5 Steps to a Federal Digital Transformation

Navigating a government website often feels like trying to solve a puzzle with missing pieces. Essential information is buried under jargon. Menus confuse. Redirects multiply. Pages sprawl across dozens of domains, organized by agency silos instead of what real people actually need. A simple search turns into a frustrating digital expedition.

The cost? Trust. Constituents lose faith in digital services when they hit barrier after barrier just to complete a basic task. Now picture this through the eyes of an aging veteran or someone without daily internet access. The frustration compounds. The message is clear: “We don’t see you. We don’t support you.”

On the inside, government digital service teams feel the same pain. They’re trapped by legacy systems that require engineers to publish content. That means higher costs, slower turnaround, and constant scrutiny over budgets. Leaders demand a lower total cost of ownership (TCO), but the teams aren’t given the modern CMS tools that would actually help them deliver it.

It’s time for a change. Let’s walk through five pillars for reimagining a federal digital transformation.

1. Put the digital experience first

If trust is the goal, accessibility is the foundation. The U.S. Web Design System (USWDS) offers a starting point, but right now it’s too complex and not low-code enough for most teams. That’s where WordPress VIP steps in — by embedding USWDS components directly into WordPress as Gutenberg blocks. Out of the box, you get a compliant, accessible site that’s designed to earn trust from day one.

From here, think about two core use cases: transactional and informational.

Transactional: Agencies like Social Security, IRS, and Veterans Affairs together serve more than 100 million monthly visits — many from older Americans. Asking them to navigate five login screens or hunt for a tiny text link is unreasonable. Instead, deliver streamlined, secure login flows. And for those without devices at home? Explore kiosks in libraries, transit hubs, or local offices to bring access closer.

Informational: These same sites host thousands of content-heavy pages, often without a taxonomy strategy. Without one, search is broken. A smart taxonomy combined layered with an AI agent can help surface answers faster and build human-centered results.

Which brings us to two often-overlooked groups:

• Builders (the teams delivering the experience): When tech requires heavy coding, communications teams get locked out. Engineers burn time maintaining instead of innovating.
• Content creators (the communications and marketing teams writing and publishing information): They need simple workflows that let them update, approve, and publish fast — especially in emergencies like natural disasters, when every minute counts.

Working backwards from the user experience is how you reduce TCO. Put people first, and the right solutions follow.

2. Modernize your team

Technology alone won’t save you. You have to modernize your people and processes too. Start with your team’s KSAs (knowledge, skills, abilities). Where are the gaps? Where could low-cost training unlock new capacity?

Open source is your ally. WordPress powers 43% of the web and comes with a global community of problem solvers (i.e. developers) and free training resources. Government often overlooks this in favor of expensive, closed systems from legacy brands. But open source plus enterprise-grade hosting and smart security layers equals flexibility, savings, and freedom from vendor lock-in. Modernization is often seen as a nice-to-have, even though it may have the most direct impact on reducing your TCO. 

The payoff:

• Non-technical staff become confident superusers.
• Engineers focus on higher-value work.
• Agencies evolve instead of downsizing.

Everyone wins.

3. Choose an enterprise-grade, managed solution

You’ve mapped your problems and trained your people. Now it’s time to find the right partner. Government already knows partnerships accelerate results — when chosen wisely. The key: a partner who can deliver reliable infrastructure at scale, with predictable costs.

Look for cost savings in these areas:

• Business flexibility: Software licensing, integrations, AI readiness, and analytics.
• Continuity and deployment: Hosting (load balancing, CDNs, DDoS), backups, version control, and tiered environments.
• Performance and operations: computing, databases, caching, and monitoring.
• Security and compliance: from security for networks to hosts and applications; encryption to single sign-on, MFA, and third-party audits.

Don’t accept a black box. If a partner can’t explain it simply, keep asking until you see transparency.

4. Demand availability, performance, security, and scalability

This is where art meets science. Ask partners:

• How do they scale traffic spikes?
• What’s their auto-scaling threshold?
• How do they scale down after traffic spikes?
• How do they handle vulnerability scans?
• How are APIs secured?
• What do their support SLAs look like, and how are they enforced?
• What is their incident response protocol and communication plan?

A good partner doesn’t just meet today’s requirements — they show you a five-year roadmap, with clear cost transparency. Sustainable TCO means you can budget confidently year over year.

5. Inform and guide your public

We end where we started: with people. All the tech, training, and partnerships should funnel into one goal — making it easy for citizens to find and use what they need.

That means building a strong taxonomy, enabling enterprise search, and layering in smart, secure AI to personalize results. It also means borrowing private-sector marketing strategies:

• Meet people where they are (awareness, consideration, action)
• Deliver the right message at the right stage
• Guide them to clear calls to action.

The best partners don’t just sell you features. They bring strategy, education, and a relationship that helps you evolve as constituent needs change.

Conclusion

Transforming the federal digital experience takes empathy, planning, and the right allies. By focusing on user experience, modernizing your teams, choosing the right enterprise solutions, and demanding availability, performance, and security, agencies can earn trust while lowering TCO.

It’s not just about cutting costs. It’s about building sustainable systems that serve people better — and restoring trust in the process. We built a total cost of ownership tool you can use to evaluate vendors and anticipate all costs. Follow the link to make a copy of the worksheet to compare costs.