nsw.gov.au content is optimised for search engines
Search engines are the most common method of entry into nsw.gov.au, with over 1.5 million users per month clicking through via a search result.
As well as ensuring the website is optimised for technical SEO, we constantly monitor and optimise content to ensure that the information we provide serves what customers are looking for. Currently, 22 per cent of the 3272 pages on nsw.gov.au feature in the Top 3 search result of Google searches.
Our top 10 search terms from Google reflect the breadth of the community we serve.
People see nsw.gov.au as a key source of information about life in NSW, including public holidays and school holidays. Life stages, such as having a baby and getting a birth certificate and steps to getting a driver licence (the hazard perception test and driving test) were also frequently searched. This year’s OneCX migration of content from NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) saw a burst of searches for the HSC timetable by the Year 12 cohort. Returning waves of COVID-19 circulating in the community have citizens continuing to search for COVID symptoms. Although topic-based searches significantly outnumber searches for agency names, nsw.gov.au has strong search rankings for Births, Deaths and Marriages and Revenue NSW.
Top 10 Google search terms*
- NSW school holidays 2023
- NSW BDM
- Public holidays 2023
- NSW
- Hazard perception test
- HSC timetable 2023
- Driving test
- Revenue NSW
- Birth certificate NSW
- COVID symptoms
*variations of the same search term have been grouped in this list
We’ve had over 620,000 searches on nsw.gov.au
Our site search engine has been used almost 627,000 times this year, with a clickthrough rate of over 60 per cent. By showing search results from both nsw.gov.au and the Service NSW website, we support customers to find both information and transactions.
This year we improved our site search by enabling features such as AI-powered NeuralSearch, which understands a user’s search intent and optimises search results without any manual intervention of adding synonyms and search rules.
The top site searches on the site reflect the customer archetypes we serve.
- Citizens came to the website to find information on vehicle registration, driver licences, the driving test, fines and demerit points. Following the OneCX migration of the Seniors Card website into nsw.gov.au, free online games and activities regularly topped our top search terms.
- Businesses supporting strata schemes searched strata annual reporting, while workers in NSW came looking for new jobs.
- Public servants, or employees of the various local health districts that have migrated into nsw.gov.au, have also regularly searched nsw.gov.au for staff access to quick links.
Top 10 site search terms
- fines
- strata annual reporting
- registration
- games and activities
- staff access
- contact us
- demerit points
- driving test
- jobs
- drivers licence
Did you know?
After the end of the HSC exams, we noticed that ‘HSC timetable” searches quickly receded from our top site search lists, while driver licence-related searches increased. By publishing seemingly unrelated data from different government agencies (NESA and Transport for NSW), analytics data stitches together the life journey of high school graduates and confirms anecdotal reports that many of them celebrate the end of their exams by getting their L’s and P’s!
The nsw.gov.au searches in 2023 reflect the community’s needs and the progress of the OneCX migration. Customers have searched for information and services to help them organise their lives - from practical queries about school holidays and exam timetables to meeting requirements for driving and businesses. We look forward to learning more about our community as more content is brought onto nsw.gov.au as a single source of government information in 2024.
Source: Google Analytics 360, Google Search Console and SEMrush
