Defining the Type of Your Web Site

If you want to be organized, you must start off by setting your goals. Goal setting is not only essential for becoming organized, it also increases your chances of success. We usually shy away from setting very specific goals because it seems difficult to accomplish. This is especially true for webmasters, who usually find it hard to set specific goals for their web sites and the information their web sites should contain.

One way of facilitating the process of setting goals for web sites is to define the type or category of your web site. Web sites can be categorized in a number of ways. This article discusses three possible category types along with the pros and cons of each type. These categories are based essentially on the level of information and interactivity that a web site should contain.

1. Information oriented

A site like this would basically provide information about the business’ products and services to the customer. The internet is flooded with web sites like these, which focus only on providing information about their business and products. These sites are just another form of a brochure. They would typically contain the following page titles:

Pros:
Easy to build, good way to build initial presence on the web, provides an additional medium to the business for exposure, easy to maintain as constant updates are not required.

Cons:
No information of interest to the visitor, not much potential for making sales, does not encourage repeat visits.

2.Transcation oriented

A site of this type would contain information about the business and also urge the visitor to buy online then and there. This would be done by emphasizing on the benefits of the product and offering special deals etc. This may be a useful site for downloadable products (software etc) or purchases which need to be made in an emergency (air flight bookings). The site would include order forms and payment options along with other information.

Pros:
A higher level of interest for visitors as the information is directed towards them, a much higher sales potential.

Cons:
Does not encourage repeat visits or customer loyalty. Cannot sell to visitors who have an unrealized need for the product, information is focused on the business rather than the visitors interests.

3.Relationship Oriented

This type of sites would emphasize on maintaining a relation with the online visitors and on generation of more traffic to the site along with offering services online. Sites like these are vast and must provide information that online surfers are highly interested in. This information does not have to be specifically about the product, but should be related to the product (for example, online courses or book reviews on a site selling books).

Pros:
High rate of conversion form visitors to customers, promotes customer loyalty and repeat visits, makes visitors realize their need for the product, sales would rise, perhaps slowly but surely.

Cons:
Huge sites which are usually data base driven, and difficult to design and maintain. Require constant information updates.

The list of web site types given above is certainly not exhaustive, but it will give you an idea of how you should generally categorize your web site. Remember, when something is planned well, and given a lot of creative thought, its chances of success increase manifolds.