hitwise - ensuring government services are reaching communities
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Online Government Seminar, by Sandra Hanchard, Hitwise Senior Analyst, May 2009 - Contents: Government Share of Voice; Discoverability of Government Sites - Case Study: Bushfires Reveal Public’s Online Information Needs and SEO Principles; Social Media and Responsive GovernmentTRANSCRIPT
Online Government Seminar
Ensuring Government Services are
Reaching Communities
May 2009
Sandra Hanchard, Hitwise Senior Analyst
• Competitive Intelligence Service
• Australia’s first Search Marketing Services
• Monitor the largest worldwide sample of Internet users
• Report on the most online businesses (1M+ Websites)
• Provide daily delivery of information to drive better business decisions
• Founded in 1997 with profitable operations in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore
• Acquired by Experian in 2007.
• 1,500+ Clients Worldwide
Who We Are
• Government Share of Voice
• Discoverability of Government Sites
o Case Study: Bushfires Reveal Public’s Online Information
Needs
o SEO Principles
• Social Media and Responsive Government
Agenda
Government Share of Voice
Government visits up 10.4% year on year
2.4%Government share of all Internet
visits by Australians
Online becoming more mainstream
Visits to Social Networking and Forums vs Adult
National sites account for 60% of gov visits
Government websites breakdown, April 2009
• Hitwise measured visits to 6,500 websites in April 2009
Where are the opportunities for better regional engagement?
Weather is the most popular online Gov service
•ATO, Centrelink, Australain JobSearch
essential services
Transport key state online utility
ourbrisbane.com top local Gov site
Rank
Most popular websites in
Government ranked by visits
April, 2009
VisitsReturning Visitor
Rates
1 Bureau of Meteorology 24.18% 93%
2 Australian Taxation Office 3.44% 56%
3 Centrelink 2.73% 74%
4 Australian JobSearch 1.70% 77%
5
Roads and Traffic
Authority, NSW 1.53% 53%
6
Australian Taxation Office -
Tax Agent Portal 1.28% 97%
7 Medicare Australia 1.16% 41%
8 CityRail 0.99% 68%
9 NSW Lotteries 0.86% 80%
10
Department of Immigration
and Citizenship 0.86% 64%
Gov services attracts different loyalty rates
Understanding cross-department referrals
Search sending more traffic to Gov sites
Key Traffic Drivers to Government websites
Discoverability of Government Sites
During a disaster, how does the community behave online?
How quickly did community interest wane?
What were the types of bushfire searches?
Which industries were our trusted sources?
Swine Flu – Wikipedia most visited source
Swine Flu Searches - What are the symptoms?
•US searches more
focused on prevention
Opportunities for content providers to capture traffic through paid search listings
New online channels make timeliness of information dispersal key
Don’t make assumptions about content –Wikipedia ‘Edutainment’ searches
Top Internal Search Terms on
Wikipedia April 2009Share
wiki 0.11%
australia 0.07%
deaths_in_2009 0.05%
anzac_day 0.05%
lady_gaga 0.03%
twitter 0.03%
taylor_swift 0.03%
wikipedia 0.03%
scrubs_(tv_series) 0.03%
youtube 0.03%
easter 0.03%
eminem 0.03%
terry_clark 0.03%
gossip_girl_(tv_series) 0.03%
conficker 0.03%
zac_efron 0.03%
home_and_away 0.03%
how_i_met_your_mother 0.02%
lost_(tv_series) 0.02%
lily_allen 0.02%
• Over 90% of people use a Search Engine to find information on
Government sites (source: finance.gov.au)
• Cost reduction – SEO is a Long Term strategy that will reduce costs
over time & reduce any reliance on PPC.
• Steady Growth from Search Engines provided that best practices are
followed.
Why Search Marketing matters for Government
Number of Links to Government Websites
http://www.bom.gov.au – 426,000
http://www.nsw.gov.au – 253,000
http://www.vic.gov.au – 248,000
http://www.qld.gov.au – 209,000
http://www.australia.gov.au – 160,000
http://www.wa.gov.au – 55,900
http://www.nt.gov.au – 55,700
http://www.act.gov.au – 46,400
� Huge Link Popularity
� Masses of Content
� Authority Resources of Information
� Usually Unoptimised
Why SEOs love Government Sites
Best Practice SEO tips
�Google penalises websites for duplicated content across multiple domains
�Websites can exist on non-www and www
�Canocalisation
�Clean URL structure - google has difficulty indexing longer URLS
�Use Hitwise SI whilst writing content to identify content gaps
�Write content around as many keyword topics as possible to increase traffic
�Title tag with more keyword coverage
Social Media and Responsive Government
Understanding Wider Traffic Sources
Social Media amongst top sites
2
6
8
12
44
Australian Visits, April 08 – April 09
Social Nets now driving more traffic to Gov than Portals
Gov Upstream Traffic, April 08 – April 09
Gov can tap into different audience strengths of Social platforms
Gen Ys More reliant on peer-driven search through Social Nets
Government, Community, Health Sites attracting Silver Surfers
Who’s on Twitter?
Use Twitter as a broadcast channel to connect with community
Open Government
Considerations:
•Accuracy
•Participation rates
•Decision-making funnel
•Timeliness
•Marketing
•Incentive
What’s ahead for gov in 2009 and beyond?
• As times get tough – Government services becomes increasingly important.
• Delivery of services and communication digitally can be cost-effective.
• You compete with the commercial sector for people’s online time.
• Use effective content development and SEO to be a preferred sources of
reliable and authoritative information.
• Opportunities to connect with community – engage in decision-making
processes.
Sandra Hanchard
Hitwise Senior Analyst
www.ilovedata.com
Twitter.com/Hitwise_AP
Hitwise.com.au