Seo For A Politician Website, anyone have any advice? Options

[Pamela]

Hi everyone!

Do any of you have any experience optimizing a politician's site? (or site with political material)

Is there anything different I should consider as compared to the typical site I work on (which would be ecommerce or selling a service mainly)?

Do you know of any niche political article directory sites, for example, that fit with the subject matter, or would submitting content to regular article directories (with a wide array of topics) be an appropriate way to get some content out there for a politician's site? and am i even on the right track with taking this approach? Feel free to throw other suggestions out there!

I appreciate any input/suggestions/advice!

Regards,
Pam

[Randy]

I've never done one. I detest politics. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/lol.gif)

That said, I would think your #1 phrase is going to be the candidates name. Possibly misspellings if it's a hard to spell or remember name.

As far as optimization goes, I would think that a lot of it would take care of itself if the campaign is good at all about getting the web site address in anything and everything they send out. If the web site is included in every piece of literature sent out and included in every interview given I would expect the link building to mostly take care of itself. Of course I guess it would depend upon the size of the campaign too. A local campaign wouldn't get nearly as much press coverage or attract nearly as much traffic as a national campaign.

Press and Relations management is probably going to be the most important component once the site is set up and usable.

[nethy]

That said, I would think your #1 phrase is going to be the candidates name. Possibly misspellings if it's a hard to spell or remember name.

Couldn't disagree more. I think picking winners (keywords) is the name of the game here. A lot more options then just the name

I would seriously consider adwords as a starting point. How many people are searching for information on various issue-specific areas: climate change, human rights, gun control, Afghanistan, climate change, etc? Lots. How many advertisers competing for those? Not many. a couple of $k could buy 10k - 20k eyes & ears.
I would want to cast a wide net with ppc & see what works (you'll need some way of working out what works). Then SEO.

You may have more luck with ppc then seo. It's hard to compete with info sites on content heavy issues (climate change, industrial relations, etc.), but it's not commercially that competitive.

The Internet Marketing possibilities for a poly are massive & I could go on all day.
- A/B test an article/Press Release/Post/Video on various user groups (random ppc visits, long time newsletter subscribers) & see what kind of results you get. Again, you'll need some way of measuring success (expression of interest in an event, request brochures, newsletter signup, subsequent pageviews, etc). You could almost let the public write policies this way.
- Gauge the relative importance of various issues associated with that specific poly. (You could take those visitors that visited the home page directly or via a name specific search & see what they are interested in.)
- lots more

* Sorry if I went over board, most of these ideas are more along the lines of 'include seo' then 'are seo.'

This post has been edited by nethy: Sep 10 2008, 05:40 AM

[Nueromancer]

Hi everyone!

Do any of you have any experience optimizing a politician's site? (or site with political material)

Is there anything different I should consider as compared to the typical site I work on (which would be ecommerce or selling a service mainly)?

Do you know of any niche political article directory sites, for example, that fit with the subject matter, or would submitting content to regular article directories (with a wide array of topics) be an appropriate way to get some content out there for a politician's site? and am i even on the right track with taking this approach? Feel free to throw other suggestions out there!

I appreciate any input/suggestions/advice!

Regards,
Pam

some sugestions

make sure there wikipedia entry points to the website and is up to date
use a blog
make contact with ifluential bloggers from your side Guido fawkes for the Conservatives for example
make sure any blogs / presreleases are checked before posing them on the web
use site to capture sms and email adresses for regular newsletters
cover your conventions(USA) or in the UK your party conferences, TUC CBI etc
if you in california try and shmooze with A list people like Scobel who do some times coveer political isues
make nice with allies for links Unions CBI presure groups etc

[Bri]

I'm envious! that sounds like a lot of fun! I think you should concentrate on the day to day media and keywords that may hit the search engines. Keyword research can be extra creative. Daily there will be blurbs in the media that will be making waves with all parties. and this can be utilized to optimize for specific phrases that will pop up out of no where that people will start searching for. i.e. in Canada (As some of you may be aware) we are having a federal election. Our Prime Minister had a controversial ad on his site. It was comic of a puffin pooping on Stephan Dion's (Leader of the Liberal Party) shoulder, this got a lot of media coverage and of course people are more concerned with this then the real issues so the searches for this have gone up. So, I would say just try to be creative with your keywords. Also, I would utilize press releases that can be submitted daily and may turn up in blended search results as well.

good luck

[Pamela]

thank you everyone for your thoughtful feedback! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[BBCoach]

Just one point. If the election is being held in the next couple of months no SEO on the planet will get the new site ranked in the top 10 for whatever keywords you optimize for. PR takes 6-9+ months period. You're best off with Adword campaigns like nethy suggested (and doing the rest of what he said). A site like this should have been started and optimized months ago with new content being added daily/weekly.

[Pamela]

Just one point. If the election is being held in the next couple of months no SEO on the planet will get the new site ranked in the top 10 for whatever keywords you optimize for. PR takes 6-9+ months period. You're best off with Adword campaigns like nethy suggested (and doing the rest of what he said). A site like this should have been started and optimized months ago with new content being added daily/weekly.

thanks for the feedback BB. it's not a new site but we're also not trying to get it ranked quickly or before the election. I am more than aware that it takes time and i'd never let a client believe otherwise (i fact i'd be more likely to pound it into their skulls to be patient (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) )

-Pam