Do company websites need a news section?

• 1. DO COMPANY WEBSITES NEED A NEWS SECTION? Toon Lowette Grid Online Publishing Consultancy www.grid.be

2. Well, you dont need a news section on your website and this is why: News sections are counterproductive and confusing Hardly any visitor reads anything in the news section News sections are about the organisation, not about the customer DO YOU HAVE OR CONSIDER HAVING A NEWS SECTION ON YOUR ORGANISATIONS WEBSITE? 3. News sections draw the attention away from the customers task. News articles spoil search results too often. They show up in product search but are hardly relevant. Old news confuses readers, may even lead to taking a wrong result for the good one a disaster task performance. COUNTER- PRODUCTIVE AND CONFUSING 4. From countless Task Identification surveys, we at Customer Carewords know that news always is a tiny task that news never is a top task (except in intranets intranets are another matter) that news is more important for the management than for the customer. NOBODY READS NEWS SECTIONS 5. What is the purpose of a news section To let the visitor know that your company is active That the organisation has new products and offerings That they innovate That they get awards To tell the world about how important the organisation is. Its The Good News Show. And its all about the organisation, not about the customer. NEWS SECTIONS ARE ABOUT THE ORGANISATION, NOT ABOUT THE CUSTOMER 6. DONT FOLLOW THE POPULAR MISUNDERSTANDING THAT THE WEB IS ABOUT NEWS 7. WOULD CUSTOMERS REALLY BE WAITING FOR THIS? 8. What is the chance that this news helps me with my task? 9. Or this? 10. What if I need another report than these in the news selection? Is it immediately clear where I can find it? 11. If your organisation is not in the news industry, your website is not about news and never will be. Associations and NGOs may want to have a news section. They may want to show how well they work and lobby, and thus convince members and donators that their money is well spent. All others better spend their energy in convincing their customers by service quality rather than by telling them how good they are. NEWS IS THE PRODUCT OF NEWS MEDIA 12. And yet, they have a lot of newsworthy messages. Almost every day. They are in whatever media all the time. Have a look. THESE ORGANISATIONS DONT HAVE NEWS SECTIONS 13. BY THE WAY BUT FIRST CONTINUE there is something else about the previous four examples. They all have these horrible sliders and carousels occupying almost half of the home page. Another fad. Not a good idea. Learn why not: 14. It probably took a good discussion or two, but there is no news section on the national government home page! Only direct links to countless citizen and business tasks. 15. The world champion of the one- super-top-task-home-page. 16. Dont have company news on your site. Focus on customer service and top tasks, rather than on organisation- centric messages Try to get in the press and social media with good reviews, reactions and recommendations. Let customers do the PR work, rather than brag about the organisation on your own website RECOMMENDATIONS 17. Only have news on your site if you have many frequent visitors and if at least every week there is a relevant story to tell. Dont give it a top prominent place, as customer top tasks deserve the best places. Build trust by listing all kinds of reports positive, negative, indifferent, critical. Tweak the internal search engine to block news, press releases and media reports from product search results Dont forget that customers are not coming to your website to read your news. They come to perform their task. IF YOU REALLY WANT TO HAVE A NEWS SECTION (OR MUST) 18. What they do need: To bring the customers top tasks up front If possible, to make the single most important task doable on the home page To test and tweak the website architecture until every task can be completed efficiently. CUSTOMER- CENTRIC WEBSITES DONT NEED NEWS SECTIONS 19. Top Task Management helps you to truly understand what the top tasks of your customers are when they come to your website and how well these tasks are performing. By continuously testing and improving the performance of your customers' top tasks, you will maximize the performance of your website. THE WEB IS ABOUT THE CUSTOMERS TASK 20. Identify your visitors top tasks and tiny tasks Measure how customer-centric the site is Measure how efficiently clients can complete tasks Design for successful navigation Test, measure, tweak, test, measure, etc. These are the challenges that Customer Carewords helps you with. Manage the task. Not the content, not the website. The task. Facts instead of opinions. Contact Toon Lowette [email protected] - 0032 474 285 849 www.grid.be TASK MANAGEMENT WITH TOON LOWETTE AND GERRY MCGOVERN