April 8, 2021
This is the first installment of a two-part series breaking down corporate websites. Click here for part 2.
For many large and diversified companies, a corporate website is the best place to showcase who the company truly is at its core. From things like organization structure to culture, history and sustainability efforts, corporate websites provide the opportunity for external audiences to get an inside look at the company.
With some clients, we have noticed the corporate website is often forgotten, while their business units (or revenue generating sides of the business) are constantly being updated and revised. And that’s a huge miss on telling your company’s story in a compelling way!
Want to talk more about your website? Sign up for our free website audit – we’d love to discuss it with you.
Here are three ways you can bolster your company’s corporate website to make sure it’s telling the story you want to be known for:
1. Think about the audiences of your corporate website
Identifying the goals of your website are key, but more specifically, who do you want to be visiting and digesting information for your website? Is its purpose purely talent acquisition? Maybe your focus is on potential investors and you need a great place to show your company’s ESG efforts? Or maybe, your focus is on the community and sharing the ways you are giving back.
Whoever your audience is, your corporate website should reflect those audiences in everything from the navigation, to copy on the site, all the way down the imagery you use.
2. Talk to your key stakeholders
When you’ve identified your audiences, make sure you talk to them to get a better understanding of what type of information would be useful. If it’s community members, could you conduct a focus group? If it’s dedicated to recruits, have a conversation with some recent hires to understand how the site did or did not help them make their decision. These conversations could yield some valuable nuggets of information that will help improve your site and its contents.
3. Create authentic content
A great way to showcase the company is by using content and visuals from actual employees. Whether it’s through video, blog content or even just employee quotes, creating and promoting authentic content from real employees and stakeholders helps bring the company to life.
However, if you go down this path, be sure to identify the maintenance plan for the content.
You need to be sure you have a plan in place to “feed the monster.” And by monster, I mean the ever-evolving story pieces of your company. If you can only produce five stories and do not have a plan to develop new content, maybe this type of storytelling isn’t ideal for you.
Stay tuned for part two of this blog post where I share some examples of corporate websites that have done a great job addressing the needs of their audiences.
