Website modernization in local government rarely fails because of ambition. It fails because the scope is undefined, the cost is unclear and the project competes with paving, public safety and payroll. Redesign the website is a hard request to fund. Remediate accessibility on 40 templates, convert the top 25 forms and add structured data for core services is a scope a council can evaluate.
The checklist below turns government website modernization into discrete, assessable items. Work through it with your web staff or vendor, mark each item pass, partial or fail, and you will end with a prioritized roadmap rather than a vague aspiration.
1. Accessibility
- WCAG 2.1 AA conformance targeted and documented, with a current audit on file
- Keyboard navigation works sitewide with a visible focus indicator
- Color contrast passes on text, buttons and form fields
- All form fields have programmatic labels and clear error messaging
- Logical heading structure on every template
- Meaningful alt text on informative images
- Captions on video, including meeting recordings
- PDFs tagged and readable, or replaced with HTML pages
- Third-party embeds (payments, permitting, agendas, maps) tested separately
- Published accessibility statement with a named contact and feedback channel
2. Content and service delivery
- Top 20 resident tasks identified from analytics, site search and call data
- Each task reachable within two clicks of the homepage
- One dedicated page per service, using a consistent template
- Plain-language page titles matching the words residents use
- Fees, deadlines, required documents and processing times stated explicitly
- Visible last-reviewed date on every service page
- Named content owner for each department section
- High-demand forms submittable online end to end, with confirmation numbers
- Duplicate and orphan pages from prior redesigns retired
3. Search visibility
- Unique, descriptive title tags and meta descriptions on key pages
- Clean, readable URL structure reflecting site hierarchy
- Current XML sitemap submitted to search consoles
- robots.txt reviewed and blocking nothing important
- Canonical tags correct; staging environments not indexed
- Internal links use descriptive anchor text
- Service pages linked from their department pages
These items make up the core of a practical government website SEO checklist and require no additional budget beyond staff time.
4. Performance
- Core Web Vitals measured on mobile with a throttled connection
- Images compressed and served in modern formats
- Caching and a CDN in place
- Third-party scripts inventoried and reduced
- Homepage sliders and heavy widgets evaluated against their actual usage
5. Security and continuity
- HTTPS sitewide with automated certificate renewal
- CMS, plugins and themes patched on a documented schedule
- Multi-factor authentication enforced on all administrative accounts
- User accounts reviewed; former staff and former vendors removed
- Least-privilege roles assigned to content editors
- Offsite backups with a restore that has actually been tested
- Documented incident response and after-hours contacts
- Domain registrar and hosting credentials held by the agency, not a vendor
6. Analytics and measurement
- Analytics installed once, correctly, with a stated privacy and retention posture
- Goals configured for form submissions, payments and key downloads
- Internal site search reporting enabled and reviewed monthly
- Broken link monitoring in place
- Quarterly review with department content owners
7. Structured data
- GovernmentOrganization markup sitewide with a stable identifier
- GovernmentService markup on core service pages
- Place, address and hours markup for public facilities
- Event markup for council and commission meetings
- FAQ markup where genuine Q&A content exists
- Markup validated; no conflicting output from multiple plugins
8. AI readiness
- Top resident questions each answered in the first paragraph of a dedicated page
- Critical information published as HTML, not PDF-only
- Consistent naming for departments, services and locations across the site
- Meeting and event information published as structured pages, not folders of files
- Common questions periodically tested in AI assistants and compared to published facts
- Curated llms.txt considered once the fundamentals are complete
Turning the checklist into a plan
Score each section, then sequence by resident impact. Security exposures and inaccurate public information come first. Template-level accessibility fixes come next, because they propagate across thousands of pages. Then rewrite the top service pages, then performance, then structured data and government AI readiness items.
Assign owners and dates, identify what internal staff can handle versus what needs a vendor, and publish the roadmap so councils and residents can see progress. Re-run the full checklist annually and a lighter accessibility and accuracy review each quarter.
Effective local government digital strategy is rarely one dramatic relaunch. It is a documented list, worked steadily, that keeps a public website accurate, accessible and secure between redesigns.
Who should run the review
This checklist does not require a consultant to begin. A communications lead, an IT staff member and one department content owner can complete most of it in a few working sessions using free browser tools and your existing analytics. Bring in outside help for the items that genuinely need specialist skill — manual accessibility testing with assistive technology, security hardening, performance engineering and structured data implementation. Documenting the findings internally first also makes any vendor engagement cheaper and more focused, because you are buying remediation rather than paying someone to discover what is wrong.
