Other Features

Hit counters and online chat are two other features that are commonly found on Web sites. Here's why you might want to include ”or avoid ”these two features, as well as quick discussion about how you can learn about other features available for your site.

Hit Counters

Counters keep track of the number of hits to a Web page. They are extremely popular with small business sites, primarily because site owners or Webmasters want a way to show how popular a site is.

Counters might be a good way to publicly show how many hits a site gets, but they're a terrible way to accurately monitor site usage. For example, if you put a counter on your Home page, all it tracks is hits to that page ”not to the other pages of your Web site. With the ever ”increasing usability of search engines, however, many of your site's visitors never even see your Home page ”they go right to the page the search engine indicated.

Recently, a "rival" Web consultant used my Home page counter as evidence that his Web site was more popular than mine. (Yes, some people never do grow up.) The counter showed only several thousand hits for a one-month period when, in fact, the site had over 13,000 hits for the same period. Obviously, Home page hits aren't the same as site hits and not everyone visits the Home page.

Tip

A better way to monitor site activity is with the logs created by your Web server software. Log analysis tools can make sense of the entries by summarizing hits and other data. I discuss log analysis software in Chapter 12.

Another drawback to page counters is the number that appears. A friend of mine who hosts a site on my Web server added a counter to his site's sole page six months ago. I peeked at the page last week and saw that the counter read 17. Now that has to be depressing. And it sure makes the site look unpopular to the other sixteen people who looked at it. Sure, you can pad the number or have it count by twos or threes or tens, but that kind of defeats the purpose of a counter, doesn't it?

Online Chat

If you're interested in building a community on your Web site, online chat is the way to go. This feature enables site visitors to type messages to each other in real time.

There are two potential problems with adding an online chat feature to a small business Web site:

• In most cases, the chat feature won't add anything of value for your customers or clients . Chances are, it'll just attract people who like to chat. Your resources could probably be better used on features that promote your business rather than entertain your site visitors.

• A chat feature isn't very interesting when there aren't any chatters. If your site gets a few hundred hits a day, how many of those people will wander into the chat area? How many of those people will enter a message to initiate a chat? And how many other people will be waiting around the chat area to participate?

Don't get the idea that I'm anti-chat. I'm not. But I am against including a chat feature simply because it's a cool thing to include.

Instead, consider using the chat feature for customer support. For example, establish regular chat hours where one of your company's representatives can be on hand to field questions and comments about your products or services. Or set up special event chats with knowledgeable people in your area of business. Make sure site visitors know when the chats will be held. Then cross your fingers and see who attends.

Tip

If you'd like to see a great implementation of online chat, visit World Without Borders (http://www.worldwithoutborders.com/). These folks know how to make a chat worth attending .

But Wait...There's More!

So far, I've covered the most popular Web site interface elements features. But there are more.

Get out your Web browser and go surfing to see what's included on other sites you admire. While you're at it, be sure to check out your competition's sites. Seeing what other folks have done with their sites is a good way to get ideas for what you want to include ”or avoid ”on your site.