Web Articles

January 2007- Web Interactivity: Your Key to Online Success
by Sami M. Basheer

Interactivity is the ability of a website to link up and connect individual to individual or group to group, and even the other way round. The ability of a website to connect people is considered to be a very important aspect for the success of any good website. It is also a perfect ingredient of building trust and credibility to potential advertisers and customers.

Basically there are mainly two types of Interactivity, that is; one-to-one interactivity which includes emails, autoresponders, while the other type is many-to-many interactivity which consists of forums, blogs etc.

Email and Autoresponders

One-to-one communication via emails is mostly considered a private way of communication. It is only with the access of ones email address that is when a sender would be able to communicate with the other end, which is the receiver. The electronic mail has taken the place of snail's pace traditional letter. The electronic mail has got more or less same features like that of a normal letter. For an email to be complete, it must have an address of the receiver, a subject matter or topic and finally the body of the letter.

The other big advantage of an electronic mail which has out shone the normal postal letter is the instant speed. Due to the speed of the electronic mails, some people have failed to cope up with the pace of reading and responding to incoming mails. Therefore, in the long run a lot of both unread and unanswered mails get accumulated in the inbox, only to make the sender worried for not getting a reply.

To counter attach this emerging problem, the autorespond facility is available to help cope up with the pressure of answering mails instantly. An auto respond mail system once activated will send an instant reply to any incoming mail carrying a message that is designed to deliver. In this case therefore, one can choose to say anything like, "Thank you for writing to me, I will reply to your mail as soon as possible", can be one way. Another one can also choose to say, "I'm on vacation from 20th January to 20th February 2007. Please forward any official query to substitute at my domain dot com, otherwise I will personally answer your mails once I get back to office." This can be another way of designing an autorespond message.

The purpose of using an autorespond mail is to keep the flame burning on the other side of the sender, especially when the mail is from a client. By sending him an autorespond mail, it makes him get the true picture of the other end; hence make him or her feel respected and cared. It is also a way of building a good customer relation service, especially during this period of stiff competition. However, all in all, it only portrays you as an organized person who knows how to utilize the right facility at the right time.

With all the pleasure and fascination that the Internet has come along with, still other Internet users have managed to abuse this facility in form of junk mails. Junk mails are considered useless discarded articles or rubbish. In other words, they are unsolicited mails. These junk mails of late have become a pain in the flesh because some of them contain viruses. In fact some have designed their inboxes in such a way that it straight away deletes all attachment mails for fear of viruses. It is therefore considered wise, when planning to send a business attachment, to first notify with the receiver so as to get a go ahead. Otherwise your business correspondent will always be treated as a junk mail.

Surveys, forums and blogs

Nowadays, you can share text, audio and video using social networking sites in what is called global village. This is what is termed as many-to-many. This kind of communication is also immediate just like the previous one we have just mentioned above. It is also worth confessing that, this kind of communication has gained fame to many Internet users.

However, blogs need to be coordinated and maintained for effective results. It is good and advisable to at least draw a self timetable on when to update ones blog. Normally a blog gets a good rank if updated twice or thrice a week. Remember there are millions of blogs out there, all competing for a good rank, and yours is one of them.

When we mention of posting articles, we simply mean posting relevant information, excluding abusive materials and anything that might in the long run infringe one's privacy. In other words, use your blog constructively and responsibly, by doing this, you will realize that, other blogs will compete to link with you, and the minute you are linked, then consider that to be good news.

A good blog should also be very easy an attractive, it should also be designed in such a way that should encourage visitors to subscribe. Do not seek for a lot of details from subscribers; most people do not like to give out their details.

However, it is equal important to state it clearly in your private policy that you all information gathered is going to be treated confidentially and that you respect one's privacy. Try to tell your visitors that, the information submitted is not going to be revealed to anyone else.

The only way to achieve fame and success is to allow your website to have forums where visitors can interact freely both with you and with each other, or at the very least you can also create a blog where people can comment on anything that you have written. Remember communication is two way traffic. By doing this, you are making a visitor to your website feel like he or she is also part of the website and not just a mere visitor. Create a dedicated email address for your blog or forum where visitors reach you easily or can send their queries and questions. True as it is that, this might attract a lot of junk mails, but still there is urgent need for your visitors to know how to contact you.

This posses a great challenge to the website owners, because a good business website will be determined by its ability of getting people together to discuss issues that affect them most.

For those businessmen trying to earn money online, it's good to understand the fact that, interconnectivity and interactivity is an essential human need. Lack of the above will doom your business as for the use of "Contact Us" form has become a thing of the past.

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Note: These articles do not represent the advice or opinions of Apollo Hosting. They represent the thoughts, advice and opinions of the individual authors.