The Internet has become a natural extension of how businesses and politics operate. As such, establishing a strong online presence is the pillar of any political campaign’s communication strategy today. Whether you are running for Congress, U.S. Senate, the state legislature, or municipal or local office, you cannot afford to have a poor online presence, or worse, no online presence. No matter how hard you try, the success of your outreach and campaigning efforts is dependent on a good political candidate website.
If you want to reach more voters, you need to lay all your cards on the e-table for the interested voters to behold, or else, your campaign—and its messages and key platforms–may never reach the right people.
But where do you start?
A solid online presence starts with a good website.
Your political candidate website is, for all intents and purposes, a collection of everything that your campaign represents. Apart from serving as a guide to your political views and beliefs, it also serves as a map for your audience to discover and interact with every aspect of your campaign, thereby increasing the odds of your name getting checked on the ballot!
A political candidate website can raise recognition of your name within your community.
Going to the polls and casting their vote is a very personal decision for most people. In fact, people often vote for a candidate because they feel an emotional connection to them and what they stand for, and a good website can help forge these emotional connections. A solid website introduces you to voters who would like to know you better and tells them exactly what they need to know about you, including things like your professional and personal background as well as your stance on all pertinent issues and your policies. This information will surely help you develop a more personal connection with the voters.
The content on the website can help you establish your expertise.
Whether you want to help the homeless or reduce taxes, people want to know that you are knowledgeable and consistent in your views so they can have faith that the solutions you put forward will be impactful and effective in the real world. With informative, well-structured and objective website content, you can establish yourself as an expert and a thought leader in the eyes of the public.
Use of compelling imagery can set the overall tone of your campaign.
Pictures are a great addition to a political website. They not only add visual enhancement to the website, but they also inform the site visitors (prospective voters) why you are right for the position. Whether you are trying to deliver sweeping change or minor improvements, the pictures on your website can echo that value in an authentic and compelling way.
Social media integration provides a stage to interact with your voters.
In all likelihood, you will not be able to interact with each and every person on your campaign trail. Or can you? Well, through the various social media platforms, you can easily interact with all of your prospective voters today. One of the reasons is that social media advertising allows for superior demographic targeting. Unlike conventional advertising on TV or radio, social media advertising can be highly targeted. Whereas television and radio may boast a high number of “impressions,” these impressions may reach unlikely voters. On social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Linked In, targeting is much more concentrated and accurate so you can specifically reach voters in your state or district who have specific views, interests, and backgrounds.
And then there is the hyperbolic word of mouth (often argued to be the best form of advertising). Word of mouth is one of the most effective ways to create a buzz. Social media facilitates that on a grand scale more rapidly than any other method. People are organically reached where they are comfortable, in a place where they are able to quickly show everyone they know where they stand about a candidate.
As social media has become an effective and pervasive communications tool, any great political candidate website should, at the very least, provide links to the candidate’s social media pages. More effective, however, is embedding social feeds in the sites and linking website content to social media posts and vice versa. Using these techniques helps the candidate build a strong list of followers, interested voters, media members, and future constituents.
The last word about political candidate websites.*
If you are running for local, state, or national public office and want a high-quality website to raise awareness of you and your campaign, then look no further than The Writer’s Block. The Writer’s Block is a web design, marketing, and communications firm that specializes in creating websites for political candidates so that they can maximize their online strategies. We can help you build a strong online presence from the ground up and leverage the power of the web for your political quests. What’s more, our team is made up of people who vote on each side of the isle, so we do what we do without any political bias. See an example of a political candidate website created by The Writer’s Block on our Web Design page. Links to additional sites are shown below.
Speak with one of our consultants to get a quote on your project today. Call 877.829.8181 or email our team!
*The Writer’s Block has become a top choice for politicians and political candidates who are looking to build or rebuild their websites. The Writer’s Block creates websites and web content for members of all political parties without bias and maintains political neutrality in business dealings, relationships, and projects. Website design, social media strategy, or any other services performed by The Writer’s Block for political candidates/elected officials do not indicate endorsements of any candidate, elected official, or political party.