The Press Page Journalists Actually Use: A Small Business Build Guide

A journalist replies to your pitch with three words: “Can you send photos?” You have a headshot from 2019 buried in an email thread, a logo that exists only as a screenshot, and a bio that three different websites describe three different ways. By the time you have it sorted, they have filed with someone else.

Most small businesses lose coverage this way, and it has nothing to do with the quality of the story. The journalist said yes, and the business wasn’t ready. A press page fixes that. It’s a single page on your website where everything a reporter needs sits ready to use, and you can build a good one in an afternoon.

This post walks through what goes on it, how to build it in about four hours with AI doing the first drafts, what it costs, and where it goes wrong.

What is a press page and why do journalists use it?

A press page (sometimes called a media kit or newsroom page) is a single web page holding your approved company description, spokesperson bios, high-resolution images, key facts and media contact details. Journalists use it to check facts and grab assets quickly, without waiting for you to reply. It turns a “yes” into published coverage faster.

In my 20-plus years in communications, the pattern has been consistent. Journalists work to deadlines measured in hours, sometimes minutes. Anything that makes them wait for you, or makes them guess, pushes you down the list. A page that answers the obvious questions before they’re asked is a quiet advantage, particularly for a business competing for attention with larger organisations that have in-house media teams.

It also works as a credibility check. Reporters who don’t know you will look at your website before they quote you. A clear, current press page tells them there’s a real, organised business behind the pitch.

What should a small business put on its press page?

A small business press page needs seven things: a short company description, key facts, spokesperson bios with photos, a logo pack, product or team images, recent coverage, and a direct media contact. Anything beyond that is optional. Resist the urge to add a mission statement essay or a timeline of every milestone.

Here is what each piece should look like.

The company description

Write three versions: 25 words, 50 words and 100 words. Journalists paste these straight into articles, so each must stand alone and contain no marketing adjectives. Say what you do, who for, where, and since when.

Key facts

A short list: year founded, location, number of staff, services or products, and any figure you can verify and are happy to have published. Only include numbers you could defend if a journalist asked where they came from.

Spokesperson bios

One short paragraph per person, written in the third person, with a current headshot. Include a line on what the person can speak about. “Can comment on cash flow for trades businesses” is far more useful to a reporter than “passionate about helping small businesses thrive”.

Logo pack and images

Provide the logo as a PNG with a transparent background and as a vector file if you have one, in light and dark versions. Add three to six high-resolution photos: the founder, the team or premises, and the product in use. Name the files sensibly, such as “jane-smith-headshot.jpg” rather than “IMG_4471.jpg”.

Recent coverage

Link to two or three pieces of previous coverage. This is social proof for the next journalist and it shows what kind of story you’ve been a good source for.

Media contact

One name, one email address and one mobile number that you answer. If the number goes to voicemail for two days, the page is worse than useless.

How do you build a press page in four hours with AI?

You can build a press page in about four hours: one hour gathering assets, an hour drafting copy with AI, an hour on images and files, and an hour building and testing the page. AI speeds up the drafting. It can’t supply the facts, the photos or the judgement about what to leave out.

Here is the workflow I’d follow.

1. Gather your raw material (60 minutes). Collect your existing website copy, LinkedIn bios, previous media coverage, any award entries, and your best photos. Put everything in one folder.
2. Draft the copy with AI (60 minutes). Use the prompts below, then edit every line yourself.
3. Prepare images and files (60 minutes). Resize, rename and export. Check you hold the rights to every image.
4. Build and test the page (60 minutes). Publish it, then open it on your phone and ask someone outside the business to find the logo and the media contact in under 30 seconds.

Prompt for the company descriptions

Paste in your existing website copy and bios first, then use something like this:

Using only the information I’ve pasted above, write three versions of a company description for a press page: 25 words, 50 words and 100 words. Write in the third person. Use plain language, no superlatives and no phrases like “passionate about” or “leading provider”. State what the business does, who it serves, where it is based and when it was founded. If any of those details are missing from the material, list what is missing at the end instead of inventing it.

That final instruction matters. Without it, most AI tools will fill gaps with plausible-sounding details that are wrong.

Prompt for spokesperson bios

Write a 60-word third-person bio for the person described below, for a media kit. End with one sentence beginning “Can comment on” that lists three specific topics a journalist might ask about. Use only the facts I’ve given you. Do not add qualifications, years of experience or awards that I haven’t stated. [paste LinkedIn summary and any extra notes]

Prompt for a journalist’s-eye review

Once the page is drafted, ask the AI to play the reader:

You are a news journalist on a tight deadline who has never heard of this business. Read the press page text below. List every question you would still have to ask the business before you could publish a story, and flag any claim that you would want a source for. [paste page text]

This review step takes about ten minutes and usually turns up two or three gaps.

How much does a press page cost?

For most small businesses the main cost is about four hours of your own time, plus possibly a photographer. The software can be free or close to it. If you value your time at $100 an hour, the page costs around $400 in time. Professional headshots are the one item worth paying for, and prices vary widely, so get two or three quotes.

A realistic breakdown looks like this:

• Your time: about four hours to build, then 15 minutes each quarter to keep it current.
• Page hosting: nothing extra if you add it to your existing website. Most website builders let you add a page without a plan upgrade, but check yours before assuming.
• Document storage for downloadable assets: a free cloud storage account is enough for a logo pack and a handful of images. Google Workspace, if you want business email and storage together, is priced per user per month. Google’s Australian pricing page lists Business Starter at AUD $9.90 per user per month on an annual commitment and AUD $11.80 billed monthly.
• Design tool: the free tier of a tool such as Canva is enough for resizing and exporting logo and image variants. Check Canva’s pricing page for its paid plan before you assume you need it.
• AI assistant: the free tier of ChatGPT or Claude handles everything in this workflow. A paid plan isn’t needed for this job.
• Photography: the only line that might cost real money. A half-hour session covering you and your team is usually enough.

Compare that with the alternative. A pitch that lands, a journalist who says yes, and a business that takes two days to find a photo. That is wasted PR effort you’ve already paid for, whether in money or in hours.

Which mistakes make a press page worse than having none?

The worst press page mistakes are stale information, images you don’t have the rights to use, AI-written claims nobody checked, and hiding the media contact. Each one damages trust with the exact people you’re trying to impress. A missing page costs you speed. A wrong one can cost you credibility.

Here is what not to do.

Don’t publish anything you haven’t checked

AI tools will happily write “an award-winning team with over 15 years of experience” when the source material says nothing of the sort. If a journalist repeats that and it turns out to be wrong, the embarrassment is yours. Read every sentence against your own records.

Don’t upload images you don’t have rights to

Photos taken by a friend, a past employee or a freelancer may not be yours to give away. Where a photographer took the images, confirm in writing that you can use them for press purposes and let others reproduce them. I’m not a lawyer, and the rules on copyright and consent to use someone’s image are specific, so check with a qualified professional if you’re unsure.

Don’t make journalists hunt

Put a link to the press page in your website footer and in your email signature. Don’t gate it behind a form or a “request our media kit” button. A reporter at 4pm on deadline won’t wait for an auto-reply.

Don’t pad it

A page with 40 files and six pages of company history gets skimmed and abandoned. Include what a reporter would plausibly use and cut the rest.

Don’t leave it to rot

An out-of-date page, with a staff member who left last year or a product you no longer sell, is worse than no page. Put a recurring reminder in your calendar.

What can AI not do when building a press page?

AI cannot supply facts about your business that you haven’t given it, take your photos, confirm you hold image rights, or judge which of your achievements a journalist will care about. It drafts and tidies. You still decide what is true, what is relevant and what is safe to publish.

There are three limits I run into regularly.

The first is invention. Current AI models can produce confident, fluent text that includes details nobody supplied. The instruction to list missing information instead of inventing it reduces this, but it doesn’t eliminate it. Read the output as if a stranger wrote it.

The second is flatness. AI-written bios tend to sound the same as every other AI-written bio. Add one concrete, slightly unexpected detail that only you would know, such as the first job you ever quoted for or the odd reason you chose your suburb. Journalists remember those.

The third is judgement. AI can’t tell you that a particular client story is sensitive, that a statistic is out of date or that a staff member would rather not be named. Those calls sit with you. If you want help structuring the thinking, our guide on pitching the media without an agency covers how the page fits into the pitch itself.

How does a press page fit into your wider PR routine?

A press page works best as the back end of everything else you do: pitches, source requests and interview prep all point to it. Link to it in every pitch email, in your SourceBottle responses and in your email signature. It lets your outreach stay short because the detail lives on the page.

If you respond to journalist requests through SourceBottle, a link to your press page in the response saves a round of back and forth. Our post on using SourceBottle to get free media coverage covers that process in detail.

Once a journalist does say yes, the page is the first thing they’ll open, so it’s worth knowing what comes next. Preparing for a media interview with AI takes you from the “yes” to the conversation itself.

If you’d rather not build all this by hand, the PR Team department inside AI-Stories can draft company descriptions, bios and pitch emails from a single brief, and there’s a free trial at /pr-team-trial. You would still need to supply the facts and check every line, as with any tool.

A 15-minute quarterly check

Put this in your calendar:

1. Open the page on your phone and check it loads.
2. Click every link.
3. Re-read the bios and key facts against what is true today.
4. Replace any photo that no longer looks like you or your premises.
5. Add your latest coverage and remove anything older than two years.