As seen in PR Newswire's Media Insider
Reprinted with permission from Ragan's Interactive Public Relations newsletter, a leading instructional publication for PR professionals. Visit the site at www.ragan.com/ipr.

PR professionals know that reporters use the Web to research their stories, but few sites provide the goods that actually help them get the job done.

Just ask "usability" expert Jakob Nielsen, principal of Nielsen Norman Group, who recently asked 20 reporters to help him judge the effectiveness of 10 online newsrooms.

Most said that poorly designed Web sites could single-handedly discourage their coverage of a company. "I would be reluctant to go back," offered one reporter, who said he had a tough time finding what he needed on a company's site. "If I had the choice to write about something else, I would."

We decided to investigate the behavior of reporters as they set out to report a story. The good news: Most begin with a trip to the Web.

"The Web is finally here," Nielsen says. "It's arrived as a basic research tool for reporters.

Here are the steps reporters take when they cover your company or industry, with tips on how to meet their needs:

STEP #1: GETTING TO YOUR SITE

To get information about your company, nine of the 20 journalists said they wanted to go to a corporate Web site. About half assumed that typing www.thecompanyname.com would take them to the site. And sometimes they were right.

Tip: Register misspellings of your company name. When one of the test participants misspelled Philip Morris by using two "l"s instead of one, he still found the site. Flipside: When a reporter typed Benetton with two "n"s in a row, he came up empty.

"Do anything you can to make it easier for a reporter to get to your site," recommends Kara Pernice Coyne, senior user experience specialist with Nielsen.

Tip: Submit your site with the search engine Google. Nielsen was surprised to find that one-third of the reporters went to Google right away to find a corporate Web site. The reason: Google's results pull not only the corporate Web site but also other sites that cover the company, media coverage and more.

"Reporters like to get a sense of how the company has been covered in the media," says Coyne.

Tip: Avoid Flash and Shockwave on your home pages. These technologies tend to clog reporters' limited Internet connections. Many have slow dial-up connections, and the fancy bells and whistles sometimes make their computers crash.

"Don't send reporters elsewhere just because they can't get past that first page," Nielsen says.

STEP #2: FINDING THE NEWS

Journalists typically find themselves on your site's home page, and then promptly get lost. Nielsen stresses building a clean site with a clearly labeled section called "Press," "Media" or "News," where journalists can get quick answers to their questions.

"This gets reporters to the right place -- without searching through the 'About Us' section or other areas of the site," he says.

STEP #3: LOOKING FOR CONTACT INFORMATION

While the study revealed that journalists found answers to their questions 60 percent of the time, the lowest success rate came from the most critical of all searches: finding a telephone number for a public relations contact.

Note: The information on your site will only go so far. Most reporters need to speak with the PR person, whether it's for an interview or to check their facts.

Tip: Put contact information on every page of your site. In your press area, place the public relations contact information on every page, press release and speech. Better yet, provide a pop-up window that takes users directly to contact information as reporters hit your online newsroom's home page. That's what BellSouth Corp. did after asking four reporters to "test drive" its redesigned newsroom, reports Bill McCloskey, media relations director (See related story, Online Media Sites: What Works, and Doesn't Work, for Reporters").

The telecommunications giant added the window to its site last week. It takes users to a contact page that offers public relations contacts for each department and geographic region.

Caution: PR e-mail links don't cut it. Journalists are typically under a tight deadline and can't rely on an e-mail link like PR@company.com. "I have no sense of where that e-mail is going. I want a person," David Lidsky, editor of Fortune Small Business magazine, says. (Lidsky was one of Nielsen's test participants.)

STEP #4: RESEARCHING A PRODUCT, EVENT OR PERSON

Reporters typically need to find information about an event or product and look to press releases for answers. And Nielsen found that reporters like to read releases to see what kind of spin a company puts on its announcements.

Tip: Dedicate a link to press releases. "Make it easy for them to find," Nielsen says. This means not forcing them to look for the news by wading through financial information, philanthropy or other sections.

Reporters offered the following suggestions for press releases:

• List the most recent release first.
  
• Give users the option to reorder the list of releases based on how you want to see them (i.e., by date, business segment).
  
• Provide a category for each release. (Each is labeled as Business, Legal, Philanthropy.)
  
• Make the title of the release a link to the full text. Under the title is a short description of the release.
  
• Make sure the date stands out. Tip: Spell out dates. International reporters may read 1/2/01 as Feb. 1, 2001.

Tip: Avoid pop-up windows for press releases. On the Benetton site, users click a press release link, and the text opens in another window. But the reporters said that presentation makes it appear the company has little to share. "Whenever I get those pop-up windows, it makes me feel like there isn't any depth, [as if they're saying,]'I can tell you everything you need to know in a very small area," one reporter said.

What's more, those windows are not printable -- which can be frustrating for reporters who work on long-term projects and collect their findings on paper.

Tip: Link to third-party resources. Most reporters like online newsrooms that link to press coverage. For example, Tellme.com's newsroom offers news stories, giving journalists quick information about existing coverage. Links take users right to the source. "It adds credibility," Nielsen says.

STEP #5: FACT CHECKING

Reporters often need to confirm dates, company-name spellings and more. To help reporters get that information quickly, make sure your sections are clearly labeled. For example, a section called "Executive Bios" will help a reporter who needs to double-check the spelling of the CEO's name.

When reporters are looking for information, they don't want to have to click around to find it themselves. They'd rather type in a product name or term and go immediately to the right place.

The problem: Search functions are often hard to find or simply not geared toward journalists' needs.

For example, one reporter searched the entire Wal-Mart site looking for information about the company's CEO. When he typed "CEO" into the search function, most of the results were books about CEOs that Wal-Mart sells.

"The entire site is geared toward consumers," the reporter commented.

STEP #6: LOOKING AT PICTURES

Many companies use graphics to spruce up their sites and generally, reporters seem to like them. On the BMW site, one reporter commented, "I think it's a good idea to show these repeating images. Gives you a good idea of the products. They are nice looking cars. From a journalistic standpoint, we would have to describe them."

Tip: But don't post graphics just because you have them. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office site is guilty here, with graphics that are unrelated to the text. For example, one page shows toast and butter. "Why do you suppose there is a picture of a piece of toast?" one reporter asked. The answer's unclear.

Benetton's site makes the same mistake. The site shows many pictures -- some completely unrelated to clothing. In fact, one page shows a toilet plunger. "Why a plunger?" one reporter asked. "Because it's weird? Just for fun? I don't really know what that is. A plunger … I guess they are socially responsible, but I still don't understand the plunger," the same reporter says.