Is your website good enough?

Corporations spend millions on PR, and yet the press sections of their web sites often fail to meet journalists' most basic information needs. In our recent usability study, journalists found answers to only 60% of their questions across a range of corporate sites.

The top-five reasons journalists gave for visiting a company's web site were to find a PR contact (name and telephone number)check basic facts about the company (spelling of an executive's name, his/her age, headquarters location, etc.),discover the company's own spin on events,check financial information, and download images to use as illustrations in stories.

Corporate Web sites Get a 'D' in PR By Jakob Nielsen and Kara Pernice Coyne: Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, April 1, 2001

Although the main purpose of corporate communication ... is the communication and explanation of the corporate strategy in order to build an positive image within the most important target groups, data seem to confirm that online communication is mainly product focused and that only few of the companies inform for example about their vision/mission and strategy, or structure and organization.....

  So far, most corporations still seem to have a strict line between marketing and corporate communication

most web sites are predominantly product-driven and offer inferior corporate communication. Web-based communication so far has more or less been driven by marketing rather than by communication. In consequence, the success for web-based communication is measured by the ability to attract consumers, but not by any ability to interest journalists or other catalysts for a corporations web-site. The emergence of new media will increase the requirements for both an integrated and holistic view for communication......

From a survey of 150 corporate communication web sites, by Markus Will and Victor Porak, MCM institute, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland: JMM - Vol. 2 – No. III / IV – 2000

Usability tests conducted on major US and UK corporate websites by working journalists for the Nielsen Norman Group found that “on average, users were only able to complete 70% of simple test tasks such as finding financial info about a company or finding the telephone number of a PR representative.”

And a survey of FTSE 100 websites by IAB found that: “An alarming number of them still treat their key audiences - investors and the media - appallingly, making it difficult to get the information they need. 35% still do not provide a section which meets the fundamental requirements of the media from their Home Pages.”

Most corporate websites are a compromise, trying to promote marketing, brand building, financial and investor information, PR, recruitment, and other functions. It’s not surprising if they are confusing to use.

Your dark site is focussed on one thing: putting your message about a major incident clearly in front of your key stakeholders. So it can be clear and quick, making sure that the media use it and come back to it. See a demonstration of the Stirling Reid dark site package here!