Author: Jeremy

Somebody who likes nice things that work, without having to spend too much time working out why.

Search engine optimisation and search marketing

Been sweating over writing a few articles in the last few days but can’t seem to summon up the inspiration to complete them – website rationalisation and more thoughts on consultation will have to wait for another day – when along comes Paul Canning with an excellent article about the importance of search marketing for government and where DirectGov is getting it wrong. An essential read.

I’m no expert on search marketing. I understand the basics but we don’t spend money on paid for search in my department. What we do, and are very good at, is natural search – also known as search engine optimisation. This the art of ensuring your keywords, descriptions, metatags and content are optimised so that people can find your content easily – and so your content is ranked higher by Google et al (note: lack of technical skill ensures this is a Mickey Mouse description, please don’t heckle..). Continue reading “Search engine optimisation and search marketing”

Jeremiah Owyang: Why corporate websites are irrelevant

Jeremiah writes a great blog called Web Strategy, its an excellent read and relevant for anyone working in digital media – though the slant is of course around the commercial world rather than egovernment.

Today Jeremiah has written a great piece about why organisations need to think much wider than their own corporate websites. This is something that I have been banging on about in conversations with colleagues for some time – in the context of the government website rationalisation initiative, and my work on how government could use social media to interact better with its customers – this article is straight on the money.

A couple of quick extracts: Continue reading “Jeremiah Owyang: Why corporate websites are irrelevant”

Online consultation – parliament takes a lead

Back from a few days rest, away from work stuff, to good news from the Hansard Society – parliament has launched an online consultation website to support the work of select committees. This is the result of a great deal of effort from the Hansard Society over a number of years (some of the background can be found here).

Online consultation across government is patchy and this development should set a good example to the rest of us to up our game. But there are a number of problems with this: Continue reading “Online consultation – parliament takes a lead”