Research Reports

Still Virtually Lawn Signs: Benchmarking Canadian Political Web Sites During the 2006 Election
For this election, we updated our benchmarks of the Canadian political party web sites to evaluate their evolution from 18 months ago. Canadian party web sites deserve credit for significant improvements, however, they continue to be very much like lawn signs. They still inform, but don’t engage.

Shifting Focus from the Supply to the Demand Side of Government Online
Demonstrating the linkage between policy and outcomes will be a prerequisite to achieving continued political support and investment for e-government initiatives.  Key to such performance measurement frameworks is measuring the degree of citizen ‘take-up’ and adoption.

Web Analytics Brief: Getting Down to the Right Numbers (Part 3):
Churn, Churn, Churn!
All Web sites receive superficial traffic visitors who land on a single page (often the Home Page) and then abruptly depart. This scenario, repeated thousands of times a week, adds up to multiple web site visits that have little or no value, what we call churn.

Web Analytics Brief: Getting Down to the Right Numbers (Part 2) - Itsy Bitsy Spiders
Not everyone visiting your site is a real, living, breathing human being.  A surprisingly high number are “programs” – automated visitors otherwise known as spiders, bots, link checkers, crawlers, etc. 

Political Web Sites: Strategic Assets or Virtual Lawn Signs?
In the current 2004 electoral cycle, Canadian Web Sites are behind the curve relative to their US counterparts. They fail to reach out and engage their supporters and voters with the same effort and commitment. See Hillwatch's major benchmarking study comparing the main Canadian political party sites to John Kerry's and George Bush's sites.

Web Analytics Brief: Getting Down to the Right Numbers(Part 1)
Hits Are Good in Hockey, But Not So Good with a Web Site
The term ‘hits’ has become engrained in peoples' mind when referring to Web site traffic. Most managers believe "hits' are the # of visitor sessions or # of page views but these are not what a ‘hit’ is.

Campaigning Through Technology: New Zealand and UK Case Studies
Courtesy of the UK Political Marketing Newsletter, Hillwatch has two first-person accounts from opposite sides of the globe on how the Internet is being used by smaller political parties to get out their message and support the activities of party members.

The Public Sector’s Problem With Web Traffic Software, Part 1
Every government site has web traffic software but does it help public officials determine if program objective are met, stakeholders ‘take up’ online content or if the site has an impact?


Hillwatch White Paper: Government Web Asset Performance Measurement
(PDF - 187KB) As initial e-government milestones are reached, governments begin to focus on measuring the efficacy, performance and impact of their web assets.  This is driven by the cost of these assets and the need to determine if the initial promise and expectations of this new on-line channel is being realised.

Weighing E-Government
The Internet is already changing the way we use and learn about government. Digital government has even more potential to offer improved service delivery and greater transparency and accountability. Having the tools in place to measure that performance on an on-going basis is key to delivering on that promise.

How We Use Government Websites
More of us are going to government web sites, finding what we want and are happier with government because of it. But not all our needs are being met.

How Media-Friendly Is Your Association’s Web Site?
We know the net is the daily research tool for journalists.  And most associations want better press coverage. So why don’t they make their web sites more media friendly? Hillwatch gives you the scoop.

Is Your Association’s Web Site Search Engine Friendly?
Your association has all this sunk and fixed costs in your web site. It should become the main strategic communications vehicle for your organization. Doesn’t a little extra effort to maximize your return on that investment make sense?

Tough Love: Making Your Website Work Harder For You
An Association's website needs to be useful to its intended audience, easy to navigate and easy to find. Easier said than done!

Content is King
Splashy web design may grab our attention but it takes interesting content to hold it! Good content takes smarts, effort, time and, consequently, money. Here are few things to keep in mind when it comes to your organization’s web site and its content.