City of Morgan Hill Communications Assessment

There were a couple conflicting reports on the search terms visitors are entering into the Site Search. On the left is what CivicPlus reports; on the right is what Piwik reports. Regardless, there are multiple similarities between the two reports: jobs/job postings, high speed rail, water, swim lessons, and passport.

Observations • Overall, the City website does a great job of helping users find popular content, especially with its robust homepage and prominent Search function. The website’s top navigation menu structure may require a user to make a few clicks/taps to find a specific page, but is relatively sensible in terms of its categorization. • Currently, there are multiple domain names that all point to the City’s website: ca- morganhill.civicplus.com & ca-morganhill2.civicplus.com and morgan-hill.ca.gov. However, upon landing on the site, a user is not redirected to any particular URL. Ideally, all of these domains should resolve to the preferred domain of http://www.morganhill.ca.gov . (This has been referred to CivicPlus for resolution.) o Many cities have opted to register a more conventional domain name that ends in .org or .com. The City has not. • The website offers a comprehensive Staff Directory, which Tripepi Smith generally recommends as a best practice for City websites. • There are no meta Descriptions or Keywords for site pages yet, but the City is beginning to address this with the implementation of Siteimprove and its toolset. Meta Descriptions are used in search engine results to let potential visitors know what content is on the webpage. Well-written meta descriptions can also increase click- through rates to the City website from search engine results.

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