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Website Newsroom FAILS

Having an online newsroom is one of the most important aspects of your website. It’s one of the most visited areas for journalists looking for information and acts as the main portal for information about your product or service. Its importance cannot be overemphasized.

The fact is: If you don’t provide the information they’re looking for, they’ll go somewhere else.

So what makes a great online newsroom that best serves potential clients and targeted journalists? Here’s our top 10:

1. Keep it Fresh – Your newsroom should be kept current and be constantly updated with the latest news, announcements, important dates, photos, events, etc. If your newsroom looks abandoned, why would anyone want to visit it?

2. Post Specific Media Contact Info – Nothing is more frustrating for a journalist than having to spend a lot of time hunting down the right contact, especially for media who are on tight deadlines. Make it easy for them. It’s amazing how many corporate websites do NOT provide media contact names, phone numbers and direct email addresses.

3. Archive the Past – Visitors want the option to check out past news. You should provide a press release archive in text format, that’s categorized by date and subject matter to make research easy.

4. Share Your History – Include the history of your firm and a timeline of important milestones as a way for visitors to get to know you better and tap into your past experience.

5. Don’t Just Tell, Show – In today’s world, using visuals to tell a story and support your marketing is part of the gig. Without visuals, you’ll fall behind the pack. Offer high-res, downloadable photos and video content on products, events, executive interviews and more. Remember, everyone reads pictures!

6. Detail Your Products and Services – Offer product or service offering diagrams, instruction manuals, merchant availability, user testimonials, pricing and links to product or service reviews. Case studies can help immensely.

7. Promote Your People – To know your people is to know your firm. Be sure to ‘give a face’ to it all by providing background and photos of your top executives and client-facing personnel.

8. Dollars & Sense – More often than not, journalists are going to inquire about financial information, so you might as well save them, and yourself, some time and post financial data that is approved for the public eye.

9. I Need Stats, Stat – Be sure to provide useful statistics on your industry sector, firm and services. People, especially journalists, crave numerical data to add veracity to their stories.

10. Easy on the Eye – Your newsroom should look like it belongs to the rest of your website. Use an easy-to-navigate, uncluttered layout that gives an aura of action and timeliness.

Bonus tip – Remember to think about what you like when you visit other newsrooms. What features do you find most helpful? What frustrates you? How does your site compare to others?

Think about your own preferences, verify them with a few of your target media and then apply them to your firm’s site … continually. It’s a never-ending, but important process because your website newsroom works for you 24/7/365.