General PR Tip #4: Live and die by your website contents (or lack thereof).

In today's electronic age, especially with high-tech companies trying to sell products and services, it AMAZZZZES me to see firms that don't organize and update their websites on a disciplined basis. Especially when it comes to communicating with press people.

When writers, customers, John Q. Public comes calling looking for more information about your company in general, they go to your website.  Not to some third-party website that has your press releases archived.

Every website should have a section for the press. The section should have at least two parts: An archive of up-to-the-minute press releases and a "PR contact listing."

More ambitious types can/should throw in a one-page fact sheet on the company with a summary of key bits like number of employees, yearly revenues, public/private, and any other concise factoids that make great bits to drop into the story.  Some companies go so far as to throw in reprints of stories around the web; I'm not a fan of it, myself.

But it baffles me, simply BAFFLES me how some companies can go to all the trouble of hiring a PR firm to pimp their press releases, send out a press release on a newswire, and yet not get that same press release on the website on the same day. Sometimes it takes SEVERAL days for these folks to get the press release (which, oh, by the way, should have been in marketing/PR's hands before it went out for general release) on the website.

People visit your website on a daily basis. Google and other search engines visit your website on a regular basis to build indexes.  If the press release isn't on your website, the key words in it don't get indexed into Google, so your competitor ends up above you on the next Google search. Why do you want that to happen? (see my rant on .DOC, PDF, and Java popups). 

You don't need an elaborate routine of PDF creation and web baloney to put up a simple press release -- you just need someone to copy text into a template, post a website link, and update the website. On Microsoft FrontPage 2003, that's about oh, under 3 minutes.  If it's taking longer than that, you need to fire somebody, because your competitors are managing to do it in under 3 minutes or less.

Summary

Have a dedicated section on your website for the press.

Update your website IMMEDIATELY with newly issued press releases.