Five tips for your maritime website
As a maritime journalist I often trawl maritime websites for news and insights that could spark a good story or initiate a discussion within the industry. While there are some amazing examples of professional-looking sites, there are also some very dismal ones. These inferior sites not only give the companies that they represent a bad reputation, but also impact on the overall standing of Africa’s maritime industry within the international community.
With this in mind, I thought I would provide a quick list of five tips for those in charge of managing their company’s maritime message.
ONE | LORUM IPSUM – GET RID OF PLACEHOLDER TEXT
Yes, you won’t believe how many sites have placeholder text on sections of their website where the company is still possibly curating appropriate content or has forgotten all about it. While this is moderately acceptable when you are first setting up the website, ideally any page that includes this text should not be accessible to visitors.
TWO | MENU – MANAGE YOUR MENU
That brings me to the second tip. The tabs in your menu need to make sense and open existing pages. I often visit sites where links on the menu do not work and produce error messages. Of course, this can be a result of a technical issue, but when the tab is permanently malfunctioning or simply pointing you back to the HOME page, it can be rather annoying.
Similarly, I have yet to work out why some websites (most notably government departments) use more than one menu tab to point you to the same news. This clutters your page and could easily be consolidated under one tab.
THREE | NEWS – NEWS IS NEW
Well, this is a personal bugbear. Do not include a NEWS page on your site if you do not have the capacity to update it regularly. Many companies and organisations start off with lofty ideas of ensuring that their NEWS page is constantly updated but, over time, realise that this is not a core function for anyone in the company. As a result, the items on the page are outdated and reflect poorly on the overall message that the site should be conveying.
If you are resolute about wanting a NEWS page, aim to ensure that there is someone in your organisation that has the capacity and the experience to sniff out the newsworthy stories as well as the time to keep the page updated. Alternatively, hire a PR company to do this on your behalf with targets on how many stories you want to add and when.
A caveat to this could be the creation of a BLOG page as opposed to a NEWS page. This is a far safer bet for those who may not have regular news items to share, but do want to include some company insights and updates on their website.
FOUR | DATES – WHEN DID IT HAPPEN
Perhaps even a worse sin than not keeping your NEWS page updated is not including the date on which your story was posted. When a visitor has absolutely no idea of when this great piece of news unfolded, they are less likely to share it, and I will certainly never use it as a news item on the magazine’s website.
This is such a simple thing to remember, but I am astounded by how many companies simply post news with no mention of when it happened.
FIVE | SOCIAL SHARING – BE SOCIAL
In a similar vein to the news updates, companies that link their page to a social media platform that is inactive are really not taking full advantage of what these platforms can provide. Rather shut down inactive social media platforms or investigate how you can maximise them to share your maritime message.
[Oops – I better take my own advice and ensure the magazine’s Instagram page gets a bit more attention!]
An ad-hoc approach to your maritime message is not the best way to maximise your maritime message
MARITIME MATTERS 