The style of a corporate website is a matter for individual companies and will naturally reflect a predefined corporate image and culture.
Recognising this, the following guidelines simply present best practice advice rather than prescriptive solutions for design and content.
Awareness
Companies should promote the corporate website on all relevant investor material. To help raise awareness:
- Choose a recognisable website address (URL) that includes the company name and/or brand
- Ensure content is optimised for search engines. Review your site’s performance in search engine rankings, if it performs poorly consider if there is anything you can do to improve it.
- Regularly update investors with the latest website developments
Usability
A best practice website should be available to the widest possible audience. Key usability points to consider include:
- Ensure headings and key information are clearly presented so that users (who often scan rather than read web pages) can quickly find the information they are looking for. Structure the presentation of information so that users can see an overview first and can then go further into the website if they want more details
- Ensure a search function is available on the site. Most users expect to find it in the top right corner of each page
- Ensure that all pages are printable and that valuable information is not left off the printed page
- Avoid complex web pages that take a long time to load and repetitive animation that can distract attention
- Strike a balance between the use of new and conventional functions on the site so that users get the benefit of innovative tools without feeling overwhelmed
- Ensure the website works for different internet browsers (especially Firefox and Internet Explorer for PCs and Firefox and Safari for Macs)
Accessibility
- To comply with UK legislation all websites must be fully accessible. This means a corporate website must be designed to allow equal access to information and services to all users, including those with visual, hearing, cognitive and motor impairments. Where an inaccessible format is necessary an alternative accessible version must be made available. For example, providing the transcript to a webcast presentation ensures that deaf people can access the content. The W3 Web Accessibility Initiative has published a widely accepted set of accessibility guidelines. There are three different priority levels of accessibility and best practice is to aim for Level AAA conformance, which is the most accessible. While it is not always possible to achieve the highest level of accessibility companies should ensure that they make every effort to make the website as accessible as possible.
Visit the W3 site for more information: www.w3.org/standards/webdesign/accessibility or the RNIB website: http://www.rnib.org.uk/professionals/webaccessibility/pages/web_accessibility.aspx
General
- Make important information such as quarterly, interim, preliminary and annual reports available in both PDF and HTML formats with clear indexing and easily downloadable segments
- Encourage greater interaction and personal contact with users. Allow users to register for email alerts to receive the latest news and other information that might be of interest (see section on Timeliness for more information)
- Limit the use of legal and regulatory disclaimers
- Consider the possibility of foreign language options in order to attract the widest number of visitors to the site. If investors outside the UK hold a large percentage of the company’s shares, providing information in their native language will be beneficial
- Include a corporate profile, summarising the company’s activities and performance and consider making it available in multiple languages.
- Try and avoid segmenting users on your website - as a general principle there should be one level of disclosure for all users
Navigation
A corporate website should be easy to navigate and intuitive to use. Key points to consider include:
- Users should be able to see where they are on the website at all times. Highlight the currently chosen navigation and include clear page headings
- Be consistent with the navigation mechanism across the site
- Use recognisable labelling and standard industry terms
- Use consistent terminology. For example, if a user clicks on a word or phrase in the navigation, the heading of the page should be the same
- Include a direct link to the investor relations main page from the website homepage
- Include a breadcrumb trail at the top of each page (e.g. Home > Investor relations > Corporate Governance). Note that this should not be the main method of navigation as some users will tend to overlook it
Timelines
Information should be available simultaneously to everyone, ensuring equal access. To achieve this:
- Regularly update and review the website content. As a minimum review should take place on publication of the interim and prelim results and the annual report. This will ensure that the information on the site is consistent and timely and help minimise confusion from mixed messages
- The Markets Abuse Directive requires that all information issued via a primary information provider (PIP) be available on a company’s website by the close of business the following day. However, best practice is to ensure that company press releases are uploaded to the website at the same time as they are published to the market. It may be best to establish an automated system to do this. This rule should also be extended to cover the release of other important printed documentation that may fall outside of the PIP system such as corporate responsibility reports
- Use the website as the main medium for all forms of press releases and documents, including annual, interim and preliminary reports as well as any other corporate literature that may interest investors
- Ensure that any prospectuses are available on the site
- Provide all users with access to webcasts (audio or video) and conference calls via the web in real-time regardless of whether they are private investors, analysts, institutional investors, the media or other audiences
- Establish an email alert service for forthcoming events so that investors who have registered an interest can receive relevant information. Ensure that those who have selected this option can easily stop the information flow on request
- Use RSS content feeds to allow users to subscribe to news and site updates. Subscribers will receive automatic updates every time there is new content
- Consider providing the financial calendar in a form that allows visitors to automatically update their own calendar (e.g. Outlook)
- Date information, where appropriate, so that investors can decide on its relevance. This is particularly important for financial information
- Establish an area on the investor relations home page that highlights the latest changes to the site
