A Grounded Theory of Government Website Promotion
Fang Wang and Ying Wang Business School of Nankai University, Tianjin, China, wangfangnk @ nankai. edu. cn wangying. cool. 6 @ 163. com
Abstract: The low utilization of government websites is a problem that exists in many countries. There are few studies on the promotion of government websites up to now. In order to improve the utilization of government websites, it is necessary to explore the mechanism of government website promotion. Considering that this is a problem that has not been fully studied, a grounded theory approach is adopted. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 24 employees who maintain portals or departmental websites of local governments at different levels, 22 citizens and 1 worker of a company that provides services of website building. In addition, related online discussions were collected as supplementary data. After iterative comparison and analysis of collected data, a concept map depicting government website promotion was generated and some promotion strategies were put forward.
Keywords: government websites, website promotion, grounded theory, SEO, e‐government
1. Introduction
Government websites are online extensions of government entities. With the development of e‐Government all over the world, the number of government websites has increased dramatically in recent decade. According to the statistics of the website of Zhaozhenfu( a website for government website finding, http:// www. zhaozhengfu. cn /), the total number of government websites had reached 81,725 by the end of April 2011( Zhao Zhenfu. cn, 2011), accounting for 4.4 % of the total number of websites in China. However, although there had been 485 million internet users in China by July 2011( CNNIC, 2011), a large percent of netizens hadn’ t visited government websites( Wang & Chen, 2012). According to the Assessment of Chinese Government Websites released in 2008, 57.5 % people surveyed had never visited government websites, and 29 % had never heard of government websites( Fan, 2012). A Survey on the Utilization and Impacts of the Internet in Chinese Cities showed that more than 75 % of Chinese city people didn’ t know about e‐Government, and 45.6 % had never visited government websites in 2007( Guo, 2007). In 2011, the Survey Report on the County E‐Government Construction of Fujian Province showed that 81 % of people surveyed had never visited county government websites. Among all the problems that hindered the utilization of e‐Government by companies, the lack of sufficient promotion accounts for 62.3 %( Research Group on the E‐Government Construction at County level in Fujian Province, 2011).
Same problem also exists in developed countries. According to the report of British Central Office of Information( 2010), the UK Trade and Investment website averaged 28,000 visitors per month, accounting for 5.3 % of the total number of British netizens, and each visitor cost 11.78 pounds according to the figure of over 4 million pounds of building cost( BBC, 2010). In 2007, 66 % of the netizens in the United States had visited government websites at different levels, e. g. local, state or federal governments( Susannah, 2007). According to Rainie and Smith( 2008), a record‐breaking 46 % of Americans used the internet to get political news and share their thoughts about the campaign in 2008.
Governments have realized the unbalance between huge investment on and low utilization of government websites. The General Office of the State Council of China released a notification on April 21, 2011, requiring that government websites must ensure timely public access to government information and online services and those without good management must be closed( State Council, 2011). The Labor Government of UK reviewed 1,795 websites and closed more than 1,000 " vanity sites " from 1999 to 2010( BBC, 2010).
The low utilization implies the necessity of marketing for government websites. Scholars in political science, public administration and organizational sociology have paid attention to marketing in the public sector.“ For the future, it is by no means clear that … a full marketing approach is relevant for public services”( Connolly 1991, p. 5). Public service organizations are increasingly turning to marketing professionals as“ managerialism” takes over“ administration”( Butler & Collins, 1995). Laing( 2003) suggested that there be a need for contextually anchored research exploring the evolving experiences and behaviors of consumers and professionals within particular public service settings from a marketing, rather than public management,
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