Do you know what your website's visitors think about your site? A number of academic studies* have shown that consumers evaluate websites based on three main criteria - Entertainment, Informativeness and Organisation. What do each of these mean?

1. Entertainment

Research shows the most entertaining websites have 3 main things in common. They are imaginative, fun and exciting to visit. Websites that have been found to provide entertainment include Disney.com and amazon.com (to name just a few). Very few websites can be considered entertaining, so if your site is able to achieve this, you can gain a rare competitive advantage.

2. Informative

Informative websites are helpful, knowledgeable, resourceful, useful, and intelligent. Websites that score highly on Informativeness include Dell.com and Woolworths.com. If the main aim of your company, and your website is to provide people with information, then users will place the most importance on how informative your site is, when deciding on their overall attitude.

3. Organisation

Organisation (or a non-irritating site) is one of the most important factors contributing to the way your company is perceived by current and potential clients. Sites that are confusing, cumbersome, slow or messy all rate low on the Organisation evaluation criteria. Overall, these 3 criteria - Informativeness, Entertainment and Organisation are the most important dimensions employed by users when they are assessing a website.

When evaluating if your firm's site needs to be changed, you must decide what are the objectives of your particular site and what are the expected objectives of the visitors to the site. For example, you must determine if users visiting your firm's site for the purposes of entertainment or to collect information. The answer will then determine the focus of your firm's site. Since, the focus is the most important factor users will use to form their overall attitude to your website.