Like a well-written corporate history,
a well-written website timeline can be a great marketing tool: it can set your
organization apart from its competitors, let you brag a little, and tell your
story in a way that makes your company memorable. In decades of writing
corporate histories, we’ve created dozens of timelines and looked at hundreds
more. (For some examples, see our blog posts tagged with “web
timelines.”) In the next two weeks, we’ll look at the website timelines for
two corporations that have more than enough resources to make wonderfully
effective timelines ... But did they?
Here’s CorporateHistory.net’s series of questions and
guidelines for writing a great website timeline.
1. Consider your audience(s).
Will your readers be your clients or possible investors? In other words: will
they be more interested in your products, or in your mergers and acquisitions
history? Consider separate timelines, if appropriate.
2. Use major events
as centerpieces. Given your target audience, what are the six to eight
major events in your company history? Make sure these don’t get lost in a
barrage of less important data.
3. Build story into
the structure. Given that website visitors have notoriously short attention
spans, can you make your timeline a connected story? A series of problems and
solutions? A brief history of a niche subject, with your company in a starring
role? A humorous escapade, like Kentucky
Fried Chicken’s timeline narrated by Colonel Sanders?
4. Layer in larger
timelines—maybe. Do you want to keep readers laser-focused on your company,
or will you set your company’s achievements in the wider framework of science,
business, politics, or pop culture? Will your framework be your company, your
community or industry, the United States, or the world?
5. Add images and
captions. What will you use for visuals: current or archival photos, logos,
advertisements? Any item with an image will get more attention than an item
with only text. Captions will get more attention than text. Choose your visuals
and captions accordingly.
6. Strategize the
structure. Will you have one long timeline, or split it into or sections?
If sections, what are the best divisions? Decades are easy and obvious, but if
your major achievements came in 1932, 1939, 1955, and 1959, consider breaking
the timeline in a way that gives those dates get more attention. Don’t forget
to mark business anniversaries!
7. Make navigation
easy. Is the layout easy to understand? (In July, we commented
on Boeing’s
bafflingly complex timeline.) If you’re using tabs for sections of the
timeline, can readers see that option on both laptop and mobile screens?
Next week, we’ll analyze how one major corporation handled
its website timeline.
Posts
