Category: Websites

How AI can help you stop wasting everyone’s time

Most people learn about your government services and programs online. They don’t typically start on your homepage – they start with a Google search. This now means, they start with Gemini. AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity are answering questions about your services. Are they getting them right? This depends on how good your … Continued

Small cities deserve great websites too

You don’t need a big budget or a lot of staff to make a great website. When I started Department of Civic Things, I knew I wanted to work with small cities. About 85% of towns in America have fewer than 25,000 residents, and 76% have fewer than 5,000. With tiny budgets and few staff, … Continued

Content design puts residents first: Somerville’s new website makes information accessible and actionable

Challenged with a disorganized, outdated website, the borough of Somerville, NJ sought a solution. With expert guidance from ProudCity and Department of Civic Things, Somerville used a service-minded content design approach to transform their website. Somerville is a vibrant town buzzing with families and young professionals, but their website made it difficult for the local … Continued

A beginner’s guide to managing a government website project

Your website is the foundation of your digital government services and customer service. A helpful website that works well will increase public confidence and trust in government. In this guide, we’ll help you make the best local government website. We’ll provide a comprehensive rundown of a City website project, including: Why it’s important How to … Continued

6 tips to make your government website project a success

Your website is the foundation of your government’s services and customer service. A good website makes it easy for people to get things done and this increases public trust in your organization. In this post, we’ll provide 6 tips for government website projects and why they are critical for your project’s success. 1. Help people … Continued

How to write business license renewal website content

It’s that time of year again – business license renewals. If your renewal cycle is based on the calendar year, you are probably sending out reminders to hundreds or thousands of business owners right now. There’s usually quite a bit of customer service involved in this program. Business owners often: Get confused about what they … Continued

Try our custom ChatGPT to write government services content

We created a custom ChatGPT called Service Thing. It helps you write government services content that focuses on tasks and is easy to understand. Custom GPTs are currently only available to ChatGPT Plus subscribers. This will hopefully change in early 2024 and be open to everyone for free. Service Thing If you don’t have a … Continued

How to use AI to write content for a government service

Generative AI can create content based on patterns it has learned from existing data. A prompt for generative AI is a set of instructions that tells it what kind of content to create. This post explains the steps for preparing a generative AI prompt you can use to create draft government service content. An action … Continued

What is structured content (and why it’s important)

A government website often feels like a firehose of information. It’s overwhelming to read long paragraphs of text, especially on your phone. Content editors struggle to keep things up to date, especially when the same information appears on multiple pages. Structured content is a way to organize and present information in a way that makes … Continued

How to use generative AI to write government website content

Generative AI (gen AI) is a useful tool that can help you write draft content for your government website. At this point in time, you can’t completely trust it to write perfect and accurate content. But using it can save you time. There are several free gen AI tools available. The most common ones are … Continued

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