Your corporate website – what analysts look for

December 3, 2024

A corporate website portrays the company’s brand to the world and needs to be as informative as possible. A major challenge with corporate websites is catering for all the different audiences that will visit it. While a glitzy website with flashy photos and reams of descriptive paragraphs will impress many people, there are some with very specific needs. Financial analysts are a good example.

Aprio polled several analysts to gain insight into their likes, dislikes and recommendations regarding corporate websites. As expected, many of the points apply to the investor relations section, but some are relevant to websites in general.

General section

• Scrolling and clicking 
  • Analysts are typically pressed for time and don’t like endless scrolling. Have photos, but don’t let these dominate the page, forcing one to scroll down. Put as much information as possible up-front, at the top of a page and/or next to photos.
  • Provide clear menu options and an ability to quickly navigate with one, maximum two clicks to get to the information.

• Consistency
  • Before you design a corporate website with investors in mind, check a broad range of listed company websites and align your layout/navigation with what is widely used. Analysts hate browsing around to find information.

• News section
  • This should be well populated, with current items. Nothing creates a worse impression than a news section with only one or two very old articles. Consider using the services of a company such as Aprio Group to write regular content for the website and the media.
  • Provide a clear heading for each article, with a date and synopsis, so that a visitor knows what it is about without having to click on it.
  • Provide an easy link to sign up for future company news.

• Infographics
  • Avoid heavy copy. Infographics are a great way to make the content easier to digest. A picture is worth a thousand words and more interesting to look at.

• Investment case/proposition
  • This section can go in the investor relations section but is also helpful in the “About Us” section, so visitors new to the company can get a quick overview, understand what the company is all about and what makes it different.
  • Update this section regularly.

Investor relations

• IR and media contacts
  • Provide the relevant IR and media person’s name with a photo and direct contact details.
  • Some companies only have generic contact details, creating an unnecessary buffer and time wasted to communicate.

• Corporate calendar
  • This section should be well populated with as many upcoming events as possible. Include information such as the AGM, site visits, capital markets days and conferences.
  • Provide interim and annual results dates a year in advance.
  • Show closed periods.

• Results and webcasts
  • Keep all information per set of results together to make it easy to find.
  • Ensure the webcast link for upcoming results on the website is easy to find, on the landing page and the results page.
  • Provide a playback facility for investors who couldn’t attend the live webcast.

• SENS announcements
  • Include everything together under one heading.
  • Show long history. Analysts often have to go back in time to find a particular event or announcement. This is the one exception where it is preferable to scroll and search on one page, rather than across several pages.
  • A search facility is very useful.

Wishlist (nice-to-haves) for IR section

The following items are not essential for analysts, as most will have their own systems and methods of acquiring this information. However, they will reduce time spent and make a particularly good impression.

• Financial model (downloadable Excel spreadsheet)
  • Provide an active up-to-date model aligned with historical results.
  • It should include operational numbers and drivers (e.g. prices and exchange rate), income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement.
  • Analysts should be able to copy this straight into their models and only have to update numbers with their own assumptions and projections.
  • The model should be released simultaneously with results announcements, not a few weeks, months later.

• Operational results
  • If you cannot provide a financial model, an alternative will be to provide a tab or downloadable spreadsheet with numbers for individual operations.

• Analyst reports
  • At a minimum, provide the names and contact details of analysts that cover the stock, so that investors can reach out to them.
  • Consider engaging in sponsored research. Case reports that belong to the corporate can be freely uploaded to the website. This provides valuable fundamental information and an alternative view to investors.

• Consensus estimates
  • If you cannot show analyst reports, consider demonstrating a table with analyst consensus estimates for earnings and perhaps a few other variables.

• Company guidance
  • Include this section with a separate tab to avoid having to troll through reports

• File sizes
  • Please provide the size of your files, so users can decide whether or not to download, depending on speed or access to internet.

• Share price graph
  • Include notable dates and/or events, such as results, cautionary announcements, trading updates and corporate activity like share-splits or capital raising.