Ten steps to a perfect online news room

Over on our global blog, David Bowen, Web effectiveness consultant and Financial Times journalist, has set out the key considerations for creating the ideal online news room, drawing from his experience of what the biggest companies in the world get right and wrong.

To attempt to briefly summarise, David's advice is:

1. Don't just think about the news room, think about your whole website, Google and social media.

2. Provide a really user-friendly archive of press releases.

3. Make it easy to search, filter and follow.

4. Provide printable fact sheets and background material.

5. Use Twitter (mixing releases with features) and optimise it for search.

6. Make contacts easy to find - with phone numbers.

7. Strike the right tone - don't use marketing jargon and spin.

8. Provide a strong image library, with a good variety of shots.

9. Use Flickr to complement your own site library.

10. Consider whether you can create a community of journalists, connected by social media.

Check out the full post for more depth and some great examples of best practice: 'What journalists really want from an online news room'