Is revamping your web site worthwhile?
| Date | 01 August 2005 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/02635570510606978 |
| Published date | 01 August 2005 |
| Pages | 737-751 |
| Author | Eugenia Y. Huang |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
Is revamping your web site
worthwhile?
Eugenia Y. Huang
Department of Management Information Systems,
National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study how web site quality affects traffic performance.
Design/methodology/approach – An experimental design is employed to study how web quality
affects traffic performance. A revamping of the experimental web site was used as the treatment,
targeting visitors’ perceived quality of the web site. Four traffic performance measures, page: views,
visitor count, daily registrations, and average duration are tracked, and t-tests are performed on
pre-treatment and post-treatment data.
Findings – The analysis shows very positive responses among members; visitor count, page views
and average duration increased for opt-in and opt-out members. For visitor count, even non-members
showed increases. However, daily registration, which measures how many non-members become
members each day, did not change. Non-members visited more, but neither viewed more pages, nor
stayed longer. Average duration is identified as the key factor for discerning visitor groups.
Research limitations/implications – The experimental web site belongs to one web site category.
The generalization is subject to reasoning by practitioners.
Practical implications – It was found that: to increase membership, alternative schemes must be
employed, perhaps along the lines of a non-technical approach; to acquire more members, do not focus
on converting known non-members. Those with the same demographic profile as existing members
should be targeted; and the question must be asked whether the fact that opt-in members are stickier
than opt-out members is a trait or a consequence of opt-in members receiving e-mails periodically,
while opt-out members chose not to receive e-mails.
Originality/value – With few existing traffic experiments in the literature, this study is unique, as
are its implications.
Keywords Worldwide web, Quality,Control systems, Research work
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Managing a web site is a dynamic, on-going process. Once a web site is in operation,
there are in general two approaches to increase its traffic: technical and non-technical;
both approaches need to be guided by the knowledge of visitors’ interests and the value
of each web section. The first step in nurturing the growth of a web site is to acquire
traffic effectively. However, being able to acquire traffic does not automaticall y lead to
successful retention and development of the site’s traffic. According to Hanson (2000),
traffic-building activities can be divided into four main classes: domain name choice,
portal presence, publicity and word of mouth, and paid advertising. Except for domain
name choice, which is usually completed before a site is in operation, the remaining
three classes are the implementations that fall under the non-technical category.
The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister www.emeraldinsight.com/0263-5577.htm
This study is partially supported by the National Science Council of the Republic of China under
the project number NSC-89-2416-H-004-090.
Is revamping
your web site
worthwhile?
737
Industrial Management & Data
Systems
Vol. 105 No. 6, 2005
pp. 737-751
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0263-5577
DOI 10.1108/02635570510606978
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