Does your municipality have a grip on the online landscape?
In the rapidly changing environment of local governments, managing a variety of Web sites is a complex task. Each with its own goals and audiences, these sites present a range of challenges. From enforcing laws and regulations to ensuring a consistent user experience. In this blog, we dive deeper into the common challenges of managing diverse websites.
Understanding your online landscape
Understanding your online landscape is essential to providing a cohesive and user-friendly online experience. In practice, in addition to the main website, local governments often have several websites for different initiatives and services. A Web site provides an opportunity to highlight these effectively. But often we also see that it can lead to proliferation. This requires time in management and maintenance.
In addition, the management of these websites may be spread across various departments and different vendors, which can result in a loss of overview and grip. Which websites exactly are you responsible for as a municipality? And who within the municipality has ownership? Moreover, what is the purpose of these websites? For example, they may not all have a right to exist. These are important first questions to ask yourself when mapping out your online landscape.
Why do municipalities have little control over their online landscape?
Understanding performance
Grip on your online landscape starts with insight. Because many sites are divided among different teams, there is often insufficient visibility into performance indicators such as speed, responsiveness and search engine optimization. Without being aware of current data, it is difficult to optimize online services for residents.
Laws, regulations and security standards
Every Web site must comply with specific laws and regulations. To get this right, it is important to make sure that each site meets the standards set, such as privacy or archiving. Of the more than 100 sites surveyed within some municipalities, it appears that as many as 74% cannot currently be considered secure, with several sites even processing personal data. This can be particularly challenging with the involvement of multiple vendors.
Accessibility
For every resident to make the best use of your website, it is important that accessibility is in order. While many municipal websites meet accessibility requirements, we see that largely other municipal sites do not. Consider accessible website buttons, images, feedback and design. But also having an accessibility survey done and having an accessibility statement prepared.
Lack of time and knowledge
In addition to maintaining your organization's various websites, you are most likely involved in multiple projects and initiatives. These responsibilities combined with too little time can cause website optimization to take a back seat. It is a logical consequence, but a missed opportunity for your online performance of the many websites and the user experience of residents. You may also lack knowledge in web management. In a multi-faceted job, you can't specialize in everything.
Consistency in corporate identity and user experience
Centralized management is essential for consistent branding, functionality and user experience between websites. This contributes to a positive and professional image to residents. Due to the diversity in management and vendors, it is difficult to ensure this consistency.
Getting started with your online landscape?
At Shift2, we understand the complexities of managing websites within local governments. We'd love to help you map and optimize your online landscape. Here's how we do that:
- We first make sure we have a map of your organization's current online landscape. We analyze existing websites and identify opportunities for improvement;
- We provide overview of your online landscape and insight into key KPIs within performance;
- By using our consultants, we provide extra hands. We relieve you in the process and this saves time;
- Based on the analysis, we highlight specific areas for quality improvement. Think web management, laws and regulations, accessibility, etc. We provide practical solutions to take your online landscape to the next level.
