Investor websites are or should be the authority for investors on all news about the company. Certainly for all news produced by the company.
Companies go to a great deal of trouble to attract investors to their website. Investors arriving at the website expect it to be authoritative and complete. Key information they are seeking is often a recent ASX Announcement. Why would companies fail at that point – either by not yet having “bothered” to publish the latest piece of news from a few minutes ago, or by sending the investor back to the ASX or a broker website to find out the news.
When visitors arrive at a well presented investor website to look at an announcement, they will often allow themselves to be “distracted” by other information on the site, and their memory will be jogged to check up on or explore other aspects of the company. Bringing traffic to the website when there is news maximises the chance of further investor engagement at that moment, and therefore increases the likelihood of the investor progressing further in their journey to become a committed shareholder.
Every ASX Announcement should be contained in the company website. Every one, including every historical announcement. Even though searching the archives of announcements is a low volume activity on a site, it’s an important one.
Here’s a few reasons why:
It’s not just about the ASX Announcement. Companies often put significant effort into other forms of news, videos, audio interviews from third party providers such as Boardroom Media.
Companies often also have a company blog, where there is informed comment on industry or social news relevant to investors. Promote that on the investor website if it’s relevant to investors.
Some companies show third party news, analysts’ reports, and their twitter feed on the website.
Those news items may or may not be published on non-company websites – for a while, and maybe intermingled with a lot of other “clutter”. But will they be found there by your investors? Promote them with specific pages on the investor website.
Key news is the very latest most important news. Investors arriving on the website expect that to be highlighted on the home page. Deliver a home page headline news box that delivers the latest most important news items there. These might be ASX Announcements, blog posts, webcasts and videos, or third party news.
A single page (with appropriate archiving behind it) should hold all ASX Announcements.
However, the single list of ASX Announcements can become long and cluttered with “regulatory” announcements. There should be separate web pages, easily found in the navigation, with the list of relevant announcements for
Every company has different needs, but the principles are the same.
The investor website should provide investors with the ability to search all of the company news (no matter how old) based on keywords of their choosing. The search should include the ability to find words within the PDF’s of an ASX Announcement.