A Guide to Creating The Most Effective Online Newsroom

An online newsroom is one of the most central ways that journalists look for information about a company. But reporters are busy and they aren't going to spend a lot of time or effort navigating through layers of pages to find what they need. And when they look through your website trying to find something, an even more important question is: will they find the information YOU want them to find?

This is why it is critically important for companies to look very strategically at how they present information online, specifically with journalists in mind. Is your current website up to the task?

Here are 9 ways that you can focus on delivering the most impactful experience to media that find themselves on your website - and have them leave the site with exactly the information you hoped for at their fingertips.

A Killer Landing Page

Your newsroom should serve as a hub for journalists to access important information about your company, including press releases, media kits, photos, and videos.

The landing page will most likely be the first point of contact for journalists, so it's essential to make a strong first impression. It should be designed to provide visitors with a clear sense of what your company is all about and showcase your brand. You should approach creating this page with user experience in mind, focusing on the ease of navigation and clear labeling of sections.

On this page you should highlight the most important news and information, including recent press releases, upcoming events, or major company announcements. These are usually items you are hoping to use to grab the attention of journalists and drive them to the messaging you are most focused on.

Your landing page should also tell the story of your brand and its vision. This helps journalists understand your company's values and goals, which can be important factors in deciding whether they're going to cover you. Highlighting your brand's story can also help to create more of a personal connection.

In addition to providing information about your company, your online newsroom should also be designed to be easy for reporters to go a bit more in depth. To do this, you should focus on having clear labels and sections for different pillars of information.

By making a strong first impression and making it easy to find what they are looking for, you will have created a valuable resource for journalists that is important as you build relationships and seek out positive coverage.

Easy to Navigate

When it comes to online newsrooms, navigation is crucial. Journalists and other visitors should be able to find the information they need quickly and easily. This means having a well-organized website that is both easy to navigate and understand.

One important aspect of navigation is labeling. Each section of your newsroom should be clearly labeled so that visitors know exactly what they're looking at. This could include sections for press releases, financial information, company history, and contact information.

In addition, the flow of the information and each page should be make it very easy for a journalist to know what it is they're looking at and how to either drill down to more focused information or seamlessly pivot over to a different type of information. This also includes using fonts, graphics, and white space successfully to create an enjoyable experience that doesn't overwhelm them. Which brings us to the next point.

A Clean Design

A clean and professional design is also essential. A well-designed newsroom can help your company stand out from the competition, make a strong first impression, and communicate your brand's identity.

This starts with being easy to read and understand. This means using a clear and legible font, with a good balance of white space and text. You should also use headers and sub-headers to break up the text, making it easier for visitors to scan through the pages and find the information they need.

Another key element is to use high-quality images and videos. This can help bring your newsroom to life and create a more engaging experience for visitors. However, it's important to use images and videos that are relevant to your brand and the information you're sharing. But avoid using too many stock images.

Color is another important element of a clean design. Your newsroom should use a consistent color scheme that matches your brand's identity. This can help create a cohesive look and feel, while also making it easier for visitors to identify your brand. And you need to match your newsroom pages to the rest of your company's website so it feels seamless as they transition from one element to the next.

It's also important to ensure that each individual page is easy to navigate. This means having a clear menu if the page is long enough that allows visitors to easily access different sections of the text. You should also ensure that each page has a clear hierarchy of information, with the most important information displayed most prominently.

By ensuring that your newsroom is easy to read and understand, using high-quality images and videos, and using a consistent color scheme, you can create a valuable resource for journalists while also effectively communicating your brand's identity.

Bring Forward and Repeat Your Key Messages

You also want to focus on how you can ensure that journalists will be given the information you think is the strongest. Whether they use it or not will of course be up to them, but you want to be sure that when they arrive on your newsroom website, they hear and read what it is you want them to.

This involves putting your best foot forward, so to speak. Your top messages should be front-loaded on the landing page and throughout the newsroom. Make it easy for them to see it by calling it out and using repetition - though not too much. Include this messaging in text and in multimedia. Include it in any messages or quotes from your company's leadership that you have on the newsroom.

To be certain they both see AND understand the messages, use language that is clear and concise. Avoid using technical jargon or overly complex language that could confuse or overwhelm them. Be simple and straightforward.

Use multimedia to help highlight your key messages. This could include videos, infographics, or other visual elements that help bring your messages to life. Be sure to use high-quality multimedia that is relevant to your key messages and supports your overall brand message.

Make it as easy as possible for journalists to actually use your key messages. This means providing clear and concise summaries of your key messages, as well as making it easy to download or copy and paste the information that you deem is the most relevant. When it's easier for them to use, it's more likely they will use it.

Key Company Stats

Many reporters come to your website seeking basic company stats, so lean into this and put the compelling and relevant stats in an easy-to-find place. This includes information like your financial performance, employee headcount, market share, and other key metrics that can demonstrate your company's success and reinforce your brand message.

It's important to ensure that the stats you include are relevant and up-to-date. This means regularly updating your newsroom with the latest financial reports, employee headcounts, or market share data. You should also ensure that your stats are accurate and presented in a clear and understandable way.

Finally, consider whether you can provide context for your key company stats. This might include explaining how your financial performance compares to industry averages, or providing a historical perspective on your growth rates. By providing this context, you can help journalists understand the significance of your key company stats and reinforce your brand message.

Demonstrate Your Expertise

Your newsroom must also be effective at demonstrating the expertise and authority of your company, including by highlighting the credentials of key staff members. You can do this by featuring their bios, including their education, work experience, awards they have won and other achievements. This will help to build trust and credibility.

If your company itself has won any awards or has other key achievements that set it apart from your competitors, make sure to also showcase this on your newsroom.

You can also show how your company fits into the broader industry by including in-depth analysis of industry trends. This can be done by including thought-provoking articles, infographics, and research reports. When you show valuable insights into industry trends, you position your company as a leader in its field.

You should also demonstrate the expertise and authority by featuring thought leadership pieces by executives or other senior team members. These can be interviews or videos with key executives, op-eds, podcasts, blog posts, media mentions, or videos of event appearances. These can help you show your insights into industry challenges and solutions, highlighting your company's innovations, values, and vision.

Search Function to Find Information Easier

Since many journalists are under tight deadlines and need to find specific information for their stories quickly, making sure your newsroom is searchable will help them get what they need when they need it. A searchable newsroom will improve the user experience, save visitors time, and increase the likelihood that they will find the information they are looking for.

A search bar should be prominently displayed on your newsroom landing page to enable visitors to search for specific topics or keywords. In addition to organizing the content in a way that makes sense and is easy to follow, using tags can also help to improve the searchability of your newsroom. Tags are keywords that can be added to individual pieces of content to describe their topic or theme. Visitors can then search for these tags - or simply click on one of them - to find related content.

You can also improve the functionality of searching by including an archive of past content. This allows visitors to search for information that may have been released months or even years ago. Make sure that your archive is organized chronologically and that it is easy to navigate to really be useful.

Provide Access to Multimedia

In today's digital age, incorporating multimedia content in your online corporate newsroom is becoming increasingly important. This not only makes your content more engaging and informative, but it also enhances the shareability of your content on social media.

Photos are a great way to enhance the visual appeal of your newsroom. Including high-quality images of company events, products, and people can help to showcase your company's personality and brand identity. Make sure to provide captions for each photo to provide context and to make them more shareable on social media.

Videos are another powerful tool to include in your newsroom. They can be used to showcase product demonstrations, interviews with company executives, podcasts, and event highlights. Videos can be embedded directly on your newsroom page even if they're hosted elsewhere like YouTube or Vimeo to give the seamless look and feel and not take the user off of the website. When using video, be sure to include a transcript or summary of the content to make it more accessible for visitors who may not be able to watch the video.

Infographics are also a great visual way to convey complex information in an easy-to-understand format. They are particularly useful for illustrating statistics, data, and trends. Infographics can be shared on social media, embedded in blog posts or articles, or included in press releases. You can also repurpose infographics so when if you're creating them for another use (reports, blogs, etc.), consider adding them in another way to your newsroom like in a section on key stats or one on industry background. When designing infographics, make sure to use clear and concise language, and provide sources for any data used.

One area that's not discussed as often is that your employees will also likely come to the newsroom looking for information and may even be looking for something to share on their personal social channels. By providing access to shareable multimedia assets, you're also giving additional materials for your team to continue pushing out to new audiences.

Make it Mobile-Friendly

More and more people are accessing content on their mobile devices, including especially journalists, so having a mobile-friendly online corporate newsroom is crucial. This means ensuring that the design is responsive and that the content is easily readable on smaller screens.

You can do this by using a responsive design where your layout automatically adjusts to fit the screen size of the device being used to view it. This provides a seamless user experience regardless of whether the visitor is on a desktop computer, tablet, or smartphone.

You can also help make the content more accessible on any devise by using fonts that are easily readable on smaller screens and formatting content in a way that makes it easy to scan quickly. Avoid using large blocks of text and instead break up your content into smaller paragraphs with subheadings to make it more readable.

The same tips go for using images and videos that are compressed for faster loading times and that are optimized for smaller screens.

At a time when journalists are likely to be on-the-go and need to access your newsroom quickly and easily, optimizing your online corporate newsroom for mobile viewing more important than ever.

Your Newsroom is Your Brand

So as you look to develop a successful newsroom for your company, keep in mind that you don't just throw some press releases online and expect it to be successful. You need to truly look at the user experience and work to tell the story of your company so that any media going onto your site looking for information comes away with the information they need and the information you are hoping they will take in. You want them to be able to access your brand right at their fingertips.