What does it take to create the world's best corporate website?

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

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

Mega-trends: Story-telling hubs

6
Mega-trends: Useful tools to improve the user experience

Mega-trends: Site content optimised for search and sharing

Agenda
8

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.

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?

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?

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?

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?

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?

Methodology
• 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?

Methodology
• 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?

Methodology
• 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)?

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.

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.

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]

How does it
differ from other
benchmarks?

What makes a
great corporate
website?

Website diagnostic scores
29
Design
Content
User experienceTechnology
Visibility
What do you think?

31
Design
Content
Visibility
Land Securities
Coca-Cola Company
Shell
Roche
GE
‘Scores on the doors’

32
Design: 56
Content: 72
User experience: 32
Technology: 74
Visibility: 50
Shell

33
Design:68
Content:75
User experience:69
Technology:50
Visibility:52Land Securities

34
Design: 70
Content: 63
User experience: 50Technology: 47
Visibility: 71Coca-Cola Company

35
Design: 80
Content: 71
User experience: 67
Technology: 42
Visibility: 78
GE

36
Design:79
Content:79
User experience:74Technology:76
Visibility:65
Roche

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

38
Design
Content
Visibility
Land Securities
Coca-Cola Company
Shell
Roche
GE

Less is more, both in design styles…

The devil’s in the (typographic) detail
V

43
Design
Content
Visibility
Land Securities
Coca-Cola Company
Shell
Roche
GE

Bringing the business to life by creating a content publishing platform…

…and fill it with beautifully told stories…
V

…that use stunning photography, video and writing
222 words 518 words

Bring the leadership to the fore…

…and get employees to tell your story

Serve the informational needs of journalists…

Release key data/facts from reports

53
Design
Content
Visibility
Land Securities
Coca-Cola Company
Shell
Roche
GE

Navigation that works for all audiences…

Create landing pages that work hard,…

Create landing pages that work hard,…
V

…and/or campaign hubs for important topics

Link content together to aid user journeys

Develop useful tools/apps that meet specific needs…
Shell INSIDE ENERGY app
Shell Investor & Media app
GE Careers Guide app

Provide help and support at every step of the journey

…and (try your hardest) to create a seamless job search & application process
V

62
Design
Content
Visibility
Land Securities
Coca-Cola Company
Shell
Roche
GE

• 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…

64
Design
Content
Visibility
Land Securities
Coca-Cola Company
Shell
Roche
GE

Implement social sharing functionality across the site,…

…implement Twitter cards to optimise sharing…
V

…and create social media dashboards focused on corporate issues…

Think carefully about how your search results will be displayed…
V

…and encourage debate across key topics

Use social channels to amplify the corporate story…

…and integrate user generated content where possible

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

Agenda
73

What does it take to create the world's best corporate website?

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