Does Your Municipal Website Actually Work?
It may look fine. The real question is whether it helps residents complete tasks, supports staff, and delivers services without friction.
Most municipal websites look fine. They have clean layouts. Approved branding. Photos everyone recognizes. Maybe even a search bar that residents click before calling anyway.
But looking fine is not the same as working. The real test is simple and uncomfortable.
Can residents complete the task they came for without calling, emailing, or giving up?
Can staff update content without worrying they might break something elsewhere on the site?
Can leadership see whether the website is supporting service delivery, or quietly creating friction?
For many municipalities, the honest answer is unclear. Or worse, it is clear, but nobody has had the space to stop and unpack why.
When websites stop functioning as service tools
Municipal websites rarely fail all at once. They erode slowly.
Content grows without a plan. Ownership becomes fuzzy. Workarounds pile up. Pages stay live long after services change. Reporting focuses on page views instead of whether anyone actually completed what they came to do.
None of this happens because teams are careless. It happens because websites are treated as publishing tools instead of public service infrastructure.
Your website is your most used service channel. It is a 24 hour front counter. It is often the first place residents decide whether interacting with their municipality will be easy or exhausting.
And yet many organizations still treat it like a side project.
Why surface fixes rarely last
When websites struggle, the instinct is to fix what is visible. A new design. A new platform. A refreshed navigation. Another content cleanup. Sometimes those changes help. Often they do not hold.
That is because content, service delivery, and governance are tightly connected. You can improve language without fixing ownership. You can redesign pages without addressing how services actually work. You can train staff without changing decision structures.
The result is predictable. The site looks better for a while, then quietly slips back into the same patterns.
The questions municipalities keep asking
Across municipalities of every size, the same questions come up.
Why do residents still call after visiting the website?
Why is it so hard to keep content accurate and current?
Why does no one have a clear picture of what is working and what is not?
Why does every fix feel temporary?
These are not technical problems. They are structural ones. And they deserve a more honest conversation than another CMS discussion.
A conversation that goes deeper than design
That is why Perry Group is hosting a webinar that steps back from tools and trends and looks at municipal websites as service delivery systems.
On February 10 at 3:00 p.m., we are hosting a live session focused on how municipal websites actually function in practice.
In this session, we will explore:
What residents try to do on municipal websites, and where they get stuck
Why content, service delivery, and governance fail together, not separately
The quiet patterns that slowly break websites, even when teams are doing their best
What has worked across small, mid size, and large municipalities, based on real projects and outcomes
If you are tired of treating your website as something that only needs to look good enough, this conversation will be worth your time.
If you want a clearer understanding of what is getting in the way, and what to address first, we hope you will join us.
Webinar: Does Your Municipal Website Get Sh*t Done?
Date: February 10 @ 3:00 p.m. EST
Register here