Sitemorse Index Ranks Best and Worst Websites from UK Financial and Legal Industry

LONDON, UK – 17th March, 2009 – Alterian (LSE:ALN), the leading international integrated marketing platform provider, today revealed the findings of the Sitemorse Q1 2009 Finance 1000 Website Index. The UK’s leading website in terms of performance, accessibility and compliance was that of Intelligent Finance. None of the UK top five high street banks appeared in the top ten and the most improved website was the Thinc Group which moved up 884 places from Q4 2008 to 11th position this quarter.

The audit showcases the best and worst financial and legal websites from the UK by marking them out of ten in six key categories. The full survey methodology and findings can be found at www.alterian.com/sitemorse.

As organisations invest in online marketing strategies during the recession, a company’s website needs to be fully functional and at the core of its marketing campaign. The index highlights the requirement to employ a competent Content Management System (CMS), which is effectively linked into an organisation’s marketing technology infrastructure.  Such an approach enables organisations to build and manage compliant and accessible websites that provide a better online experience for site visitors and improve an organisation’s ability to retain existing customers and compete for the attention of the economically strapped prospects.

David Eldridge, CEO of Alterian, said, “In the current economic climate, organisations are investing more heavily in online activities such as SEO and email marketing to drive their business growth. This drives visitors to websites, and organisations need to ensure that their websites are working optimally in order to maximise the opportunities created by increased site traffic following an investment in online marketing.”

"The results of this 1000 financial services website report held a few surprises, not least the vast range of scores for function and compliance” said Lawrence Shaw, CEO, Sitemorse. “With the financial services industry under the spotlight, any business that can deliver accurate, reliable services through the web will retain consumer confidence and can hopefully translate that to the rest of its business operations."

Sitemorse is an independent company that works with organisations to evaluate the performance and accessibility of their websites. The Q1 2009 audit was completed in late February.  1000 websites were reviewed using the Sitemorse automated web auditing, benchmarking and certification software, which tested and ranked websites out of ten based on six key features:
•   Accessibility to A, AA and AAA guidelines
•   First page, metadata and download times
•   Server response times
•   Reported site errors reported and errors per page
•   Site HTML warnings reported and warnings per page
•   Calculated site download speed

Eldridge continued, “Content Management Systems usually have an accessibility checker to help ensure that an organisation’s website remains both compliant and functional, but most only check the content after it has gone live and provide a very technical report on the violation and how to fix it. The built-in compliance checker with Alterian Content Manager, for example, gives companies peace of mind by fully automating the 220-plus checks required to achieve compliance with key legislation such as the Disability Discrimination Act. The solution offers simple guidance on how to resolve accessibility or performance violations when they occur and ensures that all known failures are fixed before a page can be published.”