Government websites are not driven by commercial interests and hence they don’t pay so much attention to the design, aesthetics and visual appeal. One of the most important things to know about government websites is that for them, ‘users’ always come first. The main goal for government websites is to ensure that all of their visitors are having a good experience. This is because if the visitors have a bad user experience then it could reflect very poorly on their organization. Read on further to know the top 5 steps that all must be followed for successful government website development.
- Clear Objectives Need to be Established:- Planning a government website usually entails a lot more work than what most people imagine. The first part is to set goals and then the overall site’s purpose needs to be defined as well. Thus before making any big changes, it is important to define in clear terms what you intend for your website to achieve. If you don’t have clear objectives at the very outset then you will see that the content is unfocused and this might result in a very poor user experience, which is something no admin in charge of running operations wants. You need to have a clear idea of how you intend for your visitors to use your site and the experience you intend for them to have, at the end of the day. The admins need to keep these objectives on the top of their mind as they go about their government website development.
- Begin with a Sitemap:- A sitemap is actually a list of pages that helps search engines in finding all the content that is present on the website. A site is actually a very quick and very easy-to-follow, overview of the entire website because it provides text links to each and every page. A sitemap shows all the users and the web crawlers all the different places they can go on the website. Just ask any website developer and they will tell you just how important a site map is for SEO. If government websites use keyword phrases on their sitemap then it will surely help the pages in ranking much higher on search results. The sitemap doesn’t just show how well organized the site is but it also provides very important “metadata” for each and every page including things like how often the pages are changed or updated and how important is each and every page is in relation to the different pages on the website. All of these things play a very crucial role in improving SEO.
- Responsive Design:- Most people use the internet from their mobile phones than they have ever done in the past and it is expected that this number will grow very well into the future. Most people choose to access the internet from their mobile phones, instead of from their laptops or personal computers. This applies to people of all age groups, right from the youngsters to the boomers and it is simply because it is very easy to access the internet, ‘while on the go’. Responsive design simply means that the website in question needs to look good and operate very well on a mobile device. When the design is responsive, it means that the visitors of the site will have a very good experience of the website, regardless of how or from where they access it.
The Bottom Line
A successful government website is very important for establishing a very positive image and also for opening a communication channel with all the visitors that often visit the website and here we mean the ‘constituents’. It is important for all websites to follow the following government website development standards to ensure that their website offers a seamless experience to all constituents. Further, it goes without saying that the government website in question should comply with all the different federal laws, regulations, and policies. Admins of such sites should know that that the laws and regulations can often change and without any notice in the first place. Thus it is imperative on all government website admins to review all the federal mandates regularly to ensure that the website is never in the breach of the policies that might be currently in place.
