We have a ton of people running for office that have never even thought they had a chance. We have minorities, women, LGBTQIA, and young people flooding the ballots. I love this trend and want to support it with everything I have. So this old, white, male has zero plans to ever run for office. It's not my place. I feel my place is to help and support those minorities, women, LGBTQIA, and young people flooding the ballots. So I will be posting tech related articles to help them not make the mistakes I have seen others make. Tech is where I feel that I may be able to help. Feel free to ask questions. It may inspire an article that helps others.
Today's article is ten rules of a campaign website:
There are seemingly endless options for your domain suffix. However, there has always been one that has had better results. This means better results on search engines, better results with people going there, and a better chance of things going viral. Your chances of success are just better with a .dom website.
The longer the domain, the worse it does. Think of every character as a brick stacked against you. Work really hard at keeping it as short as you can. Don’t spend a ton of money buying a domain from a squatter or anything, but keep it simple.
3. Can people spell it with little thought?
I would never put my last name in a campaign website domain. There are too many people who may not spell it correctly. Have websites with hard to spell names still done well? Sure, but you want every advantage you can get. Don't make pride for your name keep you from all the great work you can do for those with hard to spell names. Feel free to consult with NEXT UPRISING if you need help with this. I don’t charge if I feel your campaign will move this country in a positive direction.
If you can think of a name that has an easy message to it, a message you can always get behind, go for it! Notice this website doesn't have my name? If I did ever run for office (I seriously do not ever see it happening), I would use this domain. Feel free to consult with NEXT UPRISING if you need help with this. I don’t charge if I feel your campaign will move this country in a positive direction.
5. Prove you are thinking of the future!
Do not ever put the year into your domain name. You will fight for a place on Google like crazy over the next year. Why waste that just because you lose this time? What if you win the election? Do you know how much a candidates chances improve the second time around? Grab a name that you can campaign with for several campaigns. Keep that momentum going! Google juice is a very important thing. Don't waste it!
6. Reserve your domain with the biggest company possible.
Being a nerd, I have heard a ton of horror stories about people who reserved their domain through a company that went under, got purchased by a scummy company, and then had insane fees charged to them to keep it. Sure the law says you can switch, but I have heard even more horror stories about people fighting to switch their domain. Don't set yourself up for a nightmare. No matter what your issues with Google are, you know that they will be around for many years to come. Reserve with them.
7. Grab your social networks before you go public!
Just like with domain squatters, there are endless examples of people grabbing a social network account just to mess with a campaign. It can go on for months before the campaign even finds out, then months more to shut it down. So grab the social media accounts, then use a service to blast to all of them.
Nothing is more frustrating than trying to do an article on a brand, and you can’t find any quality images to use. Keep them high resolution, don’t put a barrier to get to them, and make sure they are extremely easy to find. Otherwise they might use a photo that your campaign didn’t have control over. Most importantly… hire someone! Just anyone with a mobile phone won’t do. Even if you get a friend, make sure they know what a DSLR is. If they have a passionate opinion about mirrorless camera vs DSLR, pay them well!
Imagine someone is extremely short of time, has to get up for work at 3:00 am, so they would never be able to attend one of your events. But they really believe in you, want to support your campaign, but can’t seem to get a yard sign, t-shirt, or even a hat. What if they could just order them from your website?! They donate to the campaign, as well as being able to promote for you. I have lost count how often I wanted a yard sign, but the campaign told me they couldn’t afford to send me one. If they charged for one, they don’t need to worry about fitting it in the budget.
10. Contact me if you have any questions
Seriously, I am here to help. Feel free to post any questions in the comments. Do not ask me in messenger. I prefer to have everything out in the open. You may ask a question that several others are afraid to ask, don’t have time to ask, or haven’t thought of yet.
