The impact of interactivity on business website visibility

To stay abreast of competition, business websites have to have more than a professional appearance; they need to attract and engage users. The literature indicates that adding dynamic and interactive features judiciously can increase web engagement; after all, who does not like to play? In so doing, cyber interactivity can be used as a strategic tool to improve the popularity of websites. The goal of this study is to examine interactivity dimensions and how they relate to the popularity of websites. This study compares a website's popularity as measured through 'link-backs' or 'referrals.' Twenty-five features that relate to cyber interactivity as prescribed by Ha and James were classified into five dimensions: playfulness, reciprocal communication, choice, connectedness and data collection. The analysis was carried across three sectors of business: manufacturing, service and retail. No significant differences of adopting interactivity features were found by the industry sector. The findings suggest that playfulness and reciprocal communication are the most salient predictors for site popularity. Implications and suggestions were drawn from the results.