According to Dave Chaffey (2011) there are six channels a company can use for its digital marketing purpose. One of these channels is a website. Having a website is great but a website is only effective in supporting the business, when it creates excellent user experiences. How do you know, whether a company’s website does create these excellent experiences? Well, there are a number of approaches that can be used to audit a website and thereby its effectiveness in supporting the business.
One of these approaches is the AIPD by Simeon (1999).
The tool should help to critically evaluate a company’s’ website by analysing the four segments: Attracting, Informing, Positioning and Delivery.
A website will attract customers, when they can clearly see the brand’s name, the affiliates of the company and recommendations by other users. People are often influenced by the experiences of others, so for new customers to see recommendations the website will be more appealing to them. Furthermore the website must present users with information which must be easily accessible for them. Customers are unlikely to spend hours to find the information they need, so a user-friendly website where information contents can be found quickly will enhance their satisfaction. The right positioning of information is a key for success. A discounted price hidden in small print or appearance of it after passing through the website will not increase the likeliness of the customer returning to the website. If the company currently has special offers, these need to be positioned in a convenient space on the landing page for users to see at first sight so that it catches their eyes. Lastly the delivery makes the user decide, whether s/he completes the visit of the website with excellent experiences. Noticeably providing the user with the information about the Warranty/After-sales service the company offers, the variety of payment methods being accept and how they can contact the customer service is of great essence. If they only find out about these information when they want to complete a purchase and these information do not meet their requirements, they will have spent a lot of time on the website for nothing and will be unlikely to come back to it. Security and Privacy on the website are further important factors users expect when spending time on the website.
If a company can implement these four segments effectively, it can provide the company with an attractive and effective website, leading to lots of site-traffic and support of the business.
Another approach that can be used to evaluate a company’s website, is the eye tracking study by Ania Hernandez and Marc Resnick (2013). The eye tracking study says, that users have specific pathways that they follow when visiting websites. The specific pathways are called scanning patterns. Different scanning patterns exist, such as:
The Z-Pattern (1), the Golden Triangle (2), the Zig-Zag Pattern (3) and the Guttenberg Pattern (4). Each pattern is used for a different type of website. The Z-Pattern for example is used for websites with simpler designs but “trails to a more engaged reading path” (Hernandez A., Resnick M., 2013). The user will pass through all four basic quadrants of the website making it unlikely for relevant information to be missed. The Golden Triangle exists when the user is only interested in viewing the navigation menu as this is normally located in the horizontal at the top of the page. Therefore the important information has to be arranged more obvious than usual. The Zig-Zag pattern is a combination of many Z-Patterns and is usually seen where the person reads a long text looking for detailed and specific information and is actually more interested in the page of the product than the landing page of the website. The Guttenberg Pattern simply shows a path, that starts at the top right corner and finishes at the bottom right. In this case, the most important information that must be seen first, should be placed at the top of the page and the content that should be used at the end, has to be placed at the bottom. Content placed in different areas of the page are likely to be missed unless they are striking.
Knowing the scanning patterns that people use for specific types of websites make it easier for the designer of the website or the company to create a website that matches the scanning patters. According to Goddard et al. (2008), if a site matches the scanning pattern, it can reduce the effort that consumers need to put in to evaluate the information given.
If a company can understand the scanning pattern people will use on its website, then this can enhance the effectiveness of the website.
Bibliography:
Chaffey, D. (2011). Digital marketing channels. [online] Smart Insights. Available at: https://www.smartinsights.com/reach/attachment/digital-marketing-channels/ [Accessed 25 Nov. 2017]
Charlie (2017). The Importance of Web Design to Digital Marketing. [online] Bluefrontier.co.uk. Available at: https://www.bluefrontier.co.uk/company/blog/item/the-importance-of-a-website-to-your-marketing-strategy [Accessed 25 Nov. 2017]
Goddard P.H., McLeary S., and Gorney D. (2008, June26). Five dimensions of user experience. White Paper. Human Factors International. Fairfield Iowa.
Hernandez A. , Resnick M., (2013) Placement of Call to Action Buttons for Higher Website Conversion and Acquisition: An Eye Tracking Study. [online] at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1541931213571232 [Accessed 25 Nov. 2017]
Newbold, C. (2014). How to Evaluate a Website. [online] The Visual Communication Guy: Designing, Writing, and Communication Tips for the Soul. Available at: http://thevisualcommunicationguy.com/2014/08/27/how-to-evaluate-a-website/ [Accessed 25 Nov. 2017]
Simeon, R. (1999) “Evaluating domestic and international Web‐site strategies”, Internet Research, Vol. 9 Issue: 4, pp.297-30
University of Edinburgh (n.d.). How to evaluate website content. [online] The University of Edinburgh. Available at: https://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/library-museum-gallery/finding-resources/library-databases/databases-overview/evaluating-websites [Accessed 25 Nov. 2017]