I'm spending the day at Google's Local Government event in London listening to google talk about their products and services - I thought I'd share their top tips for good websites, since I know lots of councils struggle to get their sites right.  Originally written for ecommerce sites (Amazon etc) these tips need some adaptation for government, but not as much as you might think - after all, it's better to get people transacting online, reducing the costs of dealing with calls and paperwork that paying parking fines can generate.  So here are their top 10 tips:

1. bring me to the right page - link to the right page, ensure key messages are visible, mirror key points from ads in your landing page (getting this right gives a 20% reduction in the number of people who leave a site without performing any action)
2. make your homepage useful - reaffirm your brand and site purpose, test new features, inform users of these features, make it easy to navigate further
3. help me navigate - make service categories visible, highlight where to go next, use easy-to-understand terms
4. give me the right results when I search - check quality of results, allow users to sort results, make site earch visible, lay out search results clearly (gives a 20% reduction in the number of people who left without performing any action and a 7% increase in the number of people who bought something)
5. display services clearly - provide a clear layout and design, group services logically, enable cross-referencing (gives a 7% increase in the number of people who bought something)
6. give me the details I need - summarise key service details, make your call-to-action button visible, provide clear images (gives a 14% increase in the number of people who add a product to their basket)
7. make registration optional - allow conversion without registration, highlight the benefits of registering, make registration easy (23% of checkout abandonments occur due to required registration)
8. make it easy to enquire - don't ask for unnecessary details, expedite the process, show transparent steps, avoid distractions
9. reassure me - offer security, clarify what happens after payment, offer transparency(gives a 1.8% increase in the number of people who bought something)
10. Let users design your website - it's all about testing the site

I'll blog more about the whole day and my take on things in the next couple of days!