Column: Make Your Website Government Friendly

      Given your interest in government work, it is essential to have a “government-friendly” website.

      Research by Forrester shows 85% of global senior executives, including government employees, prefer to find out about companies, products and services and to gather information for a buying decision via the Internet.

      When buyers are researching your company looking for the products or services you provide, the first or second place they look is your website. The others are the government’s online System for Award Management (SAM.gov) and Dynamic Small Business Search (dsbs.sba.gov). If what they are looking for isn’t easily found, they are gone, perhaps never to return again.

      Let’s look at a few characteristics your website needs in order to be government friendly.

Key Design Elements

      Make sure you design your website with your target agencies or customers in mind, with simple navigation.

      The content must be easy for anyone to understand and digest. When buyers land on your page, they want to quickly get to the information they need for an informed decision. If it is necessary to hunt for this information, the visitor may assume you are hiding something and may leave for your competitor’s website.

      Your website must load quickly. Three to five seconds is ideal. No opening splash, no Flash, no annoying voice-over or video. The average visitor spends about 7 seconds looking at a page. If it takes too long to load, visitors might not even see your content.

      Make it easy to read. You know what is easy to read: black text on a white background. It doesn’t have to be black on white, but the words need to be dark and the background needs to be light. Also, cut out the cutesy fonts. Make sure a print-out is readable.

      It must be mobile-friendly. More and more people are using smart phones to access data these days so you must consider the look and feel using a mobile device.

      Use no more than seven tabs.

      Place your address and contact information on every page.

Page by Page

• Home Page - No fancy pictures or graphics or vague statements about what you do. Cover the three to five core capabilities and services you provide. Also cover what sets you apart from everyone else – your key differentiators. All of this should track to your Capability Statement.
• “About” Page - Mission statement and vision are not necessary; facts about your company are. Include professional head shots of management, business development and customer service staff.
• Capability Statement – Create a separate tab that says “Capability Statement” since that is one of the main items that government buyers want to see. Use a format that is easily read and understood; adopt the format that your target agencies want to see. Make sure it is kept up-to-date and is easily downloadable as a one-page PDF.
• Contracts – Include information on each of your available term ID/IQ contracts. Link to applicable sites if available. Make sure you list the contact information (name, phone number and email address) of your manager for each contract.
• Services – State the true core capabilities that you provide, not everything that you might want to do. Make sure it tracks to the copy on your home page, your Capability Statement and your published NAICS codes.
• Past Performance – List a sample of projects you have worked on as a prime contractor. Be brief and use bullet points to describe them. These should also track to the Capability Statement. (If you use agency logos on your site, be sure you have permission. Many agencies frown on the use of their logos as they can be misconstrued as a recommendation of your company.)
• Contact - Provide easy ways for users to contact you. If you don’t have a straightforward way for buyers to contact you, you risk losing their trust. The more ways you enable a user to contact you, the better. I strongly recommend physical address, phone number and an email address for a real person; don’t use a nebulous address like “info@yourcompany.com”.

Conclusion

      Having a good, easy to navigate website with the information the buyer is searching for will go a long way towards increasing your credibility. Take the time to do it right and it will pay dividends down the road.

Walt Wise is a Federal Business Development Specialist at the BPI Strategy Group and helps small businesses build a robust Federal Business Development system. He can be reached at wpwise@bpistrategy.com.

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Column: Make Your Website Government Friendly

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