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Hopes that film will encourage more foster carers

The film, called Everything, will be shown at the Nova Cinema in Woking on 14 November.




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Wales' papers: Pay rise for councillors and tourism tax

A review of the front page stories from the daily and weekly newspapers in Wales.




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One man rugby tour: Kicking mental health stigma

Jake Doyle is touring Northants rugby clubs to raise money




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Firefighters' dedication honoured at awards night

Awards include a long service commendation for member of staff who has fielded 999 calls for 40 years.




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Man embarks on a one-man rugby tour for charity

Jake Doyle is playing for a different rugby club every weekend to raise money for a support group.




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Labour 'shocked' by social housing failures

A council refers itself to the Regulator of Social Housing following a review.




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Firework noise killed our dog, says Lincoln family

They say Lily died of stress from the loud bangs.




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Man in court on kidnap and harassment charges

Two incidents involving Ryan Nicholls are alleged to have taken place in Cleethorpes last month.




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'The Christmas stamp encourages people to come in'

Britain's biggest cathedral is given a festive makeover in this year's Royal Mail collection.




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Neighbours feel unsafe after shots fired at house

A near neighbour told the BBC his own house had been damaged by gunfire in recent years.




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Hospital maternity visiting hours extended

The trust says it it took the decision following feedback from patients and their families.




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Who Needs Mourinho? - Plymouth Pain

Former Welsh international and commentator Dave Edwards joins Chris Wise and Andy Moon




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'Would-be pirates' in sinking boat rescued from harbour

The wooden boat took on water very quickly as it tried to navigate the harbour in the early hours.




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Meet the twins cleaning up our streets

James and John Makanjuola set up a cleaning business because of "disgusting" student digs.




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Rowe still feels Exeter can make top four

Exeter chief executive Tony Rowe feels the club's men's side can still make the Premiership top four despite their poor start to the season.




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Sittingbourne: Democracy 'ripped from our hands'

The government has taken control of a decision over 8000 new homes near Sittingbourne.




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Man charged after corrosive liquid injures four

A man reportedly sprayed others with a liquid, believed to have been a strong alkali, Kent Police says.




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Students facing one-hour school runs - campaigners

Support Weald Schooling is inviting people to discuss the lack of non-selective secondaries.




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Ex-RAF pilot encouraging others to begin fostering

Nigel, from Somerset, decided to become a foster parent aged in his 80s after his wife died.




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Display showcases multi-coloured poppies' stories

Volunteers in Cornwall spend more than 17 months knitting poppies and 23m of simulated barbed wire.




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Sports journalism degree course comes to an end

An ex-footballer says the players' union will continue supporting retiring players into new careers.




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Father shares journey after son Joshua's murder in 2021

Michael Hall shares his journey since son's death, Georgia Stone reports.




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Council steps in to tackle anti-social behaviour

The Public Spaces Protection Order aims "to improve safety and quality of life" in the town.




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‘I saw a GP 12 times before my tumour was found'

A mum says she felt like a nuisance because she had to repeatedly try to find out what was wrong.




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'She's my world and my heart' - an adoption journey

Rachel says adopting her daughter has been exciting and scary but she wouldn't have it any other way.




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"We built our dream house together"

Zara and Giuliano from Reading designed and built their dream home with no experience.




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How do you prepare your house for flooding?

People are being urged to start getting ready for flooding now.




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Teen wanted to teach extremist beliefs, court told

Dzhamilya Timaeva, 19, from Windsor, gained a place at an Islamic Sunday school, a court has heard.




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Medic 'honoured' to carry Book of Remembrance

The Army medic of 20 years says carrying the book was a "lovely end" to her military career.




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Woman, 94, died after 11-hour wait for ambulance

A coroner raises concerns over the death of 94-year-old Vera Spencer in Ripley, Derbyshire.




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Man killed his partner before overdosing - court

A coroner rules Kelly Greer was unlawfully killed by her partner, Jonathan Parsons, at his flat.




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From Honeybourne to the set of Children in Need

Hear from the incredible children ready to represent Worcestershire on TV.




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Club rep encourages autistic fans to attend games

"Having autism, you're recognised as having differences, but being a part of a club, you're the same."




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'Our town is becoming a desirable place to live'

A £12m cash boost from the council has seen newly refurbished homes make Maryport more desirable.




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'Pension credit payment weight off our shoulders'

Pensioners Eddie and Maggie, from Wallsend, will get £10,000 a year after they were helped to apply.




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Council to sell four storey block of former flats

Douglas Council's 1930s development on Lord Street remains boarded after tenants were moved in 2022.




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Suspected hare coursers use catapults against farmers

The group also rammed a farmer's vehicle in a "terrifying" incident in Wiltshire, police said.




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Fire boss withdraws from role after four days

Ben Brook was appointed as the service's new Chief Fire Officer on Friday.




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Toddler's sunglasses 'hid bruising', court told

Isabella Wheildon was made to wear dark glasses in the days before her death, a court hears.




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AI university course uptake increased by 453% over 5 years, claims study

The development and rising popularity of AI is not only impacting the tech we use, but also the career paths the next generation are taking. A recent study by laptop and tech […]

The post AI university course uptake increased by 453% over 5 years, claims study appeared first on Tech Digest.




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This is your brain on wheels

This turned into an even longer essay than expected, and whilst it’s a personal narrative about cycling, the important part is: I’m riding RideLondon 100 for charity, you can find a link to the details – and the fundraising – at the end. But first, an essay about riding bikes. Since moving to London, I […]





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LiveSide is retiring, thanks for all your support

All good things must come to an end, and this blog is no exception. When Chris Overd, Matthew Weyer, and Harrison Hoffman founded LiveSide.net back in December of 2005 (LiveSide’s first post was on January 3rd, 2006, …




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How to build an investor relations area for your website with HubSpot

“Investors, both individual and professional, want more than just the data that independent services can provide. They want the company’s own story and investment vision. What they don’t want is to wade through complex or irrelevant information.” Investor Relations on Corporate Websites, Nielsen Norman Group

Understand investor jobs-to-be-done

Primary users of investor relations areas on a website include, obviously, investors themselves but also analysts and financial journalists. There is an important secondary audience of potential customers and employees too. But the core audience is generally looking for:

  • Company background and overview
  • Press releases
  • Stock exchange filings
  • One-page financial overview
  • Annual reports
  • Quarterly reports
  • Historical financial information
  • Executive biographies
  • Share price information
  • Press and IR contact details
  • Corporate governance information

Of course, each company will go beyond statutory reporting to add content and user journeys specific to their needs. For example, if they are dealing with specific events in their company history, such as acquisitions, crises or if they are approaching an IPO.

Interestingly, according to NN/Group, some of the fancier functionality that you often see on an IR site, such as webcasts, slides and investment calculators, were less important to real users. “People research company financials are more interested in getting facts quickly than in the technology used to deliver them.”

Best practice examples

GE Aerospace does well with very clear navigation on a fast-loading site that is designed to get people to the information they are looking for quickly.

Microsoft’s IR site clearly surfaces stock price information with a tidy design and recent company news, but we are not fans of carousels as a user interface solution.

In contrast, Alphabet (Google’s parent company) has the leanest, text-only IR page, which, like GE’s, aims to get visitors to key information as quickly as possible. Notably, they offer HTML and PDF versions of key reports, and we think this is good practice. PDFs are not great for usability but have an important role in communicating statutory information in a compliant way, so it’s important to find a user-friendly, SEO-friendly parallel structure to sit alongside them.

Michelmersh combines Microsoft’s visual approach with direct access to the most important information.

Core and optional functionality

We use a tool called Octopus to collaborate with clients to design a website’s information architecture and the high-level structure of individual pages.

For investor relations areas, the following site map templates from NN/Group are good starting points for high, medium and low-priority content. But each client is different and so understanding client needs and their users’ needs is always a project in itself.

Don’t forget basic website usability

For more information about how Articulate tackles the website design and development process, including information architecture and user journeys, see How we build websites at Articulate. For the end results, take a look at our Portfolio.

We think all sites - and all visitors - deserve a well-designed, easy-to-use website that helps them find the information they want. In particular, this means that IR areas need to be:

  • Mobile-friendly. The widespread use of PDFs makes many IR sites difficult to use on mobile devices, representing an opportunity for forward-thinking companies to improve the user experience by offering HMTL options.
  • Searchability. IR information should be searchable alongside other site content, either with a domain-specific search box (i.e. just the IR section) or as part of an integrated site-wide search.
  • Accessibility is a basic requirement for a modern website, yet 97 percent of websites have fundamental accessibility issues. Designing for accessibility is good for every visitor. For example, our blog’s speed reading mode and audio player help people engage with our content whether they have specific needs or not. See our article about why accessibility is crucial for website design.
  • Loading speed. Google and GE prioritise loading speed and ‘time to find’ for visitors over fancy imagery and functionality. This is in line with NN/Group’s user study findings. Some clients prefer more fizz and ginger on their IR sites as part of their investor brand, but this should never come at the expense of loading speed. For more on improving Core Web Vitals (as Google calls them) see: Don't lose traffic because of Google’s Core Web Vitals.
  • SEO. Investors, journalists and advisors, like most of us, use Google to find information. IR areas should get the same SEO attention as the rest of the site. For more on our approach to SEO see: The ultimate SEO guide for B2B technology companies.
  • PDFs vs. web pages. IR pages are loaded with PDFs for annual reports, statutory filings, and other important documents. It may be the case that these files have to be in PDF format—we’re not lawyers, so we can’t say for certain—but we think it would be valuable, as with Google, not to also make them available as web pages, even if it is a high-level summary page with a link to the downloadable PDF. There are strong usability reasons to avoid PDF files if at all possible.
  • Carousels. We strongly recommend against Carousels. Buy us a pint, and we’ll bore for England about why.
  • Use of videos, webcasts and podcasts. IR pages often feature investor briefings and other content in video format. This should never be a substitute for clear, scannable, searchable text. Where possible, provide transcripts or summaries. Where possible, provide short (<4 minutes) highlight reels as well as longer content. Videos should have captions and chapter headings so that people can find what they need quickly. Never autoplay videos.

Examples of investor-specific functionality

Company overview

“Offer a brief company overview that highlights a few significant facts, along with a link to more detailed corporate information.” For example, Causeway’s website has this succinct summary right on its homepage as well as more detailed information in a ‘Why us’ section.

Biographies

“Provide information about the company’s high-level managers, including each person’s name and job title, a recent picture, and a link to a full biography,” advises The Nielsen Norman Group. For example, HealthHero has a really easy-to-use, highly visual, and on-brand biographies section on its About Us page.

Press information

Journalists don’t just need press information, they need relevant, high-resolution images, logos, PR contacts and company information.

Press releases

Your news page should look like high-end news site or blog with all the support infrastructure such as the ability to sign up for alerts, search for specific information, filter and sort the information, as on this example from TCN.

ESG reports. Your investor brand goes beyond statutory reporting. Increasingly, environmental, social and governance information influences investment decisions and build investor confidence. HPE does a great job of communicating its progress in this area, and, ahem, we think our own Impact Report is pretty good, too. (Related to this, see our guide to establishing a strong ESG tone of voice.)

Security, availability, access controls and approvals

  • Security and access control. IR areas often include market-sensitive information such as earnings announcements or new product introductions. For this reason (and others), it is important that any content management system (CMS) used for IR pages should have robust security and access controls, meaning that only authorised users can add or modify IR pages. We recommend HubSpot Content Hub which has granular user permissions, access control to specific assets (e.g. individual web pages) and (with an Enterprise tier) SSO integration and role-based permissions.
  • Content approvals. HubSpot also has the option to require approvals before website changes are published. This may be valuable to ensure that legally responsible people, e.g. directors, have a final review and approval of statutory updates to the site, even if they delegate the content creation to others.
  • Scheduling for publication. With time-sensitive and embargoed information, it is important to be able to set a specific publication time and date for content so that you can prepare the pages in advance but make sure they are published at the right time. With HubSpot, this is possible for pages and blog/new posts.

How Articulate can help

We design and code signature websites using our proprietary Nucleus technology, which are hosted on HubSpot Content Hub (CMS). See our website services page for more information.

Brochure websites are old-school. Instead, our team will build you a marketing engine that drives traffic, leads and customers, all while telling your brand story.

If you’d like an SEO, usability, or content review of your investor relations website or if you’d like us to help build a new one, please get in touch.




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The ultimate guide for using behavioural analytics and A/B testing to optimise website conversions

Content may be king, but data sits behind the throne and has the king’s ear. 

You want to be informed by data before you make changes to your marketing strategies. This is never truer than in the case of your website, which is a rich source of behavioural analytics and, therefore, a valuable insight into your audience’s interests.




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How to use networking and customer advocacy to build your brand community

Personalisation in marketing works because personal connections matter. That extends beyond your customers, too. Personal connections include the relationships you have with your suppliers, your stakeholders, your employees, industry peers… the list goes on.




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Four arrested after protests at defence firm

Palestine Action said its members blocked the entrance to two Elbit Systems UK sites in Bristol.




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Police officer convicted of coercive behaviour

Mitchell Curtis 'refused to admit what he had done' to colleagues despite a 'wealth of evidence'.





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The London News Sites Reinvigorating Local Journalism

The Londoner, The London Spy, London Centric...