues and 2 conversion gaps. That is the website alone. The full Growth Playbook pairs these findings with what your customers say in public reviews and communities and what your closest competitors do better, then turns everything into at least 20 prioritised ideas, each with the evidence behind it, a step-by-step playbook, a metric and an owner.

  • 28 research agents read your site, reviews, competitors, communities and public filings
  • Customer review mining (G2, Capterra, Trustpilot and more) and voice-of-pain analysis in your buyers’ own words
  • Competitor intelligence with battlecards for your closest rivals
  • Ideal customer profile, buyer segments and buying-stage funnel
  • Ranked channels, outreach sequences and content angles
  • Live Reddit threads where buyers ask for what you sell, with draft replies
  • Earned media and PR openings
  • At least 20 ideas with evidence, a step-by-step playbook, metric, owner, effort and impact, grouped into this week, this quarter, big bets and wildcards, plus a 30/60/90-day roadmap
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