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Integrated Website Measurement and Demographic Profiling Project 2004/2005 - Watching Brief No.3, April 2005

This 'Watching Brief’ is the third in a series of four briefs published to highlight the major findings from the second phase of the integrated website measurement and demographic profiling project across Victorian Government websites.

• Overview of major findings to date
• Vital statistics
• Case study: Key insights from Meigan Geileskey, Department of Victorian Communities
• Watching Brief publication timeline

Overview of major findings to date

49.91% of visitors to Victorian government websites accessed the Internet with a broadband connection. (Period 01/02/05 - 31/03/05)

Collecting data for the demographic profiling survey of Victorian Government website browsers has finished. From October 2003 until March, 2005, the demographic details of 192,967 Victorian government website browsers were collected. Participants in the survey will continue to have their browser behaviour tracked as they move across these websites.

In this brief, we will review some of the major findings from February and March 2005 and take a look at some of the shifting trends over the life of the survey.

The case study for this brief will focus on Youth Central, a new government website targeting the youth of Victoria and supporting their involvement in the wider community. The case study will give you a look at how Youth Central use their web analytics data to plan/enhance for the future.

Shifting Trends

Increasing broadband penetration

• Almost half (49.91%) of the browsers surveyed this period had broadband connections
• The percentage of browsers with broadband connections has increased steadily over the life of the survey. Since the first watching brief was published (December 2004), broadband penetration has increased by 10%.

Implications

• The expectations of people with broadband are different to those of people using narrow bandwidth - broadband browsers demand a richer experience
• Catering for the slowest and presuming everyone else is ok is no longer acceptable. There is a need to strike a fine line between considering the limitations experienced by narrow bandwidth browsers but ensuring you deliver the rich experience demanded by broadband browsers.

The Internet - preferred method of contact with government

• More than half (52.37%) of the browsers surveyed preferred to communicate with the government on the Internet
• The percentage of browsers preferring to communicate with the government online has steadily increased over the life of the survey.

Implications

• Contact strategies - develop internal processes and assign staff to ensure you are able to deal with enquiries efficiently. If a user sends you an email, they expect that you will respond to that email immediately.
• Site navigation - an intuitive approach to housing content on your site will help browsers to locate relevant content easily
• The popularity of the Internet for communicating with the government could be related to increasing broadband usage - speedy broadband connections have made communicating online easier. The convenience of the Internet over other communication mediums also sets it apart.
• Content quality/style - speak with your audience in a language they understand - don't use "government speak" if your target audience doesn't work in government roles.

Greater Internet access from the workplace

• 60.92% of browsers surveyed in this period accessed the Internet from the workplace
• Internet access from work has increased by 6.7% since the period of the first watching brief
• The percentage of browsers accessing the Internet at home has steadily declined over the period of the survey.

Implications

• There is a direct relationship between increasing broadband use and the percentage of people accessing the Internet at work - the workplace is more likely to have a broadband connection than home
• It is important to consider any limitations facing people accessing the Internet at work. For instance, many workplaces strictly monitor the amount of time spent on personal browsing. Therefore, delivering information in a quick and efficient manner is becoming increasingly important.

Vital Statistics

The following table presents a high-level overview of the major statistics tracked by Nielsen//NetRatings over the three periods covered within Watching Brief 1, Watching Brief 2 and Watching Brief 3 (01/06/04 – 30/09/04 ,01/10/04 - 31/01/05 and 01/02/05 - 31/03/05).

 

General Website Usage

	June - Sept 2004	Oct 2004 - Jan 2005	Feb - March 2005
Unique Browsers	4,830,735	5,755,763	3,586,041
Average Session Duration	3.5 minutes	3.4 minutes	3.5 minutes
Frequency of Visits (Average)	1.6 per month	1.7 per month	1.7 per month
Websites Monitored	111 (top level domains)	140 (top level domains)	145 (top level domains)
Surveys Completed	36,409	26,218	10,151
Place of Website Use	57.07% accessed the internet in the workplace 35.69% accessed the internet from home	58.15% accessed the internet in the workplace 35.58% accessed the internet from home	60.92% accessed the internet in the workplace 32.46% accessed the internet from home

Demographics

	June - Sept 2004	Oct 2004 - Jan 2005	Feb - March 2005
Gender	58.65% female 41.35% male	58.52% female 41.48% male	59.21% female 40.79% male
Location	67.99% Metropolitan Melbourne	68.03% Metropolitan Melbourne	68.05% Metropolitan Melbourne
Age	Majority (68%) aged between 18 and 45 years	Majority (67%) aged between 18 and 45 years	Majority (69%) aged between 18 and 45 years
Employment Status	58.77% in full-time employment 13.55% in part-time / casual employment	60.05% in full-time employment 13.6% in part-time / casual employment	61.57% in full-time employment 13.94% in part-time / casual employment
Occupation	Highest - Health / Community Services Industry (15.11%)	Highest - Health / Community Services Industry (15.39%)	Highest - Health / Community Services Industry (15.51%)
Type of Internet Connection	45.4% of respondents used a broadband connection	47.69% of respondents used a broadband connection	49.91% of respondents used a broadband connection
Preferred Method of Interaction with Government	50.69% preferred the Internet 20.87% preferred to use the telephone	51.76% preferred the Internet 21.49% preferred to use the telephone	52.37% preferred the Internet 21.68% preferred to use the telephone

Case Study: Youthcentral

(www.youthcentral.vic.gov.au)

How do you create a state of the art government site for young Victorians that promotes up–to-date government information and services and encourages young people to get involved, have their say and have fun along the way?

We recently took the opportunity to sit down with Gerardine O'Sullivan, Meigan Geileskey and Ryan Twisk to discuss their experiences with the youthcentral site. We focussed on their attempts to create awareness for youthcentral and talked about how they planned to use web analytics to enhance the site.

Key Insights

• Focus your resources on areas of the site that are valued by your audience
• Targeted promotions - raise awareness and drive the right people to your site.

What is youthcentral and who is your target audience?

Youthcentral is an online youth participation initiative linking young people with the Victorian government and their communities. It is a joint initiative between Employment Programs and Office for Youth in the Department for Victorian Communities. It provides an easy entry point for young people to access services, resources and information across government at the state and local community level.

This website targets all young people across Victoria aged 12-25.

How do your target audience find out about your site?

We recognise the importance of driving people to our site - we can't simply rely on them stumbling across it.

We have recently organised a number of activities that have helped to raise the profile of the site and communicate its value to young people. These activities have included an active participation in National Youth Week, a radio advertising campaign, a state-wide writing competition that saw five young people compete for the job of youthcentral’s Content Editor, promotional roadshows to different regions and encouraging young people to be involved in the design, content and promotion of the site.

Word-of- mouth recommendations among young people are also proving to have strong promotional value for the site

Any particularly successful campaigns/promotions to date?

"The Write Stuff"' was a campaign/competition targeted at aspiring young writers in Victoria . Finalists were offered the opportunity to travel around Victoria and Australia and report on their experiences in regular articles that were published on the site. Peer-to-peer communication is a major theme for the youthcentral site and we felt that "The Write Stuff" competition was able provide this.

We also noticed a major spike in website usage throughout the competition. The challenge ahead of us now is to capitalise on the exposure from the competition and develop a growing, loyal user base.

What benefits do reporting on the usage of your site deliver?

We realise the benefits of monitoring activity on our site to anticipate what is working and what isn’t . For instance, tracking and reporting have already helped us to divert resources away from some less popular areas of the site to areas that are most popular amongst our target audience.

We want to become more proactive in using web analytics data to optimise our site - we don't want to simply view this data in the rearview mirror.

Tell us about your experiences with the Nielsen tracking and reporting tool to date.

Youthcentral is a relatively new website so the pattern of usage is still being established. At the moment, we are only taking a 'small slice of the pie' of the Nielsen tracking tool, but we plan to increase our knowledge of the tool to ensure that we are getting the most out of it.

Do you have a reporting framework to consistently deliver information about performance of the site?

Ryan has developed a framework for reporting on the statistics which are currently meaningful to us - having this framework means we can have a good look at and analyse what is happening from week to week.

As our reporting requirements become more complex, this framework will obviously begin to change. We feel at this stage though that our approach to reporting on the usage of the site works well for us.

What is the value that Nielsen NetRatings site tracking provides for youthcentral?

Reporting on the usage of our site helps us to remain in touch with our audience. By analysing our stats we are able to see which areas of the site are working well, we feel this helps us to be responsive to what young people want.

Partnership Opportunities

Youthcentral are keen to establish links with other Victorian Government sites that have information relevant to youth.

For more information on the youthcentral website and partnering opportunities, please contact:

Meigan Geileskey
Department of Victorian Communities

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For more information on the Integrated Website Measurement and Demographic Profiling Project, please contact:

Cheryl Hardy
Project Manager - Victoria Online
Chief Technology Office, Multimedia Victoria
Email: cheryl.hardy@mmv.vic.gov.au

The Watching Brief is also available for printing in pdf format. (This document requires the use of Adobe Acrobat Reader) (420kb)

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Publication timeline for watching briefs

Each watching brief will cover a specific period of time. These time periods, and the publication date for the associated watching briefs are as follows.

• Watching Brief #1: Period Covered, June 04 – Sep 04, Published December 2004
• Watching Brief #2: Period Covered, Oct 04 – Jan 05, Published February 2005
• Watching Brief #3: Period Covered, Feb 05 – Mar 05, Published April 2005
• Watching Brief #4: Period Covered, Apr 05 – May 05, To be published June 2005

 

Last updated: 28 February 2006

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