Google for local government
The local gov day at Google’s London HQ this week (#googlelocalgov) definitely gave me some food for thought. No, they didn’t have all the answers, but as a group we do tend to have a LOT of questions.
There are a few things I’ll be looking into over the next few weeks as a result:
1. Google Adwords - I want to see just how much bang a council can get for its £300 buck in adwords. The Hillingdon example (pdf) was very interesting.
2. Site Links – The links that appear under Southwark Council when you do a google search are probably already the most appropriate but I’m not sure the landing pages they take you to are totally up to scratch…
3. Being more garish and less subtle – if it really only takes eight seconds for someone to decide if they’re going to click through to anything else from a page we need to make things REALLY obvious. What are the pages we really want people to see? We need to make the links more prominent!
4. Make registration easy and useful – when we move to a CMS that allows registration we need to make it SIMPLE, show the benefits, be reassuring and transparent and avoid distractions. Test test test to make sure we’re not losing people at the same stage every time and make sure we get them to the finish line. Sounds obvious but it will take a fair bit of work to get it right.
5. Advertising on a council site – This isn’t a high priority and I’m not sure how well it would go down but it might be a consideration when looking at template design – particularly for the what’s on section of the site. I was quite impressed by some aspects of Nottingham Council’s what’s on section.
6. YouTube – I didn’t know that YouTube was the second most popular search after google. At Southwark we have a channel and a few videos on it but nothing particularly new or exciting. But I think this will take off soon. A couple of good examples were shown on the day:
I really like the way annotations have been used in this video:
I thought the Visit Blackpool video was original and entertaining:
Both of these examples relate well to the kind of campaigns that we’re running at Southwark Council…
7. Google maps – There doesn’t seem to be a ready answer about how councils should be using Google and Ordnance Survey maps so it makes it even more important that we work together. Residents don’t care what goes on behind the scenes – what they care about is being able to find local services. They’re not interested in the boundaries of a borough when they’re looking for their local park or nearest recycling centre.
There were plenty more subjects being discussed on the day but these are the key points I took away from the day.
Go to the Google local government resource centre for more info.