What’s on your Web site?
PRWeek magazine just released its 2008 Media Survey and it includes some intriguing numbers regarding reporters and their interaction with companies and their on-line presence.
Eighty-nine percent of respondents said that when conducting research for a story, they use a company’s Web site while 74 percent said they use Google or a blog search. When pushed for more detail, respondents said that a company’s Web site (65%), recent press releases (63%) and a company’s virtual press room (51 %) were “extremely important” or “very important” to their research.
Seeing those numbers should make you think two things immediately: “What’s on my Web site right now?” and “When’s the last time anyone from our company did a Google and blog search on our company?”
I’ve blogged before about the need to keep up with Google searches on yourself and your company and hopefully you heeded my words of advice.
Stop and think – no cheating – how many of you can tell me what’s on the front page of your company’s Web site right now? What links are available? What documents are linked? What’s the status of your staff directory? What is the latest news item you have posted there for visitors to see? Do you even know what color your site is? Do you know the address? You do know your company has a Web site, right?!?
OK, sorry about getting carried away, but let’s face it – it’s a brave new world out there and what you don’t know can hurt you.
April 8th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
It’s easy to get caught up in the “rest” of the web: blogs, social networks and so forth. And I’ve seen some large budgets for SEO. Understandably sexier.
But Ari’s right: it all leads back to you. Meaning: your web site. In turn, your brand and reputation.
So ask yourself: whether someone links to you from a wiki search or whatever, then what? Will you actually give them a reason to stay? To come back? Repeatedly? Maybe even turn them on to a product or service in the meantime?
Web 1.0 wasn’t so bad, after all…