By Aaron Henry, Managing Director, Foundeast
A conversation with Tim Kroeger, publisher of Universal Traveller and Bangkok Insiders, recently brought me back to a question I have been thinking about for years: what happens when a company starts behaving like a publisher?
Tim raised the importance of the website unprompted. The point is simple. If you are investing in content and building an audience, you need a place where that work belongs to you and can keep working for you. Hearing it from someone who runs publishing businesses took me back to my time helping expand Rotten Tomatoes, Fandango, and Flixster. It also made me think about how website strategy has changed, and why it deserves renewed attention.
From destination to publishing platform
The first generation of company websites were destinations. A business put its credentials, services, contact details, and perhaps some news online, then tried to persuade people to visit. Its website strategy was often little more than maintaining a digital brochure.
Search changed that. Businesses began publishing articles, guides, and answers that could attract people long after publication. A useful page could earn attention for years. The website became a store of evergreen knowledge, with each new piece adding another way for a customer to discover the company.
Then social media shifted the emphasis towards fresh content delivered where audiences already spent their time. Brands built editorial calendars around posts, short videos, and platform trends. The website remained an anchor, but the daily energy moved elsewhere.
Now AI is changing the route to discovery again. People increasingly ask search engines and AI assistants for explanations, comparisons, and recommendations. A modern website strategy must account for how a company’s knowledge, expertise, and evidence can be found, understood, and assessed across those experiences.
Every company has something to publish
At Rotten Tomatoes and Flixster, growing the audience was never only a matter of putting more material on a website. We syndicated content and voices across major news networks, thousands of radio shows and podcasts, and other channels where people were already paying attention.
We also set up and produced a weekly Rotten Tomatoes call-in show on SiriusXM. At events including Comic-Con, we built live production hubs and interviewed casts from major television series such as Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead. Each format reached people in a different setting. Together, they made the publishers’ voices more recognisable and gave audiences reasons to return.
Most companies are not entertainment publishers, and they do not need a radio show. The principle still applies. An engineering business can explain how it solves difficult operational problems. A property company can interpret a local market. A healthcare brand can answer practical questions within the bounds of its expertise.
A good website strategy begins with those real sources of knowledge. The most useful material often comes from the work a company already does and the questions its people answer every day. Being an influencer, in this sense, means becoming a trusted voice in your field: having a point of view, showing your work, and contributing something useful to the conversation.
Why AI brings the website back to the centre
Social posts can start conversations. Interviews, events, newsletters, and video can take expertise to new audiences. A website gives those ideas a durable, organised home.
That matters when someone wants to understand whether a company can do what it claims. A short post may introduce an opinion; a detailed article can explain the reasoning behind it. A video clip may show a project; a case study can establish the challenge, the work, and the result. An executive interview may reach one audience today; a well-presented transcript or article can remain useful to another audience later.
It matters for search visibility, too. Google says its established SEO guidance remains relevant to AI features in Search, including the need for accessible pages and helpful, reliable content. A page must be eligible for Google Search to appear as a supporting link in those AI experiences. Publishing good material does not guarantee inclusion, but a useful, accessible website gives search systems something substantive to discover.
An effective website strategy therefore goes beyond company announcements. It answers the questions customers ask, documents what the business knows, introduces the people behind its expertise, and connects claims to examples. Distribution brings people into contact with those ideas. The website lets them explore further.
The tools are making publishing easier
For years, the cost and complexity of web design and development gave many companies a reason to postpone improvements. AI site creation tools are lowering that barrier. ChatGPT’s Sites, for example, can create, host, and refine a website from a prompt or a compatible project.
That makes it easier to test a new guide, campaign page, resource hub, or interactive experience. It does not settle the harder editorial questions: who the audience is, what they need to know, which claims the company can support, and whether the finished material deserves their attention.
As production becomes easier to scale, website strategy depends more heavily on judgement. A hundred generic pages will not establish a distinctive voice. A smaller body of clear, original work, informed by the people doing the work, can.
Make the website part of the content strategy
The practical shift is to plan the website and distribution together. Start with a question customers genuinely ask. Publish the most complete, useful answer on the site. Then adapt it for the channels that suit it: a LinkedIn perspective, a short video, an interview, a newsletter, or a media pitch. Bring what you learn from those conversations back into the original page and keep it current.
This is where website strategy meets publishing strategy. The site holds the fuller story; other channels help it travel. Each interview, article, case study, and conversation can add to a body of work that becomes more useful over time.
That is the connection Tim’s comment brought into focus for me. The website is more than a destination for campaign traffic. It is where a company builds a body of work. Other channels give that work reach, new voices give it depth, and fresh reporting keeps it relevant.
Every company now has the opportunity to act more like a publisher and earn influence through what it knows. As AI changes how people discover and assess businesses, website strategy gives that publishing effort a centre of gravity.