March 2006 PR Perspective

PR Perspective: What Do World-class Websites Do That Yours Doesn't Do?
Steal these six techniques from award-winning online communications

by Ann Wylie,

President

Wylie Communications Inc.

ann@WylieComm.com

Your Website can engage your audience members in some creative ways that your offline communications never could. Steal these six techniques from award-winning Websites to make sure your site takes advantage of the unique attributes of online communications.

1. Be comprehensive.
Online, readers read deep as well as broad. So include the full transcript of the CEO's speech as well as the 300-word summary.

The Topeka Capital Journal's CJOnline.com, for example, archives thousands of inspection reports for the city's restaurants. That exhaustive database is just one of the projects that's made the site a model of online communications and put the mid-sized, Midwestern newspaper on the media map.

2. Make it searchable.

But comprehensiveness works only if people can use your data. Readers won't scroll through a 16,000-page employee directory to find the phone number they need.

To make it useable, you must make it searchable.

At CJOnline, for instance, the restaurant inspection reports can be sorted alphabetically, by the restaurants' location or by the type of food they serve.

And at the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta, employees can search the Intranet site to find their colleagues' phone numbers, department names and photos. Director Tim Smith and his team are even adding a feature that helps employees locate fellow workers' offices in the bank's new building.

3. Get the word out - fast.

What do you call a Website that never changes? A cobweb.
       - John Gerstner, ABC,
       CEO of IntranetInsider.com

Leave the deep analysis to print. Websites are best for "what-happened-a-nanosecond-ago" coverage.

When one of Utilicorp United's subsidiaries went public, Mike Glynn jumped on the story. Glynn, editor of the company's intranet-based newsletter, posted a breaking story by noon, complete with comments from employees.

Of course, timeliness is as much about what you remove from your site as about how quickly you post.

"Budget to hire a web gardener as part of your team," suggests Jakob Nielsen, principal of the Nielsen Norman Group. "You need somebody to root out the weeds and replant the flowers as the website changes."

4. Make it interactive.

On the Web, you've got a mouse in your hand, you know how to use it, and you fully expect to get to.
       - Shel Holtz, ABC,
       principal of Holtz Communication + Technology

The Peel District School Board's wellness site, TakeOneStep.org, lets visitors participate in, instead of just reading about, health information.

Visitors can take quizzes to test their knowledge on health topics, for example. When you take the quiz, you get the correct answers, a look at to how your score stacks up against others' and - this is key - a link to pages where you can fill in the gaps in your knowledge.

TakeOneStep.org visitors can also:

Post their health success stories

Send e-cards

Download screen savers

And otherwise participate in the site

"We wanted the site to be more than an electronic brochure rack," says Communications Officer Lorraine Smith, who's responsible for the site.

Objective achieved.

5. Give them only what they want.

Targeting your online communications can be as simple as letting visitors sign up for the e-zines they wish to receive. At Poynter.org, for example, I've signed up to get e-mailed updates on design, writing, editing and online communications. But I don't ever want to get anything about photography, broadcast news or - heaven forbid - ethics.

Even better: an approach like that of The Wall Street Journal Online, where subscribers can customize the site to display only the news, topics of interest and columns they choose.

6. Apply media richness.

Does your Website allow visitors to play Flash games, go on virtual tours, view video segments - even watch products being built?

MSNBC.com's "Can You Spot the Threats?" (www.msnbc.com/modules/airport_security/screener/) is one piece that goes beyond reporting the news to letting visitors experience it.

This piece takes visitors behind the headlines on airport security by testing their skills on a two-minute shift screening carry-on baggage. This experience is complete with sound effects of airport noise - and, of course, of travelers complaining about how slow you're working.

Can't do that with print.

Improve your Website by site-seeing.

Would you like more ideas for applying award-winning Website techniques to your own site? Join Ann Wylie at PRSA's teleseminar - "Site-Seeing: a survey of world-class Website techniques" - on May 18, 2006. To register or to get more information, contact Genevieve DeLaurier at 212/460-1408 or visit www.prsa.org.

About the author

Ann Wylie runs a company called Wylie Communications Inc. Ann works with communicators who want to reach more readers and with organizations that want to get the word out. To learn more about her training, consulting or writing and editing services, contact Ann at 816/502-7894 or Ann@WylieComm.com. Get a FREE subscription to Ann's e-mail newsletter at www.wyliecomm.com.

Copyright © 2006 Ann Wylie. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.

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