LibGuides: BK 301-02: Marketing Research: Websites

Company Websites

It's essential to check a company's website for:

Official documents like press releases & annual reports for information on products/services, insight into corporate philosophy and company structural health/goals.

Job listings, which provide information about characteristics a company may be looking for in an employee as well as required skills for specific positions.

You should also analyze competitor company websites for comparison/contrast.

Take a look at some of these great website evaluation tips!

Ad Council Information and media clips for Public Service Announcements (PSA.
Association of National Advertisers Marketing industry association.
Clickz Statistics and information focusing on interactive marketing.
Internet Marketing Dictionary
KnowThis Marketing Virtual Library Leading information and resource website for those involved in marketing, marketing research, advertising, selling, promotion, and other marketing-related areas. Contains tutorials on marketing topics.
QuickMBA - Marketing Knowledge resource presenting frameworks and summaries on various topics within business marketing. See tabs at top for materials on other business administration disciplines.

American Customer Satisfaction Index National cross-industry measure of customer satisfaction in the United States.
J.D. Power Business Ratings
Market Potential Index (globalEDGE) Rankings of market potential of the largest economies and guidance to U.S. companies that plan to expand their markets internationally.
Pew Internet and American Life Project

Edgar SEC filings Company IRS filings.
globalEDGE Michigan State University site that provides a wide range of information on global business issues and excellent profiles for countries and industries.
IQS Directory Comprehensive listing of manufacturers and suppliers serving major segments of the OEM industrial manufacturing marketplace across the U.S. and Canada.
The Official Board Organizational charts for the world's 20,000 largest companies.
ThomasNet Find manufacturers, distributors and service providers.
Yahoo!Finance Stock quotes, up to date news, portfolio management resources, international market data, and message boards.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Covers employment, compensation, living and working conditions, as well as a listing of additional regional resources. Allows creation of customized tables.
U.S. Census Bureau Demographic characteristics, total population, social, and economic census data for the U.S. and international locations. Useful in determining market size.
United Nations Demographic & Social Statistics Demographic characteristics of countries, including population, households, housing, income, health and more.

Look for company information submitted to the Internal Revenue Service, including Form 990.

Candid
Charity Navigator
Giving USA
GuideStar Set up free account to access more complete list of reports.
National Center for Charitable Statistics
Nonprofit Explorer Use this database to view summaries of 3 million tax returns from tax-exempt organizations and see financial details such as their executive compensation and revenue and expenses.

Finding what you need on comprehensive websites can be time-consuming. Look for sitemap to locate specific materials, or use this handy trick:

This technique will yield search results for your keyword(s) only within the website URL.

Narrowing your results:

You can search by specific domains. For example, if you only want government jobs sites, you can search "jobs" + "site:.gov" .

You can also also search for specific file types. For example, to search for a PDF document on jobs, search "jobs" + filetype:PDF.