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companysecretariat.com: One Minute Interview with Al Loehnis
29/10/2007
http://www.companysecretariat.com/
New London Stock Exchange rules mean Aim companies must have a website. But how do you make the site easy to find and simple to navigate? Online communications specialist Investis has designed 115 Aim websites. Founding director Al Loehnis discusses the tricks of creating a great site.
Why is it important for a company to have an effective website?
We recently interviewed 33 fund managers on this subject and it's very clear from that survey (see links below) that the quality of a company website impacts their investment decisions. If the annual report is sloppy this translates into 'this is a sloppy company.' Investors think the same about websites.
And what are the other dangers of having a poor website?
If a company's own website isn't the authority on corporate information, then where does the company expect people to go? People will go elsewhere for information, such as bulletin boards and other sources over which the company has no control.
It's not all about content, usability is also important. What are the things that make a site easy to use?
For a start the website needs to be easy to find. I would expect a company to get into the top four to five Google search results. In the past we've had a lot of difficulties finding some Aim websites. You can improve search ranking by choosing an intuitive URL as close to the company name as possible.
There are also some key technical considerations to keep in mind?
Yes, the way your web developer builds the site is equally important. You'll need to have 'meta tags' on the web pages. This data is invisible to the visitor but viewable to the search engine.
Meta what? Surely these are things my web developer needs to worry about?
They should but very often they don't. Meta tags are something a good website designer should absolutely know about. But you'll need to be asking deeper questions than just how much the site redesign is going to cost and how long it'll take.
What makes a site easy for people to navigate around?
Most sites are navigated with a menu across the top of the page and when you are in a section the sub sections are listed down the left hand side.
People are familiar with this format, why change it? Good signposting is key. Where possible bring information onto the page rather than leaving it buried in PDFs.
Some companies have taken the annual report as the starting point for their website's design. Is this a smart solution?
It's dangerous to synchronize the two as an annual report look and feel tends to change from year to year and that can force you into a cycle of constantly redesigning the website.
Is it worth making your website Real Simple Syndication (RSS)-enabled?
Some people use RSS a lot. It allows you to receive information in a timely way without cluttering up your email inbox with alerts. It doesn't cost a great deal extra to put in. If we're designing a website we charge about £500. That compares to our overall charge for medium-sized company's corporate website of between £10,000 and £15,000.
And you can host the site on your own server and manage it on an ongoing basis?
We host and manage more than 350 sites about 60 of which are Aim sites. For an Aim-compliant managed solution we charge from about £1,500 a year and that goes up depending on the size of the site.
It must be tempting to use a cheap, off-the-shelf hosting service. Why isn't this a good idea?
What you don't get are assurances on reliability or security which are big issues for Aim companies given the website is a regulatory requirement. We have come across companies that have gone this route and been without a website for a week. If this coincides with a period such as results season, when there is a lot of news coming out, this can create real problems and possible legal liability.
Links
Investis and Makinson Cowell fund manager survey
T. +44 (0)20 7038 9023
F. +44 (0)20 7038 9001
E. enquiries@investis.com
Recruitment:
T. +44 (0)20 7038 9000
E. recruitment@investis.com
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