Economic Development Data Analysis and Assessment

Analytical Review
RIEDC sees most of its traffic being generated
from within the state. This supports the state’s
need to focus internally on growing and cultivating
businesses, rather than attracting businesses to
relocate to Rhode Island. The average visitor remains
on the site for 2:11 minutes, which is rather low.
Additionally, the bounce rate (the rate at which
someone leaves directly from the page from which
they enter), is high at 63.68%. By increasing relevant
content that supports internal business growth,
these statistics can be positively influenced. The site
should be a resource for businesses, rather than a
news portal. Content should encourage users to dig
deeper for information within the site. Most keywords
that visitors use to navigate to the site are generic:
“RIEDC,” “Rhode Island Economic Development,”
“RIEDC.com.” The most content-specific keyword
used to navigate to the site is “America’s Cup 2012.”
While this helps speak to the state’s sense of place,
Rhode Island should focus on greater economic
development keywords as targets for site traffic, such
as: “building a business in Rhode Island,” “Rhode
Island business support,” and “Starting a company
in Rhode Island.” These keyword targets speak
to the target audiences and provide direct access
to state-supported programs designed to impact
these audiences. The largest spikes in traffic over
the analyzed period were around the 38 Studios
situation. The top landing pages for users entering
the site, beyond the homepage, include (in order of
traffic): Municipal Tax Rates, America’s Cup, and
Business Services-Renewable Energy. Much of the
content on these pages seems to be outdated, which
is troublesome since these are the top pages to
which users are attracted. The Municipal Tax Rates
page appears to have content from 2008-2009.
Attention should be paid to how individuals are
entering the site and ensuring that relevant content
is located on those pages.
The Visit Rhode Island site has most of its traffic
coming from out of state. Only 26.1% of traffic was
from within Rhode Island during the period analyzed,
while 43.1% was from regional states, including
Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York. This
speaks to the need to develop regional strategies with
these states. On average, 3.77 pages were visited,
demonstrating that the site’s content keeps the users
engaged. 84.53% of the traffic is search-based,
representing quality, targeted keywords on pages
of relevant content. Keywords such as “things to
do in Rhode Island,” “Rhode Island beaches,” and
“Rhode Island tourism” are among the top keywords
used to generate traffic. These are a good cross
section and balance of content on the site versus
content the user expects to see. As anticipated, there
are significant traffic spikes over the late spring to
early fall months, mirroring Rhode Island’s tourism
season.
Technical Review
From a technical perspective, one of the main drivers
of traffic to a site is a blog with an appropriate feed.
While RIEDC has a news blog, there are certain
items not included as part of this. To optimize this
content, there should be greater blogging frequency
that includes more content. Blog items should be
shared socially by the RIEDC. The blog posts do
not have social sharing buttons included in their
structure, reducing the opportunity for users to share
this content. Many of the internal site pages are
missing unique page descriptions, thus reducing
their ability to be properly indexed and found
through search engines. Images throughout the site
should use appropriate, keyword-based alt tags to
increase search engine optimization (SEO). While
the site appears to display correctly in a mobile
environment, there is not a version that is optimized
for mobile use. As mobile technology use increases,
the need for a dedicated mobile site also increases.
From a social perspective, items are shared on
average every two days. This should increase to
generate interest and site traffic. RIEDC should
share landing pages and content relevant to the core
audiences to increase the sites effectiveness. Having
conversations with individuals in social communities
will also increase web traffic. There has been limited
activity of people talking about RIEDC on social
communities. Conversations will help generate an
interest and build audience affinity.
Visit Rhode Island has a blog, but there are
significant gaps (greater than four years) in posting
activity. Increasing frequency of posting to this tool
with relevant content will increase site traffic. It is not
easy to find the blog. By adding it to the homepage,
along with an appropriate RSS feed, it will help
users locate the site. It also would appear that this
content is not being shared socially. Increasing
the conversation online and directing users to
appropriate content will generate more relevant
traffic. The tool utilized in this analysis could not
detect unique page descriptions. Therefore, it can be
assumed that search engines will have similar issues
in detecting this information. Page descriptions
define the content on the page, specific to a targeted
set of keywords. Without these descriptions, content
cannot be indexed properly. One aspect of the site
that is very positive is its optimization for mobile use.
While the categories on the mobile site are many
and somewhat daunting, they still direct the user to
the content desired in an organized manner. The
Visit Rhode Island site has seen greater activity on
social media sites. However, 1 day and 5 hours
between posts on Twitter, on average, decreases the
effectiveness of this effort, i.e. more frequent posts
would increase search optimization. Also, adding
social sharing buttons on blog posts will increase
these conversations.
ECONOMY RI: Economic Development Data Analysis & Assessment | February 2013
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