The Town Web Blog

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March 27, 2024

Can Anyone Get a dot gov Domain and Email? – A Detailed Guide

Initially, it was a bit easier as the only requirement for registering such domains and emails was a government organization's letterhead. Federal processes on dot gov domain were updated in late 2023 and it has become tricky to register a dot gov domain or get an email.

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All Articles

How Does the Town Web Referral Program Work?

Town Web offers a referral program that means some very attractive incentives for those who refer their colleagues and neighboring Clerks to Town Web. Let's learn more about this program.

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Mastery for Clerks: Make Work a Breeze with These Links

Can't quite remember all the shortcuts and the links you use everyday? Town Web compiled this list that you can bookmark, print or stick on the wall - to help make "Clerk-work" easier!

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Websites: The Handover Process and What it Entails

Unpacking the steps taken when a municipal website is transferred from one supplier to the next; the steps it entails and how to go about securing a smooth process.

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Checklist: Five Items to Update on Your Municipal Website

This blog makes updating your municipal website easy! A checklist of five items you can run through, print out or stick on the wall to double check that the municipal website is in tip-top shape!

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Why Does Website Design Matter

A municipal website is no longer just a nice to have, it's vital for municipalities to claim a space digitally in which they showcase the community, resources and amenities that's available as well as share information with residents. But, should a municipal website be boring? We beg to differ!

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Choosing the Right Local Government Solutions

Many citizens use the local authority’s website as their first port of call when it comes to accessing services. This means that all local bodies must have an easy-to-use web offering if residents are going to make the most of their local service provision.

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Municipal Clerk Responsibilities, Job Description & Salary

At Town Web, we know a thing or two about running municipalities (with a municipal clerk playing a key role in this). After all, we offer a dedicated service for building user-friendly, accessible, and up-to-date municipal websites. Here, we will explain the common municipal clerk duties.

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Government Software Solutions

While making the transition from traditional to digital government solutions might seem daunting, technology can do wonders for improving the efficiency of your operations. Services like Town Web can help local governments create user-friendly websites for residents, streamlining administration.

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(2022) Local Government Technology Trends

Local governments need to make sure all of their operations run smoothly. That includes everything from public safety to financial management. To help make everything run smoothly, local governments are looking at ways to use technology to get the job done. Here, we will take a look at various technology solutions that local governments are using today.

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Actionable Municipal Marketing Strategies

As City of Miami Beach marketing manager Jenn Seoanes has said, “Municipal communications and marketing is critical to keeping the dialogue flowing between cities and their customers” (Smart Cities Dive, 2018).

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(2024) How To Attract Tourists To A Small Town

Attracting new tourists to your town really doesn’t need to break the bank. Identify exactly what makes your municipality attractive to others and focus on promoting the best features of your town with the resources you have available.

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(2022) Why is Records Management Important in Government?

Records management systems are crucial to ensuring an effective, agile local government in the digital age. This process of replacing physical records with electronic data is an important aspect of a local or national government’s digital transformation strategy.

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Small Town Branding: How To Make Your City More Attractive

Small towns across the country are working hard to brand themselves in order to make themselves more attractive places to visit, work, and live. 

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(2022) Website Governance Guide & Examples

A website governance structure or framework defines the rules and procedures that help guide the operation of a website. How is your website looking?

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Government Chatbots: How Automation Can Support Local Administrations and Help Alleviate Post-COVID Staffing Issues

As the dust settles from the pandemic, it seems likely that different types of chatbots will remain part of many municipalities’ digital infrastructure. Keep reading to learn more about chatbots, how they work, and how they can benefit your administration.

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Can Anyone Get a dot gov Domain and Email? – A Detailed Guide

Initially, it was a bit easier as the only requirement for registering such domains and emails was a government organization's letterhead. Federal processes on dot gov domain were updated in late 2023 and it has become tricky to register a dot gov domain or get an email.

Read More

5 Civic Engagement Examples to Help Reinvigorate Collaboration and Communication in Your Neighborhood

Communication is the key to a vibrant community. That principle governs how we build websites at Town Web – they are communication platforms. But the lines must be two-way. As public life returns to normal after two difficult years, it's time to reinvigorate the traditional relationship between communities and their local governments.

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Feature Rich and Easy on the Eyes: The 5 Best Government Websites in 2022

The best government websites are like the best governments; they serve the people, don't frustrate them, and reflect the identity of who they represent. The worst websites… you get the picture. Joking aside, government websites are slightly different from others. They are essential for specific reasons and have their own best practices. 

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What the best municipal websites are made of

Based on the many aspects of life that a local government website is a part of, a municipal website can no longer be seen as a nice-to-have, but rather a necessity.

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(2022) ADA Compliance Checklist for Local Government Websites

The current legal environment requires expert web design to maintain compliance. To protect your organization and residents from costly lawsuits and fines, enlist Town Web to build an ADA/508 compliant website.

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For Local Government, Cybersecurity is a Glaring Weakness - How to Protect your Municipality

There are over 90,000 small government entities in the U.S., and most of them have few cybersecurity measures in place. Thankfully Town Web has the tools to help your government safety online.

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Five reasons to join Town Web

At Town Web, we're well known for our trusted municipal website design, our use of best practices and insight into local government and what is needed, and our (famous) white-glove service.

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Simple solutions for municipal rentals

The HeyReserve platform is a simple solution for municipalities to manage their facilities. It puts the power in the hands of the people, who can reserve a facility themselves, pay the deposit online, and have all the check-in and out info.

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Why Design Matters to Governments

The debate around spending taxpayer money on branding is ongoing, but in a life where we all associate brands with trust, fun, and loyalty - would you want your level of local government to fall behind?

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Easy, simple boating permits for every municipality: introducing boat launch software.

HeyGov's Boat Launch Software is the solution municipalities have been waiting for. It's digital software that allows boaters to use their phone to register to use the boat launch and pay for it. It’s as easy as scanning a QR code!

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Town Web serving the public: the non-municipal customers of Town Web

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Get an official .gov domain and email address

Switching to a branded email address is something we can help you do! We offer enterprise or business-level email hosting services through Rackspace, so we can host and archive your government email for a reasonable monthly fee. Get in touch to secure a .gov email.

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Cybersecurity Preparation ahead of the 2020 General Election

The November general election is fast approaching, and the security of municipal websites is of growing concern. The team at Town Web received communication from the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) recently alerting our Wisconsin municipal clerks about potential cyberattacks. Town Web is taking this threat very seriously for our hundreds of municipal clients across the United States.

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Building new GovTech Software - We're launching the HeyGov App!

I’ve got some great news to share with all towns, village and cities. Our team is building a new GovTech software that will be interesting for you. It’s called HeyGov! This is a new project that complements your municipal website.

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Emergency Alerts

What happens when you have an emergency in your community? How do you reach out to your residents? How do you let them know what’s happening, what they should do or what you are doing? A Town Web municipal website is a great way to connect with your residents.

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Bowling Green Switches their Municipal Website from CivicPlus to Town Web

Town Web Design made it easy for the city of Bowling Green, Missouri, to switch from CivicPlus and launch a great looking website for a lower price.

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With Town Web, you can enjoy a no-cost municipal website redesign every three years!*

When you choose Town Web's SelectPlus plan to design, host and maintain your municipal website, you’ll get a no-cost website redesign every three years! What does that mean? Why is it important? Let us explain all the details!

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ADA 508 Compliance for Municipalities: Everything you ever wanted to know, but were afraid to ask

We need to make websites and their content and information be Accessible to everybody, no matter the nature of anybody’s ability or disability.

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For Your Municipal Government Website: A Walk Through TownWeb's All New Dashboard

Our all new dashboard is a major improvement over the original, and municipal web administrators in hundreds of municipalities across the country are enjoying how it has simplified the job of maintaining their municipal government websites.

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Costly Mistakes in RFP Creation Process and How To Do It Right + Municipal Website RFP Template

You are probably aware of the importance of having a website for your municipality. Sure, that is a great start. But it is only a start. There is a lot of work that goes into the RFP creation process and defining the focus can prove to be difficult.

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Benefits of Branded Email Addresses for Your Municipality

In representing your municipality online, every detail counts and each choice affects how people will perceive it. Having a branded email address is a choice that should go without saying if you want your organization to look professional.

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Why Your Municipal Website Should be Responsive?

When a visitor comes to your municipal website using a smartphone or tablet, how does it look? Is it easy to navigate and find essential information like meeting minutes and election forms? Unfortunately, some websites look good on a big PC screen but look like an incoherent jumble on small devices.

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The Best Ways Municipal Websites Can Improve - According to Municipal Clerks

TownWeb is always interested in learning how municipal websites can improve and become more valuable for residents. We like to know how municipal clerks feel about their websites; for example, do they find updating and managing the website easy?

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How to Pick a Good Web Design Company

If you’re in the market for a website, choosing a solid and reputable web design company is one of the most important steps that you can take towards ensuring that you end up with a high-quality website.

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Why TownWeb Manages Domain Names

At TownWeb, we buy and manage most of the domain names for our municipal customers.

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HOW TO: Add Events to the Calendar

In TownCMS v5, we have improved how the Calendar of Events works by adding new functionality. This “HOW TO” was put together to help current municipal customers of ours see how it would work when upgrading to v5, and especially for any other town who is thinking of switching to Town Web Design.

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How to Setup and Manage Email for Your Town

When it comes to setting up emails for your municipality, it’s worth exploring the different available options.

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What is Responsive Web Design? Part 2

More and more companies are recognizing the importance of having a website that not only works on desktop computers, but one that loads properly on mobile devices as well. Eighty percent of internet users own a smartphone, and more than a billion people access the internet primarily from their mobile devices.

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What Is Responsive Web Design Part 1

Smartphones and tablets continue to “take over the world,” at least when it comes to browsing. While we’ve known for a while that it was just a matter of time until mobile devices would become the go-to method for accessing the internet, most of us were unaware at just how quickly that would happen.

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How to Use Google Analytics on Your Town Website

Google is an almost ubiquitous technological platform these days, with its virtual hand in everything from online searches to ad revenues to language translation. Google Analytics is one of the many Google-based applications that can be used by website owners and developers for free.

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How to Choose and Buy a Domain for your Town

You may find that when you begin your search for a town website domain, the one that makes the most sense has already been taken. In choosing a slightly different domain, some towns have opted to use complicated addresses in lieu of the ubiquitous “.com,” however these can be difficult for users to remember.

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5 Types of Content for Your Town Website

Creating a town website is an essential part of reaching out to the community. Your goal should be to create a one-stop directory of relevant local information so that citizens won’t need to call the office every time they have a basic question about local ordinances or garbage pickup.

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Everything You Need to Know About .Gov Domains

The .gov domain is a prestigious top-level domain restricted to government entities. It comes at a price, and that price is increased from $125/yr to $400/yr on January 1st, 2017.

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Maximize your Municipal Revenue with an Online Auction

Have you ever wondered what to do with all the surplus you accumulate in your municipality? How about that wood chipper you can’t seem to budge? There may be times when you glance in despair at that ancient printer in the corner of the office or the filing cabinet in storage that hasn’t been used since Jimmy Carter was President.

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Municipal Web Design - Best Practice

For municipals, having a well-designed and easy-to-use website is becoming increasingly important. Websites are one of the most important tools for citizens to get information about municipalities. In fact, some studies show that people are far more likely to go online for information about their hometowns, rather than calling a town official.

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How Town Web Design Thinks of New Features

At Town Web Design, our customers’ user experience is always at the forefront of everything we do. One of the ways that we ensure that our municipal customers receive the best service possible is through our commitment to the continued development of new features.

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How to Accept Payments on Your Municipal Website

Accepting payments online isn’t just for ecommerce sites; it’s a great feature for municipalities as well. Many municipalities are starting to accept online payments, making it easier for town residents to make payments, and reducing the work that’s required to process the payments.

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Mobile Responsive Design - What Has Changed Since Designs of Yesteryear

Responsive web design is quickly becoming today’s standard for web design –and rightfully so, this type of design simply makes sense. Where websites were once built to appear on standard desktop monitors, times have changes and web design standards have as well.

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Facebook Part 1: How to Create a Facebook Page for a Municipality

A Facebook page can be a great way for towns to share updates and news with the town’s residents. But how do you go about setting up a Facebook page? The good news is that setting up a Facebook page may be easier than you think. Here’s how you can get started.

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Beware Of Domain Name Scams

As with anything online, when it comes to registering a domain name, it’s important to remain diligent and aware of scams to protect yourself from falling victim to them. One such scam is known as the domain name scam.

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Online Forums: Are They Right for Town Websites?

Discussion boards, message boards, or forums –whatever you call them, they all have the same purpose: to provide a place for members to comment, and discuss various issues, interests, or concerns.

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Town Web Design Helps Kronenwetter Win Website Award

At Town Web Design, we strive to provide easy and intuitive solutions for municipalities.

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How Your Town or City Can Go Paperless

Making the switch from a traditional office to a paperless one is unquestionably a positive change. Unfortunately, it isn’t always an easy one!

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