Member Article

Revealing what web users really want

The North East’s longest established web development company has revealed the findings of new research which shows that business leaders now view a website as an essential marketing tool but their expectations have changed significantly in the last decade. Darlington-based Geo-net Solutions carried out the research jointly with a group of students from the University of Teesside’s Business School. The students undertook the research as part of the Principles and Practice of Advertising module which allowed them to put the theory they had studied into practice.

The research revealed that companies used to demand a high specification of graphic design but, in the last decade, this emphasis has shifted dramatically in favour of technological expertise, feature adaptability – such as being able to use an email newsletter for promotional purposes – and the ability to manage the website in-house thus saving time and money.

Antony Lewis, sales director at Geo-net Solutions, said: “We set out to establish what businesses investing in websites really wanted. “We also wanted to confirm that customers’ demands have changed significantly in the last ten years from seeing a website as being merely ‘nice to have’ to ‘must have’.”

The Internet has only been widely used as a business tool in the UK for the last ten years. By 2005 70% of business had a website but today that figure is nearer 90%. As well as now demanding a higher level of technical expertise, managers also wanted to be able to learn more about and understand the Internet as a whole.

Antony Lewis said: “Compared to ten years ago business leaders responsible for buying web services have a clearer vision of what they want from a website and it is their experience and knowledge gleaned from this research that is an invaluable guide for others thinking of buying such services for the first time.”

For more information about Geo-Net, visit www.geo-net-solutions.com.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .