Internet Perspectives

Kishore C.S. (April 2000)

The following are a few random thoughts I have compiled on Website Quality and Popularity and possible motivations for creating a Website.

Motivations

Motivation behind creating a personal Website

• Try out new things
• It is a fashion to have a homepage
• Gives an opportunity to improve my visibility
• Share knowledge Information and ideas
• Makes one become popular
• It is an exciting hobby
• You get to reach lot of people

Motivation behind creating a business Website

• Website is must for every company
• Gives an opportunity to improve visibility of organization
• Increase customer base
• Do business online
• Create an image for the organization

Importance of Website Quality

People give utmost importance to their time. Any thing that is going to waste their time is not going to be liked by visitors to Website. Always keep this in mind while designing the Website. Every second counts and the seconds they spend on Website should be worth the time.

Website is a communication medium between the owner and the visitor. To meet owner's goals and visitors goals is the most difficult task in this communication media.   Quality will certainly play a major role in this.

Interface: Interface should be pleasant. Color, Font, Layout used should be simple, uniform and easy to use

Loading Time: Pages should be loaded quickly within seconds

Errors: No errors should come up. Errors like File Not found, Connection timed out etc. should come while the site is in use. I hate these errors and don't feel like visiting if these errors appear frequently.

Information: Information provided should be authentic, clear and precise

Security: Information provided by user should be secured without any possible security lapses

Up-to-date Content: Content present should be in recent past

Instructions for new users: Since new visitors come to site everyday, basic instructions for understanding and getting know the site should always be available

Available Time: The site should not be down during peak time and any maintenance down time should be informed and minimized.

Content Structure: Depth of information available should be visible at each stage.

Navigation: Navigation should be easy to use and pleasant.

>Factors that determine popularity of Website

In the wild WWW what is going to make the Website popular? In the mad race for popularity on Internet what are the factors that will drive it?

Necessity: If the site is offering essential features like e-mail, news, personalization, Search and Chat. These are fundamental features that drive people to the Website and needs little promotion.

Promotion: Promoting the site with new features added by different media can increase popularity. Having a mailing list which will intimate people of the improvements, what's new can be a factor

Overall Quality: Despite having above two factors incorporated quality as mentioned in the earlier section is certainly going to determine site quality.

Popularity by reference: The age-old method of personal recommendation still works here also. Once a few start liking your site the word will go around and you will become popular. You need to do aggressive promotion once the quality is taken care.

Rating on Search Engines: Based on the keywords if your site comes up in first few results then your popularity will be high but not guaranteed unless quality is good.

Uniqueness: What is the unique element in the Website that cannot be found anywhere else on the Internet.

Back