Fang Wang and Ying Wang
of the SEO of their website,“ We didn’ t do SEO. We only made a street billboard for e‐Government, the slogan is‘ E‐Government is ubiquitous’.”
Table 2 Comments used for the identification of the concept“ necessity of government website promotion”
Intervie wee
Inf. 9
Inf. 2
Inf. 4
Inf. 5
Inf. 11
Inf. 13
Comments
The promotion of government website is the promotion of government itself.... Services that governments have provided need to be known by more people.( Government website) needs promotion. Today, as the fluidity of the population increases, one may need to know something about several cities during a short period for various purposes. Government websites of these cities are his / her first channels to choose. It will not be easily found without promotion no matter how wonderful a government website is. Not only( government) websites need promotion, but its newly added functions also need timely promotion … to make the public know and use them. Government websites need promotion. Otherwise, don’ t mention outsiders, and I am afraid that internal employees don’ t know it. A government website is also a website. The fundamental purpose of all the websites is to get awareness and satisfaction of users. Only by this, could it play full roles. But the improvement of users’ awareness and satisfaction needs website promotion.
Personally, I think that governments needn’ t spend too much on website promotion because services provided on government websites have somewhat authorities and don’ t face competition.
3. The grounded theory of government website promotion
Concept identification awareness
Necessity User needs To be found easily
Awareness of new functions
Making known by internal employees Awareness Users’ satisfaction
Public nature
Codes User’ s awareness
Necessity of promotion User needs
Necessity of promotion
Necessity of promotion
Necessity of promotion Users’ awareness Users’ satisfaction
Promotion strategies
We present a concept map depicting the mechanism of government website promotion in Figure 1. Figure 1 consists of textboxes and arrows. The textboxes display categories and concepts that emerged from data and online discussions. Three core categories " government websites ", " promotion " and " users " as well as their sub‐categories were shown in three big boxes. Arrows show the relationships between concepts. Unidirectional arrows show the positive or negative influence of one concept on another. Bidirectional arrows show the interaction between two concepts. igure 1 displays the relationships emerging from data rather than logical relationships between concepts. As shown in Figure 1, the propositions around government website promotion can be divided into three groups:( 1) influences of government websites themselves on their promotion;( 2) users’ influences on government website promotion;( 3) elements of government website promotion.
3.1 Influences of government websites on their promotion
3.1.1 Essence of government websites
" A government website represents a government itself ". The relationship between citizens and government websites is the relationship between citizens and governments in essence. " Providing public services is the responsibility of government websites since all the funds for the establishment, operation and maintenance of government websites are from public revenues," one interviewee commented. Government websites should make efforts to provide services for all the citizens who need government information or services, which are very different from business websites that aim to satisfy needs of people who can afford. The utilization of the funds invested on government websites must comply with the requirements of public expenditures. Therefore, marketing strategies adopted by government websites must match the public nature of government. A netizen criticized the event that the government of Hebei province bought Baidu paid‐search service for higher ranking
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