WEBSITE ANALYSIS 

This review will compare three different banking websites in Westpac, National Australia Bank and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. I tested the searching capacity of the websites by using Google and Yahoo! to search for the term “bank” and I found that the commonwealth bank held positions one and two, Westpac number three, and National Bank number 5 on Google, indicating that the banks all have good coverage when using Google and will have the best possibility of attracting customers who are searching for a bank. However, Yahoo! told another story. At number one was the Commonwealth, number 8 was the National Australia Bank and at number 20 was Westpac, hence the Commonwealth has by far the most dominating search engine capacity.One Website Analyst suggests the following as key indicators of a good website:

Usefulness of information Ease of surfing on the site Quick response time Excellent product information flow Readability and originality Friendly layout Good listings on major search engines (website analyst, 2007)

As a guideline for the analysis I have used Ian Knox’s guidelines for analysing a website. Ian suggests that this involves twelve steps:

“1.      Is the company name and logo on every page? Is it linked to the home page?

2.      Does the site have search (if needed) and does it work adequately?

3.      Are headlines and page titles clear?

4.      Are photos well placed, and a suitable size?

5.      Do links work and clearly describe the page they will lead to?

6.      Is font size and colour easy to read against the background?

7.      Is the transaction process simple and secure?

8.      Are transactions acknowledged and can shipping be tracked?

9.      Does the site have contact information and/or help?

10.  Is the purpose of the website clear?

11.   Do I TRUST this web site with my information?

12.  Can you leave feedback or extend the relationship e.g. newsletter?”

(Knox, 2007)

WESTPAC

www.westpac.com.au

ANALYSIS

 The Westpac website is good because it is easy to establish where icons are without too much browsing. The homepage is also good because it has a side bar which allows the user to enter the links to the main categories which hence lead to further detail on the related product or service. As can be seen above, the webpage is very neat and allows users to enter into the categories they wish by clicking on one of the main icons. The Westpac logo appears on every page, making the company name known and this is linked to the homepage, which is also good because it allows users to readily know where to click in order to return to the homepage without having to type in the website address again or constantly search for a link.

The websites search engine also appears to be adequate, I used the example of searching for online banking, and the number one hit was to sign into online banking, which was good because it was what I was searching for.The home page is very neat and clear. It sets out categories for areas such as home loans, credit cards, online banking and etcetera and then works off into sub categories so you can go into more specific areas, making the website very easy to navigate. Then once clicking into a specific area it uploaded sub categories which went into various sectors making the website easy to understand, and made searching for things very easy.The current website picture being used is a picture of a gift, which uses the company colours (red and white) to show a mother’s day special. This is good because the colours suit the theme of the website and the picture is situated in a good position next to the link and at the perfect eye position in the mid left hand corner to catch the user’s eye, the picture is also a good size because its not to small that a user wont notice it and its not to big that it dominates the whole page.All links on the page appear to be accurate and in working order. They also direct you to the exact area you wish to enter on the webpage. For example, the side bar has a major category and then it works off into sub categories and these are all links which the user can access with ease and with little confusion.The background is a plain white, working again with the company’s colours. With logos and headings in red, they have chosen to use black as the font colour. This looks fantastic because it is very easy to read. The font size is also adequate as it appears to be approximately a size 12 font and allows the reader to easily read without an over dominating font.The transaction process for this website is very easy to track. This is because each transaction you make with the bank comes up with a transaction record which can easily be saved to your computer or printed off as a transaction record. The transaction process is very simple compared to their competitors such as the commonwealth bank who have a very confusing online banking system. Unlike the CBA, Westpac has an easy to navigate online banking system which allows a first time user to have much more confidence when using the website.The website also has a contact us section, and in this area it goes into numerous sub categories which allows the user to be able to access the person they need directly rather then having to go through numerous people to get to the department they want, which is fantastic.The only negative aspect about the website so far is that it doesn’t appear to have a help section, although if you go through their search engine I am quite sure you could find what you were looking for as this is more then an adequate search system.Another good aspect about the website is that it has tabs at the top of the page for the most commonly used pages such as online banking.This website can be trusted because it’s a large Australian company with a respected brand name who has had little or no trouble regard privacy in the past.The website doesn’t have an area to leave feedback regarding the webpage.Overall the Westpac website has been fantastically easy to navigate and is easy to read, its clear and precise.

 COMMONWEALTH BANK

www.commbank.com.au

ANALYSISThe Commonwealth bank website is good in the fact that it uses the company colours in yellow and black for the font and background, however other then that I have found it very difficult to navigate and very congested and confusing. It is also very plain, boring and dull on the eye.The homepage is okay because it has little information, instead it has a side bar which leads to either personal or business banking, however once you enter these pages through their links, I found the website to be very congested and confusing, especially net banking.. On top of this when searching for stock broking services I wasn’t aware that the Commonwealth Bank has another website altogether for this known as “commsec” and finding this was a very difficult thing because I wasn’t aware of the name difference. The commonwealth have a number of enterprises under the one name which have varying services, and unless you are aware of their services, chances are you won’t be able to utilise them. They do however have links to these pages which is a good thing, but they don’t have any information about these subsidiaries and hence unless you knew what commbiz or commsec was you wouldn’t be able to use their services without having to enter the links and searching through information to find what you were looking for.However, one good aspect of the page is that the three main reasons for people using the website are set in main tabs on the right hand side, such as, net banking and

commsec, the biggest problem is discovering that commsec is actually the broking service! Once you enter net banking it becomes very confusing compared to its competitors websites. The website just isn’t in plain English and straight to the point, it is confusing and a user has to work their way around to get where they want to be.The bank logo does appear at the top of every page and it is a well known brand name so this looks very good and it is also linked to the homepage which is very handy as the user can simply click the logo and be linked back to the homepage.The websites search engine also appeared to be adequate and came up with the results I was searching for which was also a good thing.The headlines and page titles are very clear, set out into areas such as personal, business and etcetera, the links only trouble is that you have to wait for the pages to load before you can go into the next page and then you have to look for the thing you are looking for within that page which makes navigating even worse.The font size and colour is very standard and works well with the website, its just the congestion which makes the pages confusing. There appears to be to much information trying to be cramped into every page and it isn’t easy on the eye.They use a white background with black writing which makes the web pages very easy to read.The transaction process is far from simple, it is very confusing and hard to navigate your way around the pages, however once you have worked this out I think you will find the commonwealth bank website is very secure and the bank offers basically full protection against any hackers.All transactions are acknowledged with a transaction record which can either be printed or saved to your computer.The website does have a help section which can be used to basically gain help about any section of the website which is an added benefit, however, it would be much better if the website was simpler to access and then the help icon wouldn’t need to be used as often.The purpose of the website is clear, it is here for the users to access accounts, and information about what the bank has on offer in terms of products and services and the website does contain an awful lot of information, its just the user has to be able to find the information first.The website also has contact information with many different sections of the bank having different details for email and telephone which is very good. The fact that they have so many different departments listed for contacting is also good because it means you don’t have to passed from department to department when you have an inquiry.The commonwealth bank website can defiantly be trusted with your information and they have a privacy statement on the website if any queries need answering. There doesn’t appear to be a page for leaving feedback.The commonwealth website has a lot of information on it, the only issue is that it is very confusing to find your way around and it as it is too congested on certain pages.   

NATIONAL AUSTRALIA BANK

www.nab.com.au

ANALYSIS

The NAB website is good because it is easy to access, all the information is online and everything is clear. As can be seen by the homepage above, the website is very neat and has good use of colour allowing the website to be very attractive to the eye. The webpage doesn’t have a huge amount of dominating information on the homepage which is good because it doesn’t overwhelm the user, however they have categories where the user can click into to gain more information on certain products the bank offers.The company logo appears on every page which allows users to link back to the homepage. The website does have its own search engine, however I searched for internet banking and didn’t find a listing on the first page of results, instead I found telephone banking, bpay etcetera. The headlines and titles to each page are very clear and under each headline the department has a sub category which allows the user to easily see the section of the website that they wish to use. Photos appear at the top of each page with the logo, they are different photos of everyday Australians and this gives the page a very attractive, smart and professional look. The website also has

small photos in certain areas on pages where they are trying to catch the attention of users. This is good because they aren’t overly dominating photos and they do draw the attention of the user. All links are in working order and take you directly to the page that is stated. There are many links to each section which are easily visible, making the website very easy to navigate.The website uses a white background with black font, making the writing very easy to read. The font is also a good size consistently which makes the page look very well set out and attractive to the user. The font size is also a very good size and in the top right hand corner the option is given to the user to “increase the font size”, which is an added benefit of the website.The transaction process is very simple with this bank, all a user has to do is follow the links and they will be put through an easy process to complete the net banking or loan transactions. The NAB also has a privacy statement which would give users confidence when using the website.The NAB uses transaction reports after every transaction which means a user can print off or save any details from transactions onto their computer. The website also has a search in their contact us section which is very useful because it allows the user to be put through the exact department they wish to speak to.The webpage also has a help section which allows users to receive help if they cant work out how to do particular things on the website which works adequately and is very useful.The website doesn’t allow you to leave feedback regarding the webpage, and there is no ongoing relationship but you can access all the information regarding the bank online. This website was very easy to use, it wasn’t congested and the information was all adequate. It was easy to find my way around pages and I enjoyed using the internet banking of this website because it was much easier then the likes of the commonwealth bank which has a very confusing net banking system.The NAB website was also by far the most attractive website to the eye and the commonwealth was by far the most boring and dull and has all the information you could possibly need when dealing with a bank. 

Overall, I found the NAB website the most attractive and easiest to use. Second place went to the Westpac website which I found also similar to NAB in that everything worked and was very neat. However, I found the commonwealth by far the worst website in that it was very hard to navigate and once you found what you were looking for (such as net banking) it was very difficult to put a transaction through because it was very confusing and there was no help once you entered into net banking.

REFERENCES Website Analyst 2007. Retreived May 7, 2007 from the Website Analyst website:http://www.website-analyst.co.il/

Knox, Ian 2007. Retrieved May 7, 2007 from the Kazbaah Website:http://kazbaah.com/ebus/