(Frankfort, KY) – The Kentucky Office of the Secretary of State’s website recently received international recognition as one of the outstanding government websites in the world from the Web Marketing Association. The site, www.sos.ky.gov, went through a redevelopment and redesign this past spring and has received numerous accolades and positive feedback since its launch. The competition had a record 2,100 entries from 33 countries.
“We are delighted that the Web Marketing Association has recognized our website with this prestigious award,” stated Secretary of State Trey Grayson. “We now have a formal validation from what many of our constituents have stated all along – our website provides outstanding service to the citizens of the Commonwealth.”
The website received the Standard of Excellence WebAward. Although this is the first formal recognition of the site’s redesign, a columnist from BusinessLexington recently recognized the site as the most useful site on the web for Kentucky businesses.
With the redesign, the website now offers information on all office responsibilities, including business services, elections, administrative services, land records, and executive information. The previous website regularly received over 1.5 million hits a month, making it one of Kentucky state government’s most popular sites.
The new site also allows easy access to the office’s numerous online services and business filing forms. Grayson noted that the office placed an emphasis on increasing online services with the redesign. New services for the office include a summonses tracking system and new land patent database searches for the Kentucky Land Office.
Also included in the site is new business services information including the ability to view and print a reinstatement packet for organizations that have been administratively dissolved and statements of change of registered agent/office and for principal office.
“We’re making a serious effort to allow Kentuckians to conduct their business with this office online,” said Secretary Grayson. “Our new site was designed to make that even easier and more convenient for our citizens. By putting these services online, we conduct business more efficiently and effectively.”
Secretary Grayson announced several new online services since he took office such as online access to several corporate certificates that could previously only be requested by phone was made available, including popular forms such as the Certificate of Existence, the Certificate of Authorization, and the Annual Report form. Last year, access to portions of the Governor’s Executive Journal, final copies of enacted legislation of the Commonwealth, and Revolutionary War Patents were made available to the public via the World Wide Web.
“One of my promises upon taking office was to make the Office of the Secretary of State more technologically friendly. This new website allows constituents to access a variety of services more easily and at any time, effectively creating a 24 hour-a-day/seven day-a-week operation,” stated Grayson.
The site also contains more information about Secretary Grayson’s initiatives, including the nationally acclaimed Civic Literacy Initiative of Kentucky, under a new section entitled “Secretary’s Desk.” A media center that contains past speeches, articles, photographs, and news releases from the Office of the Secretary of State is also included in the section.
In addition to the work of the Office of the Secretary of State, the website was built in partnership with Kentucky.gov, which also built and maintains the Commonwealth’s official website at www.kentucky.gov.
The Office of the Secretary of State is entrusted with filing, maintaining and preserving the important documents and records of the Commonwealth and her people. Access to documents not found online is available at the State Capitol Building in Frankfort, KY.
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