UOB website : a promotional magnet or repeller?

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the promotional effectiveness of the University website. In order to survive in the market and compete in this fast-pace world, any organization must maintain its presence in the public eye and portray an image of excellence. One of the ways to do this is to create a website which is available to everyone on a constant basis. A website also overcomes the limited space of a brochure and high costs of printing let alone the bad effect on the environment. Also websites make it easier to gather and analyze information about its visitors and equally easy to change information and promotional content to emphasize different aspects of the organizations operation. Moreover, instead of paying a huge amount of money on traditional advertising that is not targeted, organizations can delegate a small portion of the budget that was previously spent to set up a website that will be visited by individuals that are interested in its services. Websites also provide customer care as easy as a click of a button. The University of Balamand Website is intended to be an effective tool to promote University programs and projects by providing "information" for development and growth. The website also aims to strengthen bonds of cohesion inside the University through the use of information strategies, making it indispensable for the campus community who must be able to effectively utilize online digital media and systems in conducting daily businesses. Secondary data was attained from the web server logs and coupled with analysis of a questionnaire which was distributed to current university students to tackle research questions like, has the website been able to attract new visitors while retaining old ones? Have the website visitors found the information they were seeking? If so, was it complicated or an endless searching task? What are the favorite services that are offered by the website? ? Then, two popular standards related to website usability were addressed, namely, ISO standard for website usability and Microsoft Usability Guidelines. The results show weak areas which need to be addressed so that the UOB website ranking can be improved. Moreover, a list of attributes that need to be dealt with to increase the effectiveness of the website was suggested. To name a few, content, promotion and Made for the Medium aspects should be addressed.