A client recently asked us what were the "top 5 sites in Portland."  Interestingly, we didn't really know what to say.  What criteria should we use to make such a decision.  We were tempted to say something like "Have you seen Edge-One.com?"  Or perhaps, "Take a look at our Portfolio."  Thankfully, we suppressed the urge before those sentences actually left our lips.  

However, that got us thinking; what are the top five sites in Portland?  Over the next few weeks, we will be looking at that very question.  For part one of our series, we have used the following process:

1. Do a Google search of the term "Portland, Oregon"
2. Post the top 5 independent results (weeding out things like wikipedia entries, citysearch entries, and craigslist ads) 
3. Visit, grade, and summarize each site.

Seems simple enough, let's get started.

1. www.travelportland.com
   This website is a perfect way to start  off.  Simply put, it looks fantastic. On the home page alone, they offer hotel deals, feature articles, and many different blogs broken down by topic and presented in an accessible and usable way.  All the while, they use an interface that completely supports their brand.

   A quick perusal of their about section indicates that they are a non-profit destination marketing organization dedicated to bringing visitors to the region.  It represents us well.

   Final Grade: A

2. www.portlandonline.com
   This is Portland's official website, and upon first look, we weren't terribly impressed with the aesthetic.  There isn't anything exceptionally egregious here, however, it could definitely benefit from a focused branding effort and a talented interface designer to realign the content. 

   Still, this website is a useful resource allowing visitors to pay bills, look up city council minutes, and apply for jobs (among other things). Casual browsing seems to indicate no major cross-browser issues and the programming seems pretty solid on the front end.  So...

   Final Grade: B-

3. www.portland.com
   This interface is brought down by an unfortunate color scheme, odd spacing and padding choices, and a footer that is misaligned with everything else (see Firefox).  The content feels stuffed into its container and, as a result, we mostly skipped over it.

   To be fair, the writing that we did read seemed decent enough, but it is available in a more palatable format in both of the sites above.

   FinalGrade: C-

4. www.portland-oregon-magazine.com/
   Though we're not terribly fond of the typographin the header image (the magazine logo in particular), this interface is nice and spacious in comparison to the last.  

   Points are deducted for ugly dropdowns and how long the front page is.  Even on our 22" screens, we had at least a page of scrolling to do.  Our guess is that there features at the bottom of the page don't do so well. 

   Final Grade: B

5. www.el.com/to/portland
   This site gets an A for effort and an F for everything else.  There is a jarring template difference between the hom page and the sub-pages and, while the sub-page template shows signs of design skill, the disconnect between the two is unforgivable. 

   The interface is broken in many places and it needs fixin'.

   Final Grade: D

There you have it, Portland's Top 5 websites (with this criteria anyway).  We'll be back next week taking a look at a new set of Portland's Top 5 using a completely different selection process. 

In the interim, why not sign up for our Free E-Newsletter?  It is completely SPAM FREE, and will keep you up-to-date on what you should be doing to market yourself online.

Until next week...