Corporate websites are changing the way in which design is approached to better meet the needs of stakeholders. David Benady investigates the move toward fluid web

Corporate websites can be rather dull. They are often little more than a digital version of an annual report with some links to current press releases. That’s fine if you are looking to impress number-crunching analysts, investors and a handful of financial journalists. But corporate communicators are starting to spice up their companies’ websites as they seek to attract the attentions of a wider group of stakeholders. Investors, analysts and media are naturally key audiences, but suppliers, customers and employees along with politicians, regulators and campaigners must be addressed as well.

As communicators look to engage key audiences, they are creating an exciting new breed of corporate websites that imitate some of the most engaging digital publishers on the web from Mailonline and Huffington Post to BBC Online and The Guardian. Just like these digital publishers, companies are making their sites content-led and pushing their most engaging elements to the fore.

Gas exploration and extraction giant BG Group has revamped its corporate site, bg-group.com, with a content-led approach. People visit the BG Group website for a variety of reasons – they might be geologists or engineers investigating employment opportunities at the company, politicians interested in finding out more about the activities of one of the world’s biggest suppliers of liquefied natural gas or investors checking out the company’s financial results. To cater for all these audiences, the bg-group.com website, created by Addison Group, has integrated a system of “fluid” content so the most important content appears on the landing page. In line with standard corporate websites, there are links to pages for investors, media and recruitment, but most of the updated posts are not confined to one specific area of the website. Instead, a filtering system allows users to click through to the content they want.

Fluid content is content with no specific home on the website which means it can surface wherever the user wants it. This compares to a static approach where the content is found under defined headings. BG’s fluid site has a variety of “discrete content assets” – news releases, blog posts, videos, images, downloads, infographics, presentations and tweets – that can be accessed anywhere in the site and can be filtered, searched and shared.

Users can filter content by country of operation, by category, by date and by keyword. They may want to find all posts about Australia to do with finance in 2010. By clicking on these filters, all the relevant content appears on the page. This allows crossreferencing and means users do not have to go to a particular page to find the information they are after.

According to Mark McCarthy, BG Group head of global digital and campaigns, the new fluid approach has led to a rise in the number of people visiting the site compared to its previous incarnation, and they spend longer on it when they get there. Addison Group figures show visitors are exploring more pages on the site while the average time on the site is up 32.6%. The aim of the fluid content is to ensure the site is easy to use and navigate by different groups of stakeholders. “In this organisation there are lots of incredible things going on and we’ve been creating quite a bit of content for our stakeholders. Investors and careers are two priority audiences and being able to showcase what is going on is very important,” says McCarthy.

Other corporates are adopting a content-led approach on their websites. At the end of last year, Coca-Cola replaced its corporate website with what it calls an interactive digital magazine, “Coca-Cola Journey.” Content is regularly refreshed and readers can browse by type – stories, opinions, brands, videos and blogs – or by topics – “brands,” “business,” “community,” etc. The revamped site will continue to house corporate content, but its layout, design and editorial is now more akin to a magazine.

The purpose and role of corporate websites has shifted over the years. Websites have developed into a key forum for interacting with a wide range of stakeholders. Cathal Smyth, executive director at Addison – who worked on the bg-group.com website – explains, “There have been a number of trends in corporate communications over the past few years that call out for a different type of corporate website. One is the sheer diversity of audiences that come to corporate websites. Historically it was investors and journalists who came to the sites, but in recent years you have to cater to anyone with an interest in the company.”

He adds that the new approach to content is changing the way corporate communications departments work. They are becoming more like news operations creating and putting up new and interesting content, operating more like news websites such as the BBC or The Guardian.

This approach can be highly engaging for some stakeholders, but there are those who warn against companies getting too whizzy with their websites. Matt Cross, deputy managing director at Hotwire PR UK, says, “Fluid content does replicate some of the more cutting edge online news sites and for some brands it can just come over as a little ‘try-hard.’” He warns that unless done well, adding fluidity and a content-led approach can actually make the content confusing and make it harder for the user to navigate through the website. In some cases, being dull may be more appropriate than striving for excitement.

Meanwhile, Kate Joynes-Burgess, head of digital for corporate, financial and public affairs at Weber Shandwick, says websites need to be constantly tested before during and after launch, though she adds, “It is the website’s day-to-day content creators that will ultimately determine its success or failure. Brand content teams are the new journalists and they need a real understanding of digital story-telling to tell a brand’s story.”

Whether corporates adapt their websites for fluid content or not, it is clear that they will have to keep an eye on the latest developments in digital publishing. People go to websites in search of content, and corporate sites will have to ensure they satisfy this.