After all these years of editing government websites and training government writers, there’s something I still don’t understand about government web writers—the disconnect between their web life at home and at work.
And I think resolving this disconnect might just be the key to improving government web content.
Web writers at home and work
When government web writers are at home, they’re super-busy and task focused. When they go online, they want to do or find things fast.
Many are parents; they don’t have time to read fluff or ‘bureaucratese’ to get what they need. If they’re on a bus, they prefer to scan a mobile-responsive web page or watch a video than trawl through a 5-page PDF fact sheet with teeny little images on a phone screen.
Like the rest of us.
But when those same web writers sit down to write at work, many automatically start creating content that doesn’t reflect how their readers think, speak or use the content in the real world.
‘Do you expect us to sound like Richard Branson?’ they ask me. No—I expect you to sound like genuine, generous, service-driven, empathetic human beings.
Which I know for a fact they are. I’ve made many wonderful friends in government communications. It takes real commitment to be the message gatekeeper in a system that, often, doesn’t actually want you to be.
However, as I said, something strange happens when many government writers sit down to write. Another voice takes over.
Trends in web stats
I talk a lot about reader focus in terms of knowing who your reader is. However, there’s something almost as important to consider before you write any web page: what does the reader even want to do here? Why would they even read it?
Here’s a newsflash—people don’t come to government or council websites to read stacks of information. They come to find something or do something. They don’t browse. Actually, you’ve probably heard that before but what does it mean?
Without even looking at your Google Analytics, I know that your lowest page views align with pages that are all about you. The history of the agency, what you do, who is in your organisation or project, your taskforces…and I bet no one has viewed the minutes of your last 20 committee meetings since a few weeks (days?) after they were published!
I know this because I’ve done many web redevelopments and the results are always the same—the most popular pages are those where readers can perform tasks or read a process for doing something. And pages that personally strike a chord with them (like the horse owner frantically searching for Hendra virus information during an incident in their area).
I’m not saying don’t publish these pages (if you must!) but don’t make them a high priority in the navigation either. Because that tells readers you don’t really care about them. And it means you’re de-prioritising what readers really want.
The pages with the best feedback have always been those with logical online forms, or easy-to-consume content that’s scannable and written in the order the reader wants it—with short, sharp headings to guide them, calls to action, plain language and a complete ‘customer journey’.
Tip: Separate your external and internal stats in Google Analytics. Combining them skews the results, as a large number of page views are from inside the organisation itself. Even better, separate and then compare the results. It’s always interesting to see how the staff use the site compared with how the public use it. Write for the public.
Writing for self-centred readers
Most users of government and council sites visit only a handful of pages while they’re there. A handful! So if you’ve got 2 mega-performing pages, 10–15 well-performing pages and a few hundred so-so pages, it’s incredibly unlikely that readers will spend their handful of pages reading biographies of committee members.
(Interestingly, the About page is often the most viewed page on a corporate site, but the least viewed on a government site!)
Web readers are self-centred—not in a moral way, but in terms of focus. Say I need to find out the bin day in my new neighbourhood. I’ve never seen the council website where I now live but I’m not going to spend my handful of pages checking it out. I’m going to spend it clicking on the number of pages necessary to find out my bin day. That’s my task—and it’s all I care about.
So make it a little easier. Develop an architecture around tasks that people actually want to perform on the site. Use plain language to explain the process. If all they really want to do is apply for something, use the word ‘apply’ in the title and put the application form up the top. Then they can get in and get out. (Unless there’s eligibility for applying. Tell them that first so you don’t waste their time.)
But, most importantly, write like them, not like you. While organisational voice is a real thing, most organisations focus on their own voice at the expense of connecting with real people. (Content written specifically for Indigenous readers is often some of the best reader-focused content I see in my job!)
Know who the reader is, but also know what they want to do. And then get out of their way so they can do it!
Remember, you’re a web user as well. If it would annoy you, it would probably annoy them.
(For an organisation that’s redeveloped their site to focus on the self-centred reader, see South Australia’s City of Tea Tree Gully.)