Websites are your primary public-facing communications channel, and they need to have something to offer all interested stakeholders. But one set of stakeholders – analysts – have a unique set of expectations, and if you’re a listed company it’s worth your while taking those into account. Here are five, from Troye Brady of Aprio Investor relations.

Tell us who you are

Provide detail about the management team, with photographs and short biographies. I want to know their history, their expertise, and how long they’ve been in the job. It’s an aspect of financial analysis that’s often overlooked, because we don’t report on it quantitatively, but the strength of management certainly plays into our evaluation of a company’s prospects.

Tell us what you do

I’d like to get a sense of your organisation’s structure, extent, and operations. If this is presented concisely and graphically, all the better. Provide as much detail per division as possible, but I’d also like to get a sense of the organisation as a whole.

Tell us why we should invest in you 

What’s your investment case? Where does your value lie? Give me a factsheet or page devoted to your investment potential. This is your chance to make a pitch for the effectiveness of your strategy, the opportunities you’re chasing, and your competitive advantage.

Give us the hard data to back it up

I want to see your SENS, reports, presentations, results and circulars, all in one place (e.g. under an “investor relations” tab). I also want to see your share price (a table or graph with options to choose movement over day, week, month and year would be nice), and some additional close-to-real-time calculations: P/E, market cap and whether your price is rising or falling. I can get all this from my analysis software, but seeing it on your website means I know you’re thinking about it, and allows me to get a sense of the way in which your company has chosen to present itself.

Do all of this efficiently

This last part is crucial. You need a clear, concise, easily navigable website structure that makes it trivial for me to find the information I’m looking for. Every time I’ve got to double back or scroll down endlessly because I can’t find information, it creates unnecessary frustration and suggests a deeper lack of structure or clarity in your operations. Oh, and make sure your website is properly viewable on anything from my desktop to phone.