2014 Q2 Police web benchmark: Merseyside Police still on top, with Avon and Somerset most improved

LONDON - May 14, 2014 - PRLog -- A handful of years ago the Merseyside Police site was hovering near to the bottom of the Sitemorse Police Force Index rankings, with a very poor score. Things could not be more different now, with the force website topping our ranking for the second quarter running.

A successful police site needs to be fully functional, with nothing broken or missing on the page, meet legal requirements such as accessibility, perform well and – if the force really wants to engage the public who live and work in its area -, the site needs to ensure users have a positive experience to encourage them to return.

That’s why the Sitemorse Q1 2014 Index ranking just under 50 UK police force websites is an important benchmark, spotlighting the forces that are currently leading the field with the best-working websites in the sector.

North Wales Police move up to second place in the Index, with City of London Police now in third place, having moved seven places up since our last review in the first quarter of 2014.

Police Scotland and the high-rising Avon and Somerset force site (@ASPolice) up 34 places since Q1 - make up the rest of the top five in our Index, while big improvements were recorded for the Durham, Warwickshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire forces.

Fastest-responding pages were recorded on the Cleveland, Essex and Gloucestershire force sites.

About the Index

The scores for the UK Police Forces Index table are created by Sitemorse (www.sitemorse.com) using its automated software that reads and reviews the first 125 pages of each site and places them in a ranked table based on User Experience (UX), Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) and Search Capability (SEO).

The quarterly Index Website Review, powered by the Sitemorse software platform, is an important independent benchmark that clearly shows how websites are performing, meeting compliance levels and satisfying their users. It’s also a key indicator for website managers who, while always wanting to be at the top of their game, could be hampered by poor-performing suppliers, non-compliant legacy content or content management systems that often fail to spot errors affecting user experience.

Sitemorse services such as Governisation and the Web Management Toolkit immediately find the issues that affect web users the most on any website, help demonstrate real improvement and ensure you have control and confidence in your web presence.

They will help you minimise unnecessary risk, issues covering everything from compliance with web standards to helping you deal with malware, protect your brand across even a large web presence, and enhance search engine optimisation to help more potential customers find you. They can help spotlight content that may need updating, issues with staff training and support, and focus supplier management. We offer a confidential internal 'company wide' website testing and benchmarking service - allowing you to review the position of all the sites in your organisation. Contact us to request further details and / or an example.

More information

More information about our surveys and what they test can be found on our website http://www.sitemorse.com/survey/