It’s been about 20 years since someone got the bright idea to build a website on their corporate computer network and call it an intranet.  In that time, intranets have evolved from curiosities used mostly by IT professionals to become indispensable business tools.

Unfortunately, they’ve also become a source of frustration at some companies — and not just for their users.

IT gets frustrated when people complain about search and navigation.

Communicators get frustrated when people don’t read the articles. (“But I used all the right acronyms and buzzwords! And I worked for three weeks on that article about the employee awards dinner held last month!”)

The Purpose of Your Intranet

The intranet isn’t a magazine that employees will read for pleasure.  It’s a tool.  Employees will visit the intranet to:

• File expenses
• Book travel
• Look up contact information for a colleague
• Use internal team collaboration or social media tools
• Check an HR policy or other reference material
• Escape their micromanaging boss by finding a new job within the company

Accept this as a reality.  Make it easy to find these features — and catch their eyeballs as they go by.

Five Rules for Creating Engaging Content

Once someone has entered your intranet, you can grab them, and attract them into your content by making sure your content is …

• Relevant – it addresses employee needs and interests
  
• Consistent – it delivers a smooth and friendly experience time after time so users can easily engage with the information offered
  
• Current – it’s fresh, timely, and not “history” (i.e., more than 5 days old)
  
• Concise – it’s not overwhelming, and can be quickly absorbed by readers
• Coherent – it’s professional, clear and logical; text flows easily from one point to the next

By following these guidelines, I’ve been able to:

• Take a pro-forma intranet for a global manufacturer and build it into a resource visited on a regular basis by 86 percent of the 22,000 employees who had intranet access

• Increase readership for a financial services company’s intranet by 48 percent 
• Launch a new intranet for a new company and get a steady 3,000 visits per day — 30 percent of all employees.

Obviously it takes more than these tips to build a strong intranet, but when you start build upon a strong user-based content foundation, you’ll create an intranet your employees WANT to read.