FOR all the scars which 2001 left on the economy, the markets, world security and our collective psyche, you likely didn't have time to contemplate what to do with your IR Website in the year ahead.

Not to worry because I've got some invaluable advice for you. Implementing just one of the resolutions here is virtually guaranteed to lead to a vastly improved IR website. Take all five of them to heart and you could very well put me out of business.

So, without further ado, here are my five resolutions for your IR website in 2002:

Tell your company's story better.
This is a general flaw with IR websites today. They seem to have been designed with the assumption that the people visiting them already know something about the company, its products and its investment proposition.

To a large degree the problem is the fault of IR website vendors. Their templates give short shrift to the critical qualitative information that potential new investors need to understand a company's business.

The new imperative, and some would say it was never really any different, is to provide as much information as necessary to build investors' understanding of your company and its prospects.

I've provided some good examples of the different approaches companies are taking to present their investment stories in our recent article Five Approaches to Investment Propositions. You will also find an excellent example in our review of PotashCorp's first-rate IR website.

The bottom line here is that companies who don't explain who they are, what they do, and why people would want to own their stock are failing in one of their fundamental investor relations objectives -- attracting new investors. NEXT: Resolution three >