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• 2009
• Government website visits by Australian users up 10.4% year-on-year in March 2009

Government website visits by Australian users up
10.4% year-on-year in March 2009

Hitwise Online Government Report - Ensuring Government Services are Reaching Communities

Melbourne - 12 May, 2009 - Hitwise, an Experian company announced today that government website visits were up 10.4% year-on-year in March 2009. According to Hitwise's new Online Government report, this growth suggests that the community is finding online government services increasingly useful. Australian visits to government websites also outstripped US and UK usage in March 2009.

However, Government agencies need to ensure that the online delivery of their services is meeting the needs of the community, particularly as the Internet becomes a primary point of contact between organisations and users.

Hitwise Senior Analyst, Sandra Hanchard, says that "As times get tough during the economic downturn, government will play an increasingly important role in providing vital services to the community. The effective delivery of these services through the online channel can result in cost-savings for government and potentially improve community well-being."

Key findings from the report, including a case study on how the Australian community reacted online to the Victorian bushfires in 2009, are as follows:

• Government Agencies should benchmark their websites against similar departments and industry players. The Bureau of Meteorology was the leading Government - National website with an overwhelming 44.8% share of visits in March 2009, and was also the leading News and Media website ahead of major publishers.
• Victorian bushfires searches dropped off 4 weeks after the crisis. Search analysis can help inform governments of the peak window for community awareness around a given event. Agencies can also use search data to measure awareness of government services.
• Search Engine Optimisation should be used by government websites to compete effectively with the commercial sector.  Searches around the Victorian bushfires also demonstrate that the community was more likely to turn to News and Media websites than online government services for vital updates, appeal information, and education around bushfire safety.
• Agencies can determine who they can use for information dissemination based on websites that receive the most traffic on searches. The leading media players to receive informational bushfire searches during the height of the Victorian bushfires were ABC News Online, Google News Australia and The Age.
• Social Media can be used by government to connect with a broad spectrum of the community. Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Wikipedia all ranked amongst the top websites visited by Australians in March 2009, with each network displaying different audience strengths.

Download the full report. For more information, contact Rheika Tompkins at press.au@hitwise.com or 03 8530 2400.

About Hitwise

Hitwise, an Experian company, is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Hitwise gives marketers a competitive advantage by providing daily insights on how 25 million Internet users around the world interact with more than 1 million websites. This external view helps companies grow and protect their businesses by identifying threats and opportunities as they develop. Hitwise has more than 1,500 clients across numerous sectors including financial services, media, travel and retail.

Hitwise, an Experian company (FTS:EXPN), www.experianplc.com, operates in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore and Canada. More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com.
 
For up-to-date analysis of online trends, please visit the Hitwise research blog at www.ilovedata.com and the Hitwise Data Center at www.hitwise.com/datacenter.