Interactive Marketing: Website Audits - Essay Example

? Interactive Marketing Website Audits Interactive Marketing Website Audits Introduction With the advancementin information and communication technology, many companies have opted for adoption of electronic forms of communicating with the market. This is commonly achieved through the use of the internet. It is in this regard that companies have designed and published websites on the internet so that consumers and customers of their products and services are enabled to access them and obtain information that they require in an interactive approach, more importantly, websites have been used as effective tools for marketing the services and products that are offered by the company. The effectiveness of a website to achieve the intended goals and objectives is based on its design. This essay gives a critical analysis and discussion of North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website in comparison with competitors within its local market at Brisbane, national market in Australia and an international landscape company’s website. Utopia Landscape Design, Landscape Australia and IBIS Landscapes are the company websites within the local, national and international markets respectively which are analyzed in this essay in relation to North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website. The usability, Website Design, Credibility and Persuasion, 5Is and 7Cs are the tools used in the comparative analysis of the website of the companies with a view of demonstrating the differences in effectiveness of the websites in achieving the intended purposes. Usability The usability of a website can be achieved by the determination of the navigation and menus of the website which allows users to effectively and efficiently use the website to meet their needs (Cyr, Head, Larios & Bing, 2009; Rizavi, Khan & Mustafa Rizavi, 2011). North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website has menu icons such as Home, Products, Special Offer, Delivery and Contact Us which allows the users to easily navigate through the various pages of the website in gathering the required information. It is in this regard that the design of the company’s website is said to be effectively designed to promote the ease at which users can navigate through. It is argued that a user friendly website should be able to allow users even those without specialized technological expertise to access the various pages of the website (Katerattanakul, 2008). This is disclosed by Utopia Landscape Design’s website. This company which is a local competitor of North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre within Brisbane has many menu icons to cater for the navigation need of the users. Nonetheless it is noted that Utopia Landscape Design’s website is composed of menu icons that are less visible to users as compared to that of North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre. This is due to the fact that Utopia Landscape Design’s website presents the menu items in small case and in orange color which is less effective in drawing the attention of the user to the various pages that would be navigated to access a variety of information services and communication. North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website is composed of menu items with block letters and a visible white font with a green background. The presentation of menu items within Landscape Australia and IBIS Landscapes websites is similar with that of North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website with visibility and hence allows users to identify the menu items with ease and as a result navigate promptly through the various pages of the site. Notably, the websites of all these companies have functional navigation tools and menus which takes users to different pages with a single click. The usability of a website is determined by the functionality of the menu items in accessing different pages of the site during the process of navigating through the pages (Mukherjee, 2009). A usable website is characterized by a maim menu and sidebar navigation menus (Sreedhar, Chari & Ramana, 2010). The website of all of the companies has main menus. Nonetheless it is Landscape Australia and IBIS Landscapers which have designed sites with sidebar navigation tools. Therefore, it is apparent that these two companies have more usable websites as compared to North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre and Utopia Landscape Design’s websites. A highly and effective website should be designed to contain many features that promote access and navigation without compromising on simplicity. It is therefore recommended for North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre to review its website in order to implement sidebar navigation tools to facilitate the usability of the website. Gallery navigation is said to be an important aspect of a website which is used to measure its usability and effectiveness (McEwing, 2011). The website of IBIS Landscapers and Landscape Australia are composed of menus that allow users to access the gallery of the company’s landscape designs and as a result making them very attractive. This feature is not provided by the website of the other companies because they have a single landscape picture within the main page without accessibility to the gallery of sample landscape projects of the companies. It is in this sense that IBIS Landscapers are argued to have the best website in terms of usability as compared to the other companies. This would be attributed to the competitiveness of the international landscaping company in marketing its services within its wide market. The layout of a good website must flow which is used to measure its effectiveness as a usable website. The websites of all of the companies demonstrate an efficient and coherent flow of information within their web pages. This is made possible by the menu items each of which represents different aspects of the companies. More importantly, the different pages as navigated through the menu bars are interrelated with one page having menu icons within the main menu that directly links the user to the other pages within the site. As a result, the usability of the websites as determined by the effective flow of information demonstrates their good designs. Landscape Australia however presents the best layout of the websites analyzed. This is attributed to the grid layout of the pages of the website and hence the perfect symmetry that is achieved by the designer of the site. Even though North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website has a symmetrical website, the general layout is less relational in access and navigation as compared to Landscape Australia. The websites as analyzed demonstrate fast load times. The load time of a website is said to be an accurate measure of its usability because slow websites are likely to cause impatience within users and hence demotivation in the use of the site (Marsh, 2005). The load time of the website is determined by the design of the gallery and other images within the site (Rizavi, Khan & Mustafa Rizavi, 2011). Nevertheless it is important to consider that the internet service provider speeds contribute to the overall load time of a website. North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website is more usable as compared with the other websites in terms of the search strategy. The analysis of the sites reveals that it is only North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre which has provided a search strategy within its website. This function is very important because it allows users to directly navigate to specific areas of the site with the use of a key term or phrase. More significantly though is the role of the subtle website details such as separators, links and language selection in determining its usability. The websites demonstrate presence of links from which the users of the sites are allowed to access other content within the site and external sources which relate to the information within the site. In this sense therefore the websites of the companies are effectively usable. Credibility and Persuasion Credibility, logic and emotion are the three major elements of a persuasive website (Hosea, 2011). Web design for an effective website should be sufficiently appealing to the viewers and users so that they would be persuaded to access its content and attain the messages and images that are communicated by the company on the website (Rizavi, Khan & Mustafa Rizavi, 2011). North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre, IBIS Landscapers and Landscape Australia have included an emotional component within their sites. This is aimed at persuading users to pry further into the contents of the site and as a result access the information that is being communicated by the comoany such as promotional features and the presentation of the services offered. Emotional appeal of a website is very persuasive because consumers make a larger percentage of their decisions based on emotional processing (Farney, 2011; Rizavi, Khan & Mustafa Rizavi, 2011). Even though Utopia Landscape Design’s website is persuasive, the images that are presented are not effectively combined with landscaping related colors such as green. It is therefore evident that the company needs to improve its website based interactive marketing through proper incorporation of the emotional appeal as a way of persuading viewers to pry into all pages of the site and hence make a purchase decision for the landscaping services of the company. Logical arrangement of content, images and the overall navigation through a website also acts as a way through which companies persuade viewers to use the sites and as a result access web content in a more elaborate way (The Good Website Guide, 2000). The arrangement of content within all of the websites being analyzed is very persuasive. This is due to the fact that the content that is provided in terms of messages and images is designed to present the best of the company’s landscaping projects. Nonetheless North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website is not as persuasive as its business competitors. This is due to the lack of automatically changing images within various pages of the site to illustrate different designs of landscapes that the company would provide. Because the other companies which comprise of North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s competition have this persuasive feature, it is recommended for the company to include it within its website design. The design of a website in terms of layout and the arrangement of images and messages is used to define its credibility and hence its ability to persuade viewers from accessing and obtaining its content (Soobrah & Clark, 2012). Nonetheless North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website is well arranged and hence credible. This is demonstrated by the layout of the site which includes a combination of pectoral and textual representation of the company’s products and landscaping services. These are presented in an appealing manner which is likely to be persuasive to the viewers and users of the site. Additionally Nonetheless North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre present a website design which demonstrates the special delivery categories of services. This is both captivating, attention drawing and hence persuasive for customers who are seeking landscaping services and products. Nonetheless North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s business competitors also present very credible websites. Landscape Australia for example depicts credible images that are a representation of each of the services that the company offers. These images communicate meaning without necessarily requiring the viewer to go into textual details. In this sense, it is reflective that Landscape Australia contains a more credible site in terms of pictorial arrangement and symmetry as compared to Nonetheless North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre. Utopia Landscape Design also presents a website design which depicts congruence between the images and text. Additionally, the website of this company illustrates an effective balance of the images and texts with adequate space being left around the margins to attain simplicity while effectively conveying a message to the viewers of the site. More significantly though is the observation within the IBIS Landscapes’ website which makes it credible for an internationalized company. IBIS Landscapes’ website is arranged to demonstrate various layouts of a landscaped environment. This means that the company offers its customers a chance of selecting the landscape layout and design which meets their needs. In this sense, it is arguable that IBIS Landscapes presents its services and products to the market in a way which persuades them to belief that the company is credible at providing their unique landscaping needs effectively. Customer appeal should be the motivation for the design of a website of a company (Koeppel, 2008; Rizavi, Khan & Mustafa Rizavi, 2011). This is due to the fact that a website which is designed with an appealing appearance and performance will be more persuasive and representative of the credibility of the company as viewed by the customers. The logical arrangement, pictorial and textual representation and layout of the companies’ websites are designed and aimed at turning the viewers of the sites into customers. It is through the persuasive appeal of a website that viewers are persuaded to consider a company as a credible solution to their individual and organizational needs. For example Nonetheless North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website is designed to have a pictorial representation of all of the company’s products and links to their cost and special offers and deliveries that the company provides. Nonetheless, the customer appeal based credibility of the company’s business competitors is much better. For example Landscapes Australia is more persuasive and appealing in terms of the home page images which changes automatically. Utopia Landscape Design’s website is also very appealing to the customers as depicted by the attractive landscape designs, landscaping ideas and features of its landscaping projects. The credibility of Utopia Landscape Designs is demonstrated by its feature for enquiries and consultations which is very appealing to customers. This is therefore likely to persuade customers who would like to make inquiries before ordering to navigate through the site and use the interactive forum for obtaining more information about the company’s products and service. Website Design Effective design of a website includes ensuring that its presence is felt by users and viewers as compared to the competitor sites (Rizavi, Khan & Mustafa Rizavi, 2011). The design of the home pages of the websites is varies which reflects different levels of comparative effectiveness. North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website is designed with a home page which immediately demonstrates the theme that is presented within the site. This is due to the green captivating background color. More importantly, the major products and landscaping services that North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre offer are presented within the homepage without compelling the viewer to scroll further. The Landscape Australia website is more captivating within its homepage as compared to North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website. This is disclosed by the simple and yet attractive and informative design of the commercial, residential and irrigational construction as well as maintenance services for landscapes. The viewer of Landscape Australia’s landscape is therefore not compelled to cross or navigate further before attaining the initial view of the site and the company. Therefore landscape Australia through its website reflects a better design as compared to North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website when measured in relation to the first impression of the site from the home page. The design of a website must demonstrate its suitability which relates to the effectiveness of the use of headings and subheadings to represent the various services and products that the company offers (Weitz & Rosenthal, 2010). All of the analyzed sites demonstrate effective website design because headings are presented with relevant subheadings to provide users with the specific services that the company offers. Specifically, North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website provided subheadings which contain individual categories of information which is relevant and descriptive of the different or various services and products of the landscaping company. Aesthetic appeal is part of website design which determines the success and effectiveness of a company’s appeal as compared to its business competitors (Soobrah & Clark, 2012). Landscape Australia’s website is the most aesthetically appealing site in relation to the motion of its attractive images within the home page and subpages. The use of motion as a website design within North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website seems to have been ignored and hence it is recommend as a way of promoting its competitiveness over the business rivals. It is further argued that aesthetic appeal of a website is achieved through the design process that implements legibility, clarity, graphical representation and consistency. Apart from the design of Utopia Landscape Design’s website which reveals less legible textual representation of the home page, the other sites have enhanced legibility. For example North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website is made of legible font sizes which are as a result of proper design of background color with a view of ensuring a high contrast is achieved and legibility enhanced. The design of Utopia Landscape Design’s website is very consistent in terms of color and relationship between images and text. North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website also demonstrates unity in its general design. All elements of the website are designed to reveal a relationship with other aspects. In this sense therefore, the design of North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website is effective and hence competitive. The educational value of the websites analyzed is one of the most dominant and significant aspects of their design. This is demonstrated by the informative nature of the sites. The educational value of the sites is further depicted by the presentation of information with the use of graphics and images that create a high persuasive impact on the viewer. Website designers must employ the aspect of interactivity within the site. This is to ensure that users are engaged to the site and as a result create a personal relationship between the company and customers and the resultant loyalty of consumers (Rizavi, Khan & Mustafa Rizavi, 2011). North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website is less interactive as compared to its local competitor, Utopia Landscape design, which provides a service for enquiries and consultations. This means that the company should upgrade its site to ensure that its interactivity with the market is improved. Nonetheless North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website presents menu for contact us. This would offer its customers to seek the help of the company in relation to their queries. It is however notable that all websites are designed to contain fax, telephone and e-mail details through which the customers and viewers of the site can contact the company for queries. In this light, it is evident that the web design of the business rivals in landscaping is effective in engaging the customers in an interactive involvement with the customers. North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website is very competitive in design as compared to its competitors when based on the fact that is the only site which offers a search strategy. This means that the website of the company highly encourages users or viewers to interact with the site in achieving solutions for their information needs. In the design of websites, effectiveness is measured in terms of content or information that is presented within the site and the manner in which this information is presented (Soobrah & Clark, 2012). North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website just like its business rivals presents information within the site in a professional manner which is reflective of effective website design of content. The organization of content within North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website is effectively designed with sufficient information on the company’s products and services being given. In addition, the amount of information or content within the company’s website is neither too little nor too much. This reflects adherence to simplicity in website design. This is unlike North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s local competitor Utopia Landscapes Design which presents too much information which could be hectic to the viewer of the site to go through all details. Utopia Landscapes Design presents additional information in terms of downloadable files which may not interest the viewers of the site. It is however important to consider that sufficient information and content may be required by some clients during their visit to the site to aid informed decision making in the purchase of the company’s products and services (Weitz & Rosenthal, 2010). The overall feel of the websites of the analyzed competitors within landscaping business is very different. This demonstrates the uniqueness of each company’s services and products in addition to its credibility and ability to interact with customers via their respective sites. For example the colors and free space that is depicted within the websites defines the overall feel that is achieved and the perception of the viewer to the company. The overall feel that a viewer of a website develops in the first contact with the company’s site is very important for success. This is because the overall feel defines the attitudes that are developed and the ability of the site to pursue the user to develop an interest to the offered products and services (Frederiksen, 2012). North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website is effectively personalized for its Brisbane market and the needs of the consumers. This reflects effective design of the site in ensuring that it meets its objectives and purpose in promoting the company’s competitiveness in the landscaping business. The personalization that the website presents include the language level used which is understandably basic and effectively communicative to the consumers as the audience of the site. IBIS Landscapes however depicts the most effectively designed design in terms of its overall feel. This is due to the attractive simplicity in which the images, messages, graphics and the general layout of the site are presented. The 7Cs Website Analysis The context of North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website in terms of layout and design is very competitive. However the layout of Landscape Australia’s website is more appealing especially on the home page. Landscape Australia depicts a more balanced design of its home page with movement of images on the main pictorial area and bilaterally spread pictures of the various products and services that are offered by the company. This means that a single visit of Landscape Australia’s website provides adequate information on the company to persuade users to browse more into the site for more inflation. It is in this sense that North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s national competitor reflects a better design and layout of the site as depicted by its overall context and presentation of the content. In terms of commerce, the design of the rival landscaping companies reveals compliance to their business objectives. This is expressed by the presentation of the products offered. Landscape Australia goes further to present the costs of various services and landscaping products. This feature should therefore be adopted by North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website in order to enhance its commerce based purpose. An effective website must have adequate links within the site itself and those which connect it to other sites which offer the same and related information or services (Weitz & Rosenthal, 2010; Soobrah & Clark, 2012). Apart from internal links which connect parts of the website, North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s site does not have connections or links with sites with related content. This demonstrates that North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website requires be upgrading and improving to enhance its connection with external sources. On the other hand, the company’s local competitor, Utopia Landscape Design has very effective connection in its design. This is represented by links which connect content within the website as well as links connecting the content with external sites such as Google and social networking sites. It is therefore notable that North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre faces very stiff website based marketing competition from its business rivals. This would be overcome by providing links which connect the site with other sources or sites and hence capture a wider audience within its market. The content within the websites vary but basically, these companies have managed to provide sufficient or enough information for the users of the site who comprise of consumers and customers. Communication within North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website is very effective. This demonstrates the interactivity with which the search strategy provides the users or viewers of the site. (Soobrah & Clark, 2012) effectively designed and published websites are characterized by their ability to ensure that customers are able to communicate interactively with the company through the site. The role and importance of communication is revealed by Utopia Landscape Design’s inquiries and consultation within its website main menu. A two way communication is however achieved in the design of the companies’ website. This is disclosed by the fact that all of the analyzed companies have included a contact us menu. Through this menu within the company’s sites, users and viewers of the sites will gather contact information on the companies through which they would communicate and hence establish a two way communication process. Among the analyzed websites, it is only Utopia Landscape Design which has enabled user to user communication via its links to social networking sites. More importantly, the companies have customized the websites with a view of meeting the needs of their diverse users. The 5Is Website Analysis The identification is a tool which can be used to determine the ability of a website and the company to recognize its customers through the application of various channels or contacts (Lee, Rodgers & Mikyoung, 2009). The design and implementation of a website should therefore allow a company to recognize various market segments and as a result demonstrate goods and services which the company offers to satisfy their unique needs (Soobrah & Clark, 2012). North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website and those of its business competitors are designed in a manner which is based in the diversity within the market and initial identification of their customers via various market channels. Individualization is a very important consideration in web design. This is because the process of individualization allows a company to present is products and services in a manner that is tailored to meet the diverse needs within its market (Voorveld, Neijens, Smit, 2010). As compared to North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website, Landscape Australia represents and provides a more customer tailored approach. This is depicted by the fact that Landscape Australia has tailored its products and services depending on their commercial, landscape and residential needs. Since this information is presented within the website, it is evident that the company has effectively implemented the concept of identification within its website design. It is recommended for North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website to include identification within its website. This will demonstrate the company’s ability to identify and hence meet the unique needs for landscaping among its customers. As a result, the consumers of the company’s services will view the company as the only authentic representative of answering their needs. Interaction is one of the significant tools in measuring and evaluating the effectiveness of a company’s website (Bobrow, 2011). This is due to the fact that the communication between customers and the company enhances emotional connection between these two parties and the consequent improved competitiveness of the company in the market (Zahedi & Gaurav, 2011; Soobrah & Clark, 2012). The interactive communication between the landscaping companies and their customers is depicted within this analysis through the provision contacts through which two way communications is achieved. It is further demonstrated that an integration of all needs and wants of customers must be included within the website of a company (Walker, 2002). Integration means that a company must demonstrate to its customers who view the website that their needs and preferences are integrated into the services provided. As a result the customers are motivated to seek useful information from the company and place orders for the products and services that re offered. The products menu within the website of North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website and its business rivals demonstrates variety and hence integration of the needs of customers. More importantly through is the aspect of integrity and its presentation within the website of a company. This means that the company must present itself as authentic and credible providers of relevant solutions to the diverse needs of customers. In return, trust is developed between the company and its consumers. It is therefore through the design of North Brisbane Landscape and Garden Centre’s website that interaction between the company and its customer is enhanced and as a result leading to a trustful relationship. This leads to a positive impact on the company which is related to its ability to attain the loyalty of customers and making it more competitive within the market. References Bobrow, D., A. (2011). Maximize your return on investment with website usability studies. 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