Investor websites should be a reflection of your unique brand, IR narrative, and investment proposition. These elements will establish your site as a unique entity with status.  

Despite the importance of individuality, investor relations websites that drive results share certain features in common. Here are five of them below.  

1. Accessible Content

Regardless of your brand's story, initiatives, or financials, your site must meet accessibility standards. It's just good business to ensure your content is visible to the greatest amount of people, including those who may have visual, cognitive, or motor control disabilities.

For best practices on how to make virtual spaces accessible, refer to the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). 

You may also talk to an investor relations consulting firm about accessible website templates. These firms should work in tandem with local disability auditing services, such as Essential Accessibility, to ensure your site adheres to the WCAG and your local regulations. 

2. Award-Winning Design

Before visitors can read your content or compare financials, they make a snap judgement based on what your homepage looks like. Research shows web browsers need only 2.6 seconds to decide whether they want to explore a website further.

When digital first impressions happen at these breakneck speeds, you need to ensure your website presents a beautiful ambassador. 

3. Functionality

Style isn't everything. Eventually, visitors will want to explore beyond your homepage to learn more about your brand, IR narrative, and unique investment proposition. Your site design should make navigating to these different parts easy. 

Functionality goes beyond optimizing your website speed to ensure it responds promptly to a visitor's commands. It also includes intuitive navigation so that your visitors can find vital information without having to think about it. 

On the backend of things, your IR site should deliver key analytics to help you measure the success of your digital content. It should be easy to track visitor behavior (such as page views, downloads, and ownership) and integrate these engagement metrics into your IR platform. 

Simple integration ensures you can mine your engagement metrics for insights into investor sentiment, translating data into action. You can use this information to initiate outreach and targeting at the perfect time.  

4. Platform Support

To continue with back-end features, your IR site provider should provide exemplary platform support. Expect no less than lifetime support for your site with responsive replies to IT tickets and major revision requests. These trained professionals should be available 'round the clock to resolve support tickets within 24 hours. 

As for on-the-fly updates to your content - you should be able to make these changes without wading through complicated red tape. Your in-house team should be able to edit, manage, preview, and publish updates in minutes without having to talk with an IT specialist.

5. Compliance

Your site must meet SEC and GDPR compliance to ensure you deliver your message and finances without putting your brand or clients' cybersecurity at risk. Look for a provider that protects data in transit using the latest secure cipher suites to encrypt all activity, including TLS 1.2 protocols, AES256 encryption, and SHA256 signatures. Your provider should also have SOC 2 Type II accreditation.

The Takeaway:

Every IR site will be different, but they all build on top of the same five pillars of success: accessibility, award-winning design, functionality, platform support, and security.