Effective Websites for small and medium sized enterprises
WEBSITE QUALITY
An SME that creates or buys in a web site needs to be able to judge the quality of the
product. Web site design comes at a variety of prices, from under £100 for an
enthusiastic amateur trying to get in to the market to tens of thousands of pounds from
a well-known specialist design company. It can be difficult for the business to assess
the quality of the product created for them because some of the mistakes, such as
browser incompatibility and effectiveness in search engines, are subtle and because
the technology can obscure the real potential that may be there to be tapped.
The quality of a web site at any of the above levels must be evaluated with a
number of different criteria.
• Site visibility in search engines
• Ease of use
• Design quality
• Ease of site maintenance and updating
These are discussed in the subsections below except for the last, which is the subject
of the next section. In all of these areas there are some general rules as well as issues
that are contingent on the type of business concerned and the chosen aim for the site.