News sections on company websites are ubiquitous. However, hardly any visitor reads anything in the news section. Worse: often, it is counterproductive as it clutters the pages and makes search less relevant. So, why keep the news section?

1. DO COMPANY
WEBSITES NEED A
NEWS SECTION?
Toon Lowette
Grid Online Publishing Consultancy
www.grid.be

2. Well, you don’t need a news section on your
website
and this is why:
• News sections are counterproductive and
confusing
• Hardly any visitor reads anything in the news
section
• News sections are about the organisation,
not about the customer
DO YOU HAVE
OR CONSIDER
HAVING A NEWS
SECTION ON
YOUR
ORGANISATION’S
WEBSITE?

3. • News sections draw the attention
away from the customer’s task.
• News articles spoil search results too
often. They show up in product search
but are hardly relevant.
• Old news confuses readers, may even
lead to taking a wrong result for the
good one – a disaster task
performance.
COUNTER-
PRODUCTIVE
AND
CONFUSING

4. From countless Task Identification
surveys, we at Customer Carewords
know
• that news always is a tiny task
• that news never is a top task
(except in intranets – intranets are
another matter)
• that news is more important for the
management than for the customer.
NOBODY
READS
NEWS
SECTIONS

5. What is the purpose of a news section
• To let the visitor know that your
company is active
• That the organisation has new
products and offerings
• That they innovate
• That they get awards
• To tell the world about how important
the organisation is.
It’s The Good News Show.
And it’s all about the organisation,
not about the customer.
NEWS
SECTIONS ARE
ABOUT THE
ORGANISATION,
NOT ABOUT THE
CUSTOMER

6. DON’T FOLLOW THE
POPULAR
MISUNDERSTANDING
THAT THE WEB IS
ABOUT NEWS

7. WOULD
CUSTOMERS
REALLY BE
WAITING FOR
THIS?

9. What is the chance that this
news helps me with my task?

11. Or this?

13. What if I need another report
than these in the news
selection? Is it immediately
clear where I can find it?

14. • If your organisation is not in the news
industry, your website is not about
news and never will be.
• Associations and NGOs may want to
have a news section. They may want
to show how well they work and
lobby, and thus convince members
and donators that their money is well
spent.
• All others better spend their energy in
convincing their customers by service
quality rather than by telling them
how good they are.
NEWS IS THE
PRODUCT OF
NEWS MEDIA

15. And yet, they have a lot of newsworthy
messages.
Almost every day.
They are in whatever media all the time.
Have a look.
THESE
ORGANISATIONS
DON’T
HAVE
NEWS SECTIONS

20. BY THE WAY…
BUT FIRST
CONTINUE…
there is something else about the previous four
examples.
They all have these horrible sliders and carousels
occupying almost half of the home page. Another
fad.
Not a good idea.
Learn why not:

22. It probably took a good
discussion or two, but there is
no news section on the
national government home
page! Only direct links to
countless citizen and business
tasks.

23. The world champion of the one-
super-top-task-home-page.

24. • Don’t have company news on your
site.
• Focus on customer service and top
tasks, rather than on organisation-
centric messages
• Try to get in the press and social
media with good reviews, reactions
and recommendations. Let customers
do the PR work, rather than brag
about the organisation on your own
website
RECOMMENDATIONS

25. • Only have news on your site if you
have many frequent visitors and if at
least every week there is a relevant
story to tell.
• Don’t give it a top prominent place, as
customer top tasks deserve the best
places.
• Build trust by listing all kinds of
reports – positive, negative,
indifferent, critical.
• Tweak the internal search engine to
block news, press releases and media
reports from product search results
• Don’t forget that customers are not
coming to your website to read your
news.
• They come to perform their task.
IF YOU
REALLY WANT
TO HAVE A
NEWS
SECTION
(OR MUST)

26. What they do need:
• To bring the customer’s top tasks up
front
• If possible, to make the single most
important task doable on the home
page
• To test and tweak the website
architecture until every task can be
completed efficiently.
CUSTOMER-
CENTRIC
WEBSITES
DON’T NEED
NEWS
SECTIONS

27. Top Task Management helps you to truly
understand what the top tasks of your
customers are when they come to your
website and how well these tasks are
performing.
By continuously testing and improving
the performance of your customers' top
tasks, you will maximize the
performance of your website.
THE WEB IS
ABOUT THE
CUSTOMER’S
TASK

28. • Identify your visitors’ top tasks and tiny
tasks
• Measure how customer-centric the site is
• Measure how efficiently clients can
complete tasks
• Design for successful navigation
• Test, measure, tweak, test, measure, etc.
These are the challenges that Customer
Carewords helps you with.
Manage the task. Not the content, not the
website. The task.
Facts instead of opinions.
Contact Toon Lowette
toon@grid.be - 0032 474 285 849
www.grid.be
TASK
MANAGEMENT
WITH
TOON
LOWETTE
AND GERRY
MCGOVERN