Economic Development Website Development, Best Practices and GIS

Dynamic Web Pages

Internet GIS Site Selection

Business Directories

Online Business Licensing

Employment Listings

Online Permitting

Video, Streaming Video, and Interactive Pictures

Web Page Essentials and Basics predominantly include static information. Even though you can update the information, it is basically like putting the text you would include in a brochure on the World Wide Web. Even back on June 26, 200, Amara Agelica, Webmaster of Tech Week magazine commented, "If you're a beginning Web site developer you're probably creating static Web Pages - and they're probably out of date."

The power of the Internet allows you to do much more than was ever before possible. New Web technology allows information to be updated in real time and lets site visitors interact with data. To this end, Web Pages can be interactive tools for improved economic development. Advanced Web Page Technology covers the breakthroughs that are helping economic development professionals leverage the power of the Internet to provide enhanced business attraction services and greatly expand the marketing of a community. Keep in mind that what is "advanced" is quickly becoming "basic."

The International Economic Development Council (IEDC) Awards recognize the best websites in the industry at the IEDC Annual Conference. These are the 2007 award winners:

Top Special Purpose Website:

Population 200,000 or more: Silicon Valley EDA
Population 200,000 or more: Greater Waco Chamber
Population 50,000 to 200,000: The Port of Shreveport-Bossier
Population 50,000 or less: City of Englewood

Top General Purpose Website:

Population 200,000 or more: Milwaukee 7
Population 200,000 or more: Tucson Reg. Econ. Opportunities
Population 50,000 to 200,000: Bismarck-Mandan Devel. Assoc.
Population 50,000 or less: City of Blue Ash

Honorable Mention Special Purpose Website:

Population 50,000 to 200,000: City of Sugar Land
Population 50,000 or less: City of Cedar Park

Honorable Mention General Purpose Website:

Population 200,000 or more: North Alabama IDA
Population 50,000 to 200,000: Clermont County
Population 50,000 to 200,000: Pearland EDC
Population 50,000 or less: CED of Midlothian

These are the 2006 award winners:

Top Special Purpose Website:

Population 200,000 or more (tie): Tennessee Valley Authority
Population 200,000 or more (tie): Pacific Northwest Nat'l Lab
Population 50,000 to 200,000: Lafayette - West Lafayette
Population 50,000 or less: The City of Georgetown, Texas

Top General Purpose Website:

Population 200,000 or more: Tennessee Valley Authority
Population 200,000 or more: Virginia's Gateway Region
Population 50,000 to 200,000: Bowling Green Area
Population 50,000 or less: Edwardsville & Glen Carbon

These are the 2005 award winners:

Top Special Purpose Website:

Population 200,000 or more (tie): Greater Oklahoma City
Population 200,000 or more (tie): City of Chicago
Population 50,000 to 200,000: Kennewick, Washington
Population 50,000 or less: Mansfield EDC

Top General Purpose Website:

Population 200,000 or more: Washington State
Population 50,000 to 200,000: Tinley Park, Illinois
Population 50,000 or less: Copperas Cove EDC

Internet GIS Site Selection

The major Internet technology breakthrough for economic development is the use of geographic information systems (GIS) for site-selection and market analysis. Internet GIS provides the fundamental information businesses want when first considering a commercial location:

1. Is space available? (Vacant building or developable land)
2. Can I succeed there? (Demographic Analysis)
3. Is this a location that will result in competition or synergy? (Business analysis)
4. What are the geographic advantages to locating in this area? (Interactive mapping)

Internet GIS answers these and other questions, in minutes. By using an Internet GIS application a user can interactively search for available property and produce user-defined demographic reports and business analysis. These types of reports answer questions like: "What types of potential employees live in the area? What is the retail spending power of this trade area?" and "What businesses are nearby? Will they compete with me or help my business?" This greatly speeds up and simplifies the site-selection process and improves the marketing of your commercial building and land opportunities.

To see the use of Internet GIS in action, visit the following web sites:

States:

Counties & Regions:

Cities:

A searchable building and sites database is neither the same nor as useful as a web-based GIS program. Searchable databases do not leverage the true power of the Internet for economic development because they don't answer the important issues and questions related to site selection such as site-specific demographic and workforce analysis or the issue of business competition and synergy.

The necessity of using web-based GIS continues to grow. The company that invented the concept of integrating GIS with the Internet for site selection analysis is GIS Planning Inc. Its strategies have become the industry standard for online site selection analysis with projects implemented across the United States and Canada.

According to Craig Richard, Vice President of Economic Development for the Arlington Chamber of Commerce, "Putting buildings and sites on an economic development website is no longer enough. Every location in the nation has property to promote, but expanding and relocating businesses do not move somewhere just because there is available property. They locate in places where there are unique opportunities and advantages. Arlington iSites (a web-based GIS program) takes business attraction to the next level by providing online GIS site-selection analysis tools to promote Arlington."

"Take all of your marketing budget you are wasting on CD Roms, videos, printed materials, and other things and put them into your website and GIS. If you haven't figured out how to get the information on your CD Rom onto your website, site selectors don't want to work with you...Your value to the site selector is in the sophistication of your GIS information which is local and they can't get anywhere else." - Jon Roberts, Managing Director, TIP Strategies Inc. August 18, 2005; Saratoga Springs, NY.

Business Directories

Economic development is not just about bringing in new businesses. It is also the process of promoting the existing businesses in your area. If someone is trying to find a dentist or restaurant in your community you can help them find what they are looking for. Searchable business listings are another example of letting the web visitor interact with your data.

The user can search for a business by name or by category. Web users can also search for businesses geographically if the application uses Internet GIS. If you are looking for a dry cleaner, you probably want one that is close to your home. With a business directory powered by Internet GIS you can specify a search for a dry cleaner that is 1.5 miles from your home.

Below are examples:

Online Business Licensing

Why should businesses have to take the time getting to city hall and wait in line for a business license when this administrative task can be completed over the Internet? Online business licenses are another way to make doing business in your community easier.

Some cities have the application available for download (often as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file) and others have the ability to complete the whole transaction online.

To see the use of Online business licenses in action, visit the following web sites:

City of Fairfax
State of Alaska

City of Beaverton

City of Pleasanton (PDF)
City of Citrus Heights (PDF)
Provo City (Update existing business license)
City of South San Francisco (PDF)
State of Florida
City of Seattle
City of Atlanta
City of Santa Monica (unsecure sites like this should be avoided)

Employment Listings

If you have an agency that provides employment listings it is a good idea to make this information available to job seekers. If the agency has this information in a database format but not on the web, you may want to encourage them to take the next step to the Internet. If they are already posting job listings on the Web you can simply provide a link to their site.

Here are some examples of economic development organizations that are implementing this tool:

Online Permitting

Although permitting is not directly economic development, speeding up the process of doing business is. Online permitting allows a business to process online permit applications, electronic permit fee payment, and online inspection scheduling. Your Planning Department would likely manage this process.

From the examples below you will see that cities are at different levels of interactive online permitting. Some have HTML or PDF web page forms that can be printed while others made the upgrade to place the entire transaction process online.

To see the use of Online permitting in action, visit the following web sites:

Video, Streaming Video, and Interactive Pictures

New visualization technology for the Web is allowing organizations to market their community and available commercial sites using video, streaming video and interactive images. Video (such as .mov and .mpg) or streaming video (such as RealPlayer and Windows Media) allow you to show your community to an Internet user through the Web. One of the drawbacks to this is that these often require a plugin, which the person must download before the video can be viewed. For the casual Internet user this may be more work that they can handle.

One of the exciting new visualization tools that allows the user to interactively view a location has been developed by IPIX. The image, which requires no plugin, allows the viewer to interactively look in 360 degrees by 360 degrees.

To view examples visit the following web sites:

Lake County (IPIX)
City of Plano (RealVideo)
City of Tucson (QuickTime)
City of Vallejo (IPIX)
City of San Mateo (IPIX)