Title: Website content and design in SME: insights from Portugal

Authors: Luísa Alexandra Lopes; Nuno Filipe Melão

Addresses: Portugal Telecom Contact, Av. Afonso Costa 4, Lisboa 1900-034, Portugal ' Instituto Politécnico de Viseu and Centro de Estudos em Gestão e Economia, Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gestão de Viseu, Viseu 3504-510, Portugal

Abstract: Although there is a vast amount of literature on website evaluation, relatively little has been written about the analysis of websites of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME). This paper examines a comprehensive set of content and design features of 915 websites of Portuguese SME, as well as the relationship between these features and enterprise size. The results indicate that the majority of the websites are used to convey information, rather than to make transactions, support networking and collaboration or to interact dynamically with users. Accessibility or privacy and security features are not common among websites. Web 2.0 features have a low presence in SME websites, but social media emerged as a construct. In contrast with existing literature, the study has found that website content and design features are positively related with enterprise size. The contributions and implications are discussed together with avenues for further research.

Keywords: SMEs; small and medium-sized enterprises; e-commerce; corporate websites; website content; website design; Portugal; electronic commerce; website evaluation; SME websites; firm size.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEB.2016.075343

International Journal of Electronic Business, 2016 Vol.13 No.1, pp.70 - 97

Received: 24 Sep 2014
Accepted: 18 Oct 2015
Published online: 15 Mar 2016 *

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