Website Evolving Into Town Resident Service Desk

The official Parsippany-Troy Hills website is fast becoming a reliable conduit for getting information and services from the township to the residents.

That's according to Michael Melham of AlphaDog Solutions, who serves as webmaster for the more than $22,000-per-year municipal web portal. Melham gave Town Council members a peek into the site's 2011 performance at its Tuesday night meeting at .

In operation since April 1, the website earned 173,930 site visits by Dec. 29, just under nine months later, Melham reported. Those visits represented 97,681 unique visitors who looked at a total of 392,223 pages over the nine-month period. 

"What's interesting is that we got the most traffic—traffic spikes—during crisis situations," Melham said. "When we saw the statistics for Oct. 29, we saw a traffic spike and thought it was about . But then we remembered that that was the weekend of the . The same was true during the ."

In keeping with Internet trends, Melham said that the site is really two websites in one: Alongside the main site seen on typical desktop or laptop computers is a mobile version accessible for smartphones and handheld devices. The mobile town site was very useful to residents who lost power during Irene or the October snowstorm, he said.

"Usually, mobile use is about 2 percent of total traffic," Melham said. "On Oct. 29, mobile visits rose to 7.63 percent."

Statistics show that most citizens use the site to get information in times of need or to get in contact with someone in local government, he added.

The site offers a staff directory and departmental pages to make reaching a township worker simple. There is information on many services including recycling tips and the . The site also features an online Mayor's Action Center to give residents a direct line to problem solving. And citizens even can pay their township utility bills and property tax bills online.

, based in Belleville, has a year-long agreement with the town through 2012, approved last month by the council, to maintain the website. According to Business Administrator Jasmine Lim, AlphaDog  will receive $1,890 per month for his services, which amounts to $22,680 for the year. The .

AlphaDog began working with Parsippany nine months ago. There was controversy last March over the council's choice of the company when Mayor James Barberio admitted that . At the time, the mayor explained that given the fact that AlphaDog specializes in creating municipal websites, he did not see a need to shop around.