Media Still Underwhelmed By Press Areas of Corporate Web Sites

Here's another area that PR needs to get right yesterday if we are to survive or grow as a business over the long-term: meeting the needs of journalists via our corporate web sites.

All too often, our sites are repositories of incomplete or merely promotional information, rather than the facts and figures that journalists need to do their jobs. As I've always said, the easiest way to get in the media is to be available and cooperative when the media calls (or emails, or searches your web site).

Jakob Neilsen, the guru of web usability, recently released an update to his report on how journalist use the web for research. If you have the budget and you are responsible for the press area of your company's site, you must spend the measly $248 Neilsen charges for his 287-page report.

If not, you can read the summary here.

Here's a taste of Neilsen's report: the top-5 reasons journalists gave for visiting a company's website are:

• Locate a PR contact (name and telephone number)


• Find basic facts about the company (spelling of an executive's name, his/her age, headquarters location, and so on)


• Discern the company's spin on events


• Check financial information


• Download images to use as illustrations in stories

Note that "buying into your promotional hype" or "watching a video of the CEO give a speech" are not among the things journalists are looking for on your site.