The Mexican Government can be evaluated by its highest digital property: the gob.mx site. This site is undoubtedly the best place to focus the important content of the country and the answers to the population. Normally it is not studied, much less in a six-year period in which most communication is done through press conferences or morning meetings. However, with a view to the last two years of government, it is worth pausing and reviewing what will be inherited by the next President. No matter who wins or which party they represent, a country’s website should have a long-term vision, at least 10 or 20 years.
President Enrique Peña Nieto is in many ways the first to promote the country’s digital presence in a coordinated manner. According to Merca2.0 figures obtained from SEO analysis tools in November 2018, in the last month of the Government, the country’s website added 97,738 words placed in search engines. Interestingly, 19,103 of those terms were placed on the first page of Google. That same month, the official website of the United States Government added 444,920 terms. In 2018, Mexico had .75 terms in search engines per thousand inhabitants, the US achieved 1.34 by the same number of Americans.
Four years later, the American Union achieved 998,331 terms posted, doubling the number of responses to the population. In contrast, Mexico reached the incredible figure of 1,905,420 terms. The comparison is frankly brutal, that is, 14 terms per thousand inhabitants. We must not forget that the Government of Mexico has not been distinguished by its digital work, moreover, it could be considered that the center of the communication strategy is La Mañanera. These data show that despite other issues, in the field of content positioning there was significant progress, above the US.
If you had to pay for that traffic at market prices with ads, the reach would be equivalent to 8 million dollars per month. the traffic of usa.gov It would cost 11 million. According to independent figures, the traffic of the North American site can be estimated at 7.3 million visits per month, that of Mexico at 54 million.
The secret of the Mexican Government’s strategy is the centralization of content. Topics such as CURP and obtaining it are an important part of the traffic. CURP alone represents 12 million visits per month and generates 4,600 keywords. The information on Scholarships and Financing almost 5 thousand terms to the official site. the url https://www.gob.mx/curp/ and https://www.gob.mx/becasbenitojuarez are a structural part of gob.mx traffic.
The concentration of government agencies is also an integral part of the strategy, INFONAVIT, SAT, IMPI or SEMARNAT —to name a few— help position the site. The structure (for example https://www.gob.mx/semarnat) it helps make the national site more relevant than most of the region. It also has an interesting effect on search engine position, 163 thousand words of the site gob.mx they were placed this month in the first three positions. I can’t imagine how many marketers would kill for that organic reach.
The strategy of centralizing dependencies under a single domain has had positive effects for the maximum digital property in the country. It is a reflection of the concentration of power in the hands of the presidency and demonstrates the intention to control all aspects of communication. It is also an interesting exercise in being the only source of answers from the population. It does not seem like a minor issue to me, it is not the secretariats that answer, for example, the school calendar is consulted in (https://www.gob.mx/sep/articulos/consulta-el-calendario-escuela-para-el-ciclo-escuela-2018-2019) In all fairness, the centralization strategy began in 2016, as can be seen on the public site The Waybackmachine.
The centralization of content in a single site leaves important lessons for those of us who work in marketing and reinforces the idea that vertical integration will be maximum in the coming years. It will be years of efficiency It is correct to assume that the metric to determine the level of success will be the number of terms placed in Google, searches or advertising savings. At the other extreme is the dilution of government institutions, it would be necessary to define how important it is for the SEP to have brand recall or for SEMARNAT to have its own domain, but that is another matter.