BankWest makeover aims to lift internet sales

Home loan calculator - rather than home loan - is the number one search term used for  retail banking, and central to the thinking behind a makeover of BankWest's website.

Research into the internet search strategies of potential customers informs the work on the updated website, which is the product of an in-house team at the bank.

Jane Muirsmith, the head of e-commerce at BankWest, said yesterday that one difference between the new-look site and the old one (and, in comparison, the websites of many other banks) is it is "a research tool rather than an advertising platform.

"Five years ago, the view was that the more banners, the more messages you can put on a site... [the] better result.

"But you find is less is more. If you make it easy for people to find what they want when they get there you get a much better result."

At the BankWest home page only two actions are emphasised: the website search box, which is most prominent, along with the banking log-on.

The option to apply for a product and ask for help (two actions that are, unusually,  also available at the home page) are tucked away almost out of sight and are barely separated from the legal boilerplate at the bottom of the page.

Letting customers get on with finding out what they want, and on terms likely familiar to many customers, seems to be the object.

Thus, the search box offers a drop-down menu of likely options as soon as you begin to type, and in the manner familiar from Google and other search engines.

These search options lead site users directly to product pages of interest, including the calculators and comparison tools that the site's producers perceive as central to the success of this sales channel.

The comparison tables are generated dynamically from the bank's product database, a feature Muirsmith says is unique in the Australian market.

The product comparisons also appear similar to what anyone researching bank products might see on a comparison website such as Mozo or RateCity.

Asked to name websites that inspired the work of her team, Muirsmith mentioned only one bank website, First Direct in the UK.

Two others cited were Apple and Samsung, though many of the ideas are borrowed from the websites of lesser known products.