Easy Content Strategies for Your Local Government Website

Most local government websites require several website administrators to maintain content on specific sections. This makes sense as municipal websites are often deep with rich content which can become too much for one person to handle. Also, it is common for some departments to have their own unique requirements and a need to control their own identity. But with so many cooks in the kitchen, ensuring consistent and quality content throughout your website can be a challenge. That is why it is important to establish some ground rules, or what is known as a content strategy, for all web administrators to follow.

Content strategy encompasses all of the content that can be added to your website, from basic text to images to videos and more, and how that content is presented. With that in mind, below are some basic content principles and best practices to help guide your own efforts to establish “rules and standards” for your web administrators. You’ll notice a common theme, simplicity. So I’ll do my best to practice what I preach, and try to keep this simple.

A content strategy can keep your website from falling apart.

Review your content

First things first. Proofread, edit, update, and remove outdated information. This is perhaps the single most important rule for any content strategy. It will establish a baseline for where your content is and where it needs to be. If you adopt only one rule, let this be it.

Write for the web

The basic tenant of this rule is simplicity and here are the primary components:

• Create short, simple, relevant headings/section titles.
• Break up long blocks of text with paragraphs and bulleted lists to highlight the main points. This treatments is called “chunking”. It’s easier on your site visitor’s eyes and much easier to read. Using page or CMS Items (link) is an excellent tool for this. A lot of text is too much on the web.
• Use plain language for longer, more technical information. This is actually a good practice for any text on any section.
• Never underline text unless it is a link. It causes confusion for site visitors. Find other ways to highlight text such as bolding or italicizing.

Let the Content Management System (CMS) do the work

Every design has its own built-in combination of font types, styles, sizes and overall colors scheme. Since content editors function much like MS Word, it’s tempting to play around with formatting. But this is where trouble can arise as each administrator may apply different formatting styles to different areas. The easiest way to keep your content consistent is to let the CMS do the work.

• Use the default fonts and associated styles built into the design. If you decide to change any of these elements, be sure to decide as a group so everyone is doing the same thing.
• Add content directly into the CMS content editor. Do not create an external Word doc and then copy/paste.
• Only use ALL CAPS for a short title or if that style is built into the design headings.

Follow accessibility (ADA) standards

ADA guidelines are kind of a “twofer”. If you apply them to your content, you get a website that is both consistent and more accessible to all visitors. How can you lose?

Set a content review & update schedule

Admittedly this one can be a big challenge to establish staff-wide, but if it is, your content strategy just became that much easier to implement. Even if you just convene the web administrators once a year for a site review, that will pay big dividends.

Ensure new web administrators are trained

This isn’t a true content strategy principle per se but it definitely falls under the large umbrella of maintaining a professional local government website. Remember to have new web administrators trained on the CMS and the ways of your in-house web guidelines. Consistent content is the key to a great site. One errant admin and the whole thing can fall apart!

GovOffice offers a wide variety of content services to help keep your municipal website in tip-top shape. Contact us today to discuss your needs!

Where's Your Website?

Simple SEO Tweaks to Improve Your Search Engine Ranking

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website in a search engine's "organic", or unpaid, search results. In general, the earlier and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users.

The process of completely "optimizing" your website to appear (and perform well) in search engine results is quite complicated, but there are some easy ways to make improvements using the GovOffice CMS.

Here are some simple steps you can take to get started, and well on your way to improving, the search engine ranking of your GovOffice website. You’ve work hard to build and maintain your awesome municipal website. Make sure this valuable resource is available for everyone!

Essential Steps

1. Add a Title, Description, and Keywords to the backend of your website. We have seen many instances where a GovOffice website went from non-existent to the top of the heap in search engine rankings by making these changes alone.


2. Create Friendly URLs for sections. These are shorter Web addresses that are easy for search engines to understand, e.g. GovOffice.com/design.


3. Add Alt text and title text, to images and icons. This step is often overlooked as it is for more “advanced” users but fear not, this image text how-to guide will walk you through the process. Adding this text gives a label (a text identity) to graphic images which search engines love. Search engines don’t recognize images on their own. It also improves site usability and conforms to ADA Web standards.


4. Keep your site content current, dynamic and relevant. Create links to local organizations, businesses, etc. in your community or surrounding area. Like Friendly URLs, your links should be descriptive. Descriptive links are also easily understood by search engines and will help visitors find specific content they are looking for more quickly.

Extra Steps

1. Purchase a custom URL for your local government website, for the same reasons Friendly URLs are beneficial. They are descriptive and help identify your site. 


2. Done with applying the SEO fundamentals above and ready for the next level? Go nuts with MOZ's very concise, yet thorough Beginner's Guide to SEO.


3. After you have completed the implementing the first steps above, keep up with what what pages are being visited and what pages aren't. Our get started with Google Analytics guide will help you configure this "behind the scenes" monitoring of your municipal website activity. It's a great way to see your work in action!

So where is your website? It’s somewhere out there, but making these few simple SEO tweaks can bring it much closer to your intended site visitors.

Can you help these people find your city's website?

Need some additional SEO guidance? Contact us today, we can help!