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What does it take to create the world's best corporate website?
1. What does it take to
create the world’s best corporate
website?
A roadmap for creating a best in class corporate website
26th March 2015
Wi-fi code: pool
#MSLevent
2. Agenda
8:50 – 9:00am – Introduction from the Chair
James Warren, Head of Digital, MSLGROUP UK and EMEA
9:00 – 9:40am – What does a best in class website look like?
Dean Parker, Senior Digital Consultant, MSLGROUP
9:40 – 10:20am – Panel discussion and Q&A
Simon Thresh, Digital Strategy Lead, SABMiller
James Russell, Corporate Communications Director, Experian
Lucy Cording and Dean Parker from MSLGROUP
2
8. Agenda
8:50 – 9:00am – Introduction from the Chair
James Warren, Head of Digital, MSLGROUP UK and EMEA
9:00 – 9:40am – What does a best in class website look like?
Dean Parker, Senior Digital Consultant, MSLGROUP
9:40 – 10:20am – Panel discussion and Q&A
Simon Thresh, Digital Strategy Lead, SABMiller
James Russell, Corporate Communications Director, Experian
Lucy Cording and Dean Parker from MSLGROUP
8
10. Methodology
The ‘Design’ parameter in detail
Form [30]
Single-minded: How well the site
deploys a consistent and distinctive
design theme throughout the site.
[10pts]
Aesthetics: How well the design is
executed to reflect the business it is
representing. [10pts]
Impact: How well the design makes the
site stand out from the crowd. [10pts]
Assets [40]
Typography: How well considered
and crafted the typography is. [10pts]
Colour: How well colour is applied and
enhances the brand experience. [10pts]
Photography & video: How well
photography and video is produced
and used. [10pts]
Graphics: How well info-graphics are
crafted and used to add value to the
overall experience. [10pts]
Function [30]
Fit for purpose: How appropriate the
design is for the type of site and how
well it works across different devices.
[10pts]
Understandable: How good a job the
design does at making the site easy
to understand and use. [10pts]
Legible: How easy the content is
to read. [10pts]
The way the website applies visual design techniques to reflect and distinguish an organisation,
create impact and enhance the way content and pages are consumed and interacted with.
11. Methodology
The ‘User experience’ parameter in detail
• Is there a consistent and comprehensible URL structure?
• Is the current page/section clearly indicated? Does the
user always know where he is in the site?
• Does the user get pushed out of sections without that
being clear?
• Are multiple routes to content provided where necessary
to support journeys undertaken by different audiences?
• How well connected is the site to subsidiary sites (country
/ business) and other parts of its digital ecosystem?
• Are there any dead ends?
The way the website helps people navigate the site, find the information they are looking for
and complete tasks in a straightforward manner.
Effective/intuitive navigation [25]
• Is there a clear and logically structured navigation
making content easy to find?
• Is the information that users are most likely to need
easy to navigate to from most pages?
• Is the naming scheme consistent and conventional
(e.g. commonly understood main section titles such as
“Media” and “Investors”)?
• Is the structure simple, with a clear conceptual model
and no unnecessary levels?
• Is the language and nomenclature used externally
rather than internally focused?
12. Methodology
The ‘User experience’ parameter in detail (continued)
Online vacancies [10]
• Can users search for current vacancies by location,
job role, keyword, etc.?
• Is there an online application form?
• Is there a vacancy alert service?
• Can applicants create and store a CV/résumé?
Devices and accessibility [10]
• How does it perform on different devices?
• Has it been built responsively?
• Does it conform to cookie legislation?
• How well does it perform in terms accessibility?
Staying in touch[10]
• Can users sign up for RNS news alerts?
• Can users sign up for company news?
• Are a variety of methods of staying in touch (e.g. email /
RSS / social) provided?
• Can users opt to receive updates relevant to their
interests?
• Are the organisation’s social media properties
well integrated?
• Is there a way of providing site feedback?
13. Methodology
The ‘User experience’ parameter in detail (continued)
Search and filtering [20]
• Does the site search find the most relevant content for
each search criteria?
• Does it present the most useful extracts from this content
in its SERPs?
• Does the site handle zero results gracefully?
• Are filtering mechanisms provided at appropriate places
(e.g. in lists of press releases, case studies, contacts,
media library etc.)?
Interaction [25]
• Does the browser back button function intuitively,
taking the user back to the previous page?
• Are hypertext links that invoke actions (e.g. downloads,
new windows) clearly distinguished from hypertext links
that load another page?
• Are terminology and conventions (such as link colours)
consistent with general web usage?
• Is there an appropriate balance between convention and
innovation in interaction?
• Does the interaction presented on pages enhance the
user experience?
• Does it function intuitively?
• Does it increase content effectiveness? Is it fun to use?
• Is an interactive share price tool provided, enabling users
to view share price information and graphs by time and in
comparison with other companies and indices?
14. Methodology
The ‘Content’ parameter in detail
Messaging [10]
• Consider the message the home page would transmit to
people coming to the company for the first time (especially
jobseekers): are there engaging stories, good headlines, a
clear proposition?
• Is the content timely and recently updated?
• Is it relevant to its audiences?
• Does it answer the news agenda?
The way the website content meets the immediate informational needs of its different audiences,
as well as helps build relationships over time.
Content structure [10]
• Is content sensibly structured on pages?
• Is it possible to scan for summary information and
dive down for more detail?
• Is appropriate metadata (e.g. publish date, author)
provided?
• Is content linked effectively together?
• Is there an appropriate balance between convention
and innovation in structure and layout?
• Is there a variety of content formats employed
appropriately in each context (e.g. text, image, video,
animation, PDF, Excel) and an appropriate balance of
content types chosen for each page?
15. Methodology
The ‘Content’ parameter in detail (continued)
Serving society and the CSR profession [15]
• Is the CSR section easy to find?
• How well are the company’s CSR priorities explained?
• Is there detailed information about the policies for each
priority, and the company’s activity in each priority area?
• Is the relationship between CSR and the company’s
business model and governance explained?
• Is there CSR accreditation or scheme membership info?
• Are links to separate CSR reports provided?
• Is contact information provided for CSR professionals?
• Does the site tackle relevant issues (e.g. community,
environmental and others, if there are any)?
• Does it have engaging case studies that bring the
policies and progress to life in an engaging way?
• Does it weave CSR material in with other content
or link from it?
Company information and corporate governance [10]
• How easy to see what the company does and how
it is organised?
• Is the company strategy clearly articulated?
• Is there a company history?
• Is there an FAQs section?
• Is there information about the board of directors, executive
team including disclosure of interests and remuneration?
• Is there information about governance policies
and processes?
• Is there information about risk management?
• Is contact information provided for corporate contacts?
16. Methodology
The ‘Content’ parameter in detail (continued)
• Is information provided in the most appropriate
format (e.g. HTML, video, PDF, XLS)?
• Are services for shareholders available? Specifically:
share price information; dividend information; online share
management; AGM reports and calendar; shareholder
communication management; special investment
arrangements; shareholder contacts; analyst consensus;
stock exchange listing information.
• Is contact information provided for investors?
Serving investors [15]
• Are the most recently published reports prominent
(e.g. the AR, interim and quarterly statements?)
• How easy is it to find archives of quarterly figures,
presentations, webcasts, annual reports?
• How deep are the archives?
• How well laid out, with different formats signaled?
• Is there a financial calendar?
• Is there an RNS news service?
• Are summary financial metrics easily available?
• Is there background and data on the company
and its market?
• Is there a clearly stated investment case?
• Are risk factors and management clearly articulated?
17. Methodology
The ‘Content’ parameter in detail (continued)
• Does it include brand assets, logos, images, videos?
• How extensive and well organised is it?
• What’s the quality of assets; captioning; information
on download file size/format etc.?
Serving journalists [15]
• How useful is the press release archive?
• What is the quality of press releases?
• How timely are they? Is video content available?
• Are fact sheets provided?
• Are there backgrounders on controversial topics,
where relevant?
• Is the site utilised to provide topic-related
information ‘packs’?
• Is there summary information about the company
packaged in a way that’s useful for journalists?
• Is contact information provided for journalists?
• Is there a library of assets for journalists to
use in stories?
18. Methodology
The ‘Content’ parameter in detail (continued)
• Are careers FAQs provided?
• Is contact information provided for jobseekers?
Serving customers [10]
• What is provided to help customers find out about
and choose what they need (good marketing material,
interactive tools etc.)?
• Is the information provided concise, relevant, compelling?
• Is there a way to find out which services are available
in particular industry sectors and geographies?
• Is there information about how the company works
with its clients?
• Are links to eCommerce sites obvious? Or if
eCommerce services are not provided, is the onward
contact information detailed?
Serving job seekers [15]
• Is the organisation’s EVP clearly expressed? Is it obvious
why a candidate would want to work there?
• Is information provided about different career paths/roles?
• Is there information on company culture?
• Is there information on career development?
• Is there information on rewards and benefits?
• Is there information on work locations?
• Are there case studies/profiles from current employees,
in text and video?
• Is there clear information on the recruiting/application
process (what the organisation looks for, how to prepare)?
• Is there a calendar of recruitment events?
• Are there interactive features (for example, career
planners)?
19. Methodology
The ‘Visibility’ parameter in detail
Keyword strategy[18]
Evidence of a clear brand and long-tail
keyword strategy being deployed to
make content appear high in search
rankings against key search terms.
Sitemap [5]
Evidence of a well-structured and
implemented sitemap to aid search
visibility. [5pts]
Meta-data [15]
Evidence of well-structured meta-data
across all pages to aid search visibility.
Paid promotion [10]
Evidence of paid promotional activity to
make content easily discoverable
across external channels.
Social linking [17]
Use of owned social channels to
promote the site and its content.
Social signals [15]
Implementation of sufficient social
sharing functionality across key areas.
Schema mark-up [10]
Evidence of well-structured schema
mark-up to aid search visibility.
Search submission [10]
Evidence of the site and its pages being
submitted in the appropriate manner to
Google Webmaster Tools.
The way the website makes its content visible to people both within the site and outside it.
20. Methodology
The ‘Technology’ parameter in detail
Coding standards [50pts]
Javascript compression &
optimisation: Is Javascript is minified
and compressed? Avoid inline
Javascript. [5pts]
CSS compression & optimisation: Is
CSS is minified and compressed? [5pts]
Gzip compression: Is gzip
compression
is enabled for page response? [5pts]
Leveraging browser cache: Are cache
headers present for static content (e.g.
ETags and Cache expiry tags) [5pts]
Optmised images: Are images
optimised and not scaled [5pts]
Cookie free domains: Images or other
resources should be served from
cookie-less domains to improve speed
and reduce response times [5pts]
Order of CSS & Javascripts: Always
load CSS before the Javascript, Put
most of your Javascript at the bottom
[5pts]
No 404s: Requests should not
encounter 404 errors [5pts]
No redirects: There should not be
any redirects [5pts]
Cacheable Ajax: Ajax requests should
explicitly use ‘Get command’ and cache
the response [5pts]
The way the website has been built and deployed from a coding and performance perspective.
21. Methodology
The ‘Technology’ parameter in detail (continued)
Performance [50pts]
Page load time (with cache): Total
time to load the page and assets until
the page become responsive without
cache. [7.14..pts]
Page load time (without cache): Total
time to load the page and assets until
the page become responsive with cache
i.e. loading the page again. [7.14..pts]
Average page size (without cache):
Average amount of data user received
when requested a page [7.14..pts]
Page size (cache): Total page size
with cache [7.14..pts]
Number of HTTP requests (without
cache) How many http requests are
done to accomplish a page load
[7.14..pts]
Concurrent user load test: The
resilience of the site against a load of
concurrent users [7.14..pts]
Number of requests handled: Total
number of requests handled [7.14..pts]
37. Website diagnostic scores
37
Why does no-one score more than 80?
Design
• Lack of consistency across
content, pages and sites
• Lack of distinctiveness
• ‘Over-design’
User experience
• Unconventional navigation
• Poor linking together of
different content elements
• Poorly implemented image
and video libraries
• Poorly implemented job
search functions
• Poor search functions
Content
• Lack of ‘functional’
information to meet basic
audience needs
• Poorly articulated purpose
and strategy
• Lack of editorial control
over content
Visibility
• Lack of promotion across
‘owned’ social channels
• Poor implementation of
social sharing functionality
• Lack of paid promotion for
corporate ‘hot topics’
• Lack of clear SEO
strategies
Technology
• Poor optimisation of
code or assets
• Poor performance cause
by ‘heavy’ designs
63. • Coding standards are
relatively good across
the board
• Some of the biggest
sites suffer from poor
technical performance
• Performance issues
can be caused by design
decisions and/or poor
implementation
63
Look at site performance as well as coding standards…
72. So how do you go about creating a best in class corporate website
1. Ensure you equally understand content marketing as much
as the functional needs of corporate website audiences
2. Ensure the right balance between innovation and convention
3. Get designers, UX architects, comms consultants and techies
working together from the start
4. Create an editorial team that can find, create, publish and manage
content on an on-going basis
5. Put a cross-functional governance team in place to maintain
the integrity of the site going forward
73. Agenda
8:50 – 9:00am – Introduction from the Chair
James Warren, Head of Digital, MSLGROUP UK and EMEA
9:00 – 9:40am – What does a best in class website look like?
Dean Parker, Senior Digital Consultant, MSLGROUP
9:40 – 10:20am – Panel discussion and Q&A
Simon Thresh, Digital Strategy Lead, SABMiller
James Russell, Corporate Communications Director, Experian
Lucy Cording and Dean Parker from MSLGROUP
73
What is Benchmarkdotcom?
A tool that helps you score your website against 5 key parameters: Design, Content, UX, Technology, Promotion.
Why should you use it?
Because it gives you a quick view of how well your current website is performing compared to your competitors and other organisations. Which should help you decide where best to spend your money and whether you need a radical redesign or just make incremental improvements.
When should you use it?
It’s particularly useful when you’re thinking about redeveloping your existing site, but equally can be used to determine how best to evolve your existing one.
To start, we are beginning to see simpler design systems being used within corporate websites
This is partly being driven by the need for these experiences to work on mobile devices…
…and partly by a more editorial approach to the way content is presented
Secondly, we are seeing lots of corporate websites lead with story-telling and create hubs for stories at the front of their sites…
Coca-Cola Journey was the trailblazer but since then we’ve seen the likes of Roche, GE, Microsoft and SABMiller follow their lead, amongst many others
Why? Usually part of a wider strategy which is about influencing audiences and building brand reputation through sustained conversations across multiple channels – without the need to solely rely on traditional media sources
Thirdly, we are seeing an increased focus on useful search and navigation devices that help people to get to the content they are looking for quicker and enhance their journeys through a site
And finally, we are beginning to see (at last) sites being developed in a way that make it easier for people to share content on their social networks…
…and the visibility of site content being improved in search results through optimisation and paid search activities
So, we use five core parameters to judge the performance of a site…
Each parameter has a number of check-points that are used by experts in each area to create a score out of 100
Where appropriate, the scoring methodology is influenced by criteria used in other third party benchmarking tools (e.g. the FT Bowen Craggs Index)…
…and may use online tools to perform certain tests on the site (e.g. to test page speeds).
For example…
Design
Does the design have a particularly distinctive style
Does the design enhance the content and way it can be consumed
The overall quality of visual assets (typography, colour, photography, video, graphics)
User experience
How easy/intuitive navigation is
Inclusion and quality of functionality and interaction behaviours
How well search and filtering is implemented
How well it works across mobile
User experience
How easy/intuitive navigation is
Inclusion and quality of functionality and interaction behaviours
How well search and filtering is implemented
How well it works across mobile
User experience
How easy/intuitive navigation is
Inclusion and quality of functionality and interaction behaviours
How well search and filtering is implemented
How well it works across mobile
Content
Overall quality of messaging
How well it serves the specific informational needs of:
Investors
NGOs
Journalists
Job seekers
Customers
Content
Overall quality of messaging
How well it serves the specific informational needs of:
Investors
NGOs
Journalists
Job seekers
Customers
Content
Overall quality of messaging
How well it serves the specific informational needs of:
Investors
NGOs
Journalists
Job seekers
Customers
Visibility
Evidence of an SEO keyword strategy
Evidence of sitemap, metadata & schema mark-up to improve search indexing and display
Use of social sharing functionality
Evidence of paid promotion
Strength of owned social channels to support the corporate story
There aren’t many benchmarking frameworks for corporate websites but compared to the two most famous ones from Bowen Craggs and Comprend (used to be called KWD):
It’s quicker and cheaper to perform
It has a wider remit (e.g. not just focused on content and UX)
It’s run by a team of different specialists, each one an expert in each of the different parameters
It’s quicker and cheaper to run
GE – Simply because we have always massively admired them and what they do from a digital comms perspective
Coca-Cola Company – so much recent PR around their content marketing efforts through ‘The Journey’ – seen as a game changer for corporate website
Roche – a site that performs well in the FT Bowen Craggs Index that we instinctively felt would perform well across all parameters
Shell – No1 in the FT Bowen Craggs Index
Land Securities – one of our sites that is relatively old now so wanted to see how well it performs now
As we all know, first impressions are incredibly important, so for those of you that don’t know the websites of these organisations, let’s take a quick look at each one…
GE – an American multinational that, to use their own terminology, “mixes and matches the latest technology and research to build, power, move and cure the world
Coca-Cola Company – an American manufacturer, retailer and marketer of non-alcoholic beverages
Roche – a Swiss global healthcare company working across pharmaceuticals and diagnostics
Shell – Anglo-Dutch multinational oil and gas company
Land Securities – the largest commercial property company in the UK and leading British property development and investment company
So let’s start by having a bit of fun and getting some audience participation…
Please put your hands up for the site you think performs best in our benchmark
Interesting – we’ll compare the results in a minute but let’s start by exploring some highlights – the key trends shaping modern corporate websites
So – the “scores on the doors”
Naturally, given we have picked sites that we would expect to perform well, there are lots of similar scores across the different parameters…
…but there are also some quite surprising results, especially when it comes to the UX and Technology parameters…
….which we will explore in more detail in a bit
So lets’ take a closer look site by site…
To start with, the scores for Shell are very surprising given it takes first place in the FT Bowen Craggs index…
Especially the low score attributed to the UX parameters
(Saying that, we know they are about to launch a new site so would expect a lot of these issues to be sorted soon)
Land Securities, given it’s age (developed over 5 years ago) performs relatively well across most parameters but is let down by a poor performance on the Technology and Visibility parameters
And Coca-Cola, while it does better than some on the Design and Visibility parameters, suffers from poor technical and UX performance…
Content performance is below average which is surprising given the amount they invest in content marketing, but as you will see, this is more to do with the way they cater for more traditional corporate website audiences
GE, as we’d expected, performs well across design (1st), content, user experience and visibility (1st) but is surprisingly let down by the Technology parameter
And finally, Roche performs the best across content, user experience and technology, comes a close second on design and does fairly well on the visibility parameter
The first point to make is that none of the sites achieve a score higher than 80 across any of the parameters…
Apart from the fact that it is almost impossible for every site to achieve maximum marks across all of the parameters…
There are some common areas that most of the sites fall down on…
For example…
A lack of consistency in the design of content, pages and different sites that make up the corporate web estate
Poorly implemented image and video libraries
Poorly articulated purpose and strategy
A general lack of paid promotion
Poor technical optimisation of assets
So let’s look at some of the detail behind the scores for Design…
As you will see, the scores are fairly similar but Shell in particular suffers in a variety of ways
To begin with, we are seeing sites like Roche employ a simple design system. It’s interesting to see that if you blank out the images on their homepage, all you are left with is a design that consists of two colours, blue and grey, and a few different font styles…
Which means that their fantastic photography is able to shine through
And simple design systems also relate to the number and type of page templates being used…
These examples help illustrate how more modern sites like Roche employ a fewer number of simple page templates in order to get their message across…
Often using single column layouts like this one to tell a powerful story across a simple, visually rich long scrolling page
And the devil’s in the typographic detail…
The example on the left from a GE story shows how bold yet refined typography can be used to tell a story in, what I would argue, is a far more effective way than the example on the right
Don’t know about you but I’m far more interested in how far whales swim for lunch than electrical discharge machining, but presented side by side, I know which one I’d be more inclined to read!
Don’t want to get into a debate about whether you should follow a mobile first approach, but given the importance of the mobile experience today…
…(in some cases we’re seeing over 30% of audiences accessing a corporate website using a mobile device)…
You cannot ignore the way your site looks and works on mobile and it certainly shouldn’t be an afterthought.
Interestingly, while it appears that the Roche site has been designed using a mobile first approach, resulting in a simple but nice desktop experience…
We’d argue that the Coca-Cola site works better on mobile than desktop – suggesting that they designed the desktop experience first but have got lucky with the mobile experience as it cuts out some of the noise that we have marked them down on for desktop
OK, let’s look at the Content parameter now in more detail…
You’ll notice that there is a great amount of similarity to the scores but Coca-Cola performs – not because of their approach to story-telling, which of course is exemplary, but more to do with how they cater for the informational demands of certain audiences
OK, so James has already touched on the growing trend for creating content hubs at the front of a corporate website – best illustrated by these examples from Coca-Cola and GE…
But naturally we need to fill these hubs with great content – and there is a lot of variation between how these sites do it…
For example, the example on the left shows how Roche creates beautifully told stories through a simple, easy to navigate set of slides that use strong imagery and video to tell a story – allowing you to easily click-through each chapter or skip to the bits that interest you the most
In the case of Shell, for them it’s not necessarily an issue of not having good content or stories to tell – it’s more to do with how they combine image, text, video etc. on a page in order to tell a story that is going to capture your attention and keep you engaged
And following on from the last slide…
The way a story is constructed and the assets it used to help bring it to life are incredibly important…
The example on the left is from a GE story about advanced manufacturing techniques…combining a short amount of copy with stunning photography and video
While the one on the right is about reducing the environmental impact of new buildings and uses far more words and less supporting visual assets
I know which one I’d prefer to read
(It’s a little bit unfair on Land Securities given they don’t have a huge team (or budgets) to generate the same level and quality of content as GE but I believe any business can follow a similar approach – even if it’s just in relation to a handful of hero stories related to their business, industry or customers)
We are seeing some valiant attempts by many organisations to tackle some of biggest consumer, societal or political issues related their business…
Shell do a fantastic job, through their ‘Future of Energy’ section of their site – which is front and centre on their site – to tackle the big issue relating to their industry and their role within it…
And Coca-Cola have a great section within their Contact Us page that is dedicated to providing detailed information in relation to rumours about them, their industry or their consumers – for example, email scams or rumours related to their involvement in the Middle East
And we are also seeing many companies promote their senior leadership in a meaningful way…
For example, both Coca-Cola and GE have a dedicated section that presents their leaders with links to their articles, blogs, speeches, interviews and presentations
And many organisations are investing in stories from their people that bring what it’s like to work there to life…
GE have a separate site that allows employees to submit stories that illustrate what it’s like to work there…
And Roche, in their dedicated ‘Our Purpose’ page – back up what they say by showing videos from employees that show how what they do on a daily basis to help transform patient’s lives through innovation
When it comes to specific needs of certain audiences, like journalists for example…
With all the talk about content marketing, it’s easy to forget the need to support journalists in order to make it as easy as possible for them to write stories about you…
In the case of GE, they do a good job of presenting additional information such as downloads and multimedia assets to support their press releases
And when it comes to investors…
We’re starting to see companies invest a lot more effort in articulating their investment case…
Just compare this example from GE on the left, which show part of what they call their ‘Equity story’ which is backed up with charts, graphics and a simple narrative…
…to the more traditional example on the right
And we’re finally starting to see content being released from annual and CR reports so visitors don’t have to search within these documents to find it.
The example from Roche on the left shows KPI data presented within the site and the one on the right, from Land Securities, shows graph and chart data related to their market overview
So now let’s look at the user experience parameter…
This one shows the greatest variation in scores, especially with regards to Shell and Coca-Cola
The first point is a really important one…
We believe there is an important balance that needs to be struck between the more functional needs of traditional corporate website audiences such as investors, job seekers, journalists and job seekers…
..and those of a wider audience, including consumers, that may be interested in softer story-telling material
We believe that Coca-Cola have maybe gone a step too far. You will see from this example on the left that the global navigation for the site is dominated by the story-telling hub, sometimes in a way that we believe could be confusing for certain audiences. There is a small link for investors and the rest of the site architecture is hidden beneath the small drop-down menu next to it. For example, if you are an NGO interested in sustainability information, you may get confused to find that the link shown at the top only shows you sustainability stories rather than more detailed technical information relating to KPIs for example that this person may be looking for.
We would argue that Roche have created a much better balance – offering more conventional navigation options up-front but also leading with their story-telling hub on the homepage.
You need to create landing pages that work hard for you…
I remember the effort we put into these pages for Land Securities a number of years ago – looking at web analytics data to try to determine the content from within this section that was most useful to people – so, as you can see from this example, we could surface it on the responsibility landing page – pulling up key pages, articles and downloads so the user doesn’t need to go searching for it.
The example from Roche on the right shows a landing page for Oncology that provides links to detailed information found further down in the section as well as links out to other parts of the site for related information and it presents key facts etc. – creating a great hub for all things related to this topic
Compared to an example like this from Shell that just points to every page within a particular section
Likewise, we are seeing a trend in creating campaign hubs…
Coca-Cola does a good job of these – providing destinations for certain topics or campaigns that include a variety of assets such as stories, info-graphics and video related to them
We are also seeing many companies getting to grips with linking content together more effectively…
The example on the left from Roche shows a simple tactic that will just make some visitor’s life that little bit easier by showing committee the committees that each of their board members belong to rather than forcing them to find it…
And the example on the right shows how Coca-Cola, through their fantastic online magazine The Journey, use a tagging framework to help people navigate around different story types
There are some examples of companies supplementing their digital corporate presence through separate apps or tools…
The example on the left shows a financial reporting tool provided by Roche that, although not exactly the prettiest thing in the world, provides a huge amount of detail that allows investors or shareholders drill down into the detail behind their financial figures…
And on the right you can see some examples of apps for specific audiences…
But before you make a commitment to developing your own apps, think carefully about whether they offer something that your website can’t – especially given the extra commitment that it takes for someone to go to an app store and download it
Given that a large proportion of visitors to your corporate site will just be going there to find out how to get in touch…
It’s super important not to neglect heir needs. In fact, none of the sites we looked at did a great job of providing contact information – which needs to be tailored carefully for different audiences – but the GE example on the right shows a good attempt at providing different levels of information for different audiences…
And on the left you can see a good example of how Coca-Cola are innovating through a virtual agent that can provide live support
And finally, many of you will have experienced the joy of trying to manage disparate and often poorly implemented ATS systems (Applicant Tracking and Management Systems)…
…but as shown by Roche on the left, there are ways of trying to create a more satisfactory user experience to that shown by Coca-Cola on the right
The Technology parameter is a story of conflicting performances…
While all the sites do a relatively good job of using good coding standards that support modern sites and browsers…
The biggest area of underperformance was to do with page sizes, load times and resilience…
It’s interesting to see how GE and Coca-Cola perform (or underperform to be more accurate)…
GE suffers from poor optimisation of assets, especially video which massively impacts its performance…
And Coca-Cola just takes a hit for having a design which places so much demand on the site due to the sheer number and size of its visual assets
And finally, let’s look at the Visibility parameter…
Naturally, and of course this is nothing new, most sites now provide some form of social sharing functionality…
Although many of them only apply it to top-level stories and I would argue that there’s no reason for almost every page on the site, although especially press releases, should also include such a feature
It’s a simple way of amplifying your content using the power of your visitors’ social networks
And there are simple ways to improve the way that content is shared across your visitors’ social channels, such as the use of Twitter cards…
Interestingly, we didn’t see Twitter cards implemented correctly across any of the sites…
If you look at the example on the left you will see how a Tweet that is shared from a website looks when Twitter cards has been implemented, versus the example on the right from The Independent – with an image pulled through and specific copy being applied to the Tweet
BTW – it was World Waffle Day yesterday if anyone is interested.
GE s the only example we found of a company offering a social media dashboard within their site which aggregates feeds from different social platforms that related to corporate issues
You need to think very carefully about the way your site and its content is set-up in order to display correctly in search results…
…The example on the left shows how Land Securities have failed to provide the right level of meta data for the site as a whole, or its individual pages…
While the example from Shell on the right shows what it looks like when implemented properly, as well as…
An example of SEM (paid search) – which is absolutely the right thing to do to help you own the conversation around certain topics and point people to all that wonderful content that you’ve spent countless hours and dollars creating
The examples on the right show ‘Knowledge Graphs’ (appear on the right hand side of a Google search results page when someone has searched for your company) – again something that you can influence
While admittedly social channels are the place where most dialogue will take place, it’s still worthwhile using your site to encourage further discussion…
The example on the left shows the wonderful live web chats that Shell offers as part of its Shell Scenarios initiative…
…and the example on the right shows commentary function offered to users on the Coca-Cola site at the bottom of story pages
..both good ways of encouraging debate
Naturally, you need to use your ‘owned’ social channels to amplify your corporate story but beyond traditional links back to your website from your Facebook or Twitter feeds, you can go further like these two examples show…
Coca-Cola have a dedicated Twitter feed called Coke Archives that allows them to publish content related to their massive historical archive…
While GE have an Instagram channel that is used to present an amazing array of images of their machines, people or building – which comes to life when they run campaign such as #Instawalk – where they invited
The important point is that you need to use these channels to point people back to your corporate website
And finally, you should look to share User Generated Content to bring your products and services to life from a customer perspective…
…admittedly, Coca-Cola have an easier job of doing that than some of you, but still big predominantly engineering firms like GE have also created many successful campaign, like the 6 second science fair, to involve their fans in the corporate story
The example on the left shows a part of their homepage that presents user images that show ‘moments of happiness’ and the one on the right shows a campaign page aimed at getting consumers to share ‘happy’ experiences of them enjoying Coke
So, to wrap up…
Let’s try to answer the question of how you go about creating a best in class corporate website in 5 simple bullet points (if only it was that easy!!)…
In todays’ world you (or your agency) need to understand both sides of the coin – specific functional and informational demands of corporate website audiences as well as the softer side of influence and relationships through story-telling
As I’ve already explained, there’s a danger of either ignoring conventions, especially in relation to navigation, that we believe will cause anxiety with many audiences, or not being innovative enough and creating a bland site that doesn’t excite the viewer
Some of the problems we encountered are obviously to do with designers or Users not working alongside other experts and creating a site that looks beautiful but doesn’t perform very well from a technical or promotional perspective
We know that one of the biggest headaches for most corp comms directors is finding a steady stream of story ideas of content from different parts of the business and managing it going forward so you need to set-up a cross-functional editorial team to manage the process going forward
And again, many of the sites we looked at showed signs of suffering from different teams going off and creating their own presence without following any best practice guidelines relating to design, content or user experience – often creating a disjointed or ineffective experience