How To Use Authoritative Linking for Your Campaign
The content of your political campaign website always appears stronger when it’s backed up by credible sources. Credible online sources include newspaper websites, magazine sites, large organizations and prominent think tanks.
When writing about a particular news article or event, link directly to the newspaper article or web page about the event. When citing evidence or facts, link back to the source that backs your statements. Don’t worry about using too many citations. Not everyone will click every link, but for those that do, they will find proof behind your statements and will give greater weight to the rest of what you have to say.
When creating a link to a relevant source, use the full phrase of text rather than a click here.
A well-cited, rational content will win out over opinionated screed any day. Voters that have come to your site to learn more about you are more likely to appreciate well-cited material, so they can investigate themselves and make their own decisions.
Even if they don’t investigate for themselves (and, honestly, few will), the fact that you have done so will lend credibility to you as a candidate.
Tip: Have links to outside content open in a new window with a “target_blank” tag. That way you won’t lose your readers if they check out your source material.
For more tips and ideas for online campaigning, check out our ebook Running for Office as an Online Candidate. You can download a book sample.
What Type of Yard Signs Are Best For Political Campaigns?
Candidates often struggle with the type of sign to purchase. There are basically three types of yard signs for political campaigns: plastic bag, corrugated plastic, and double-sided cardboard.
Here are the pros and cons of each different sign type:
Plastic or Play-bag Yard Signs are affordable, cheap and easy to ship. They are basically plastic sleeves that can be slipped over U-shaped wires. The down side is that they tend to sag over time and do not work well as wall signs.
Corrugated Plastic (poly coated) Signs holds up well through bad weather and are easy to handle. They are most cost effective if a candidate runs often and is committed to the same message and look. They generally slide right over their metal frame. However, a light colored sign might not be entirely opaque. They tend to be a bit more expensive than other types of signs. They are also the most easily stolen.
Double-Sided Cardboard Signs come in all shapes and sizes. They are double-sided and are stapled or glued to their frames. They easily double as wall signs. However, they don’t hold up as well in rough weather as plastic signs.
Selecting the type of sign for your campaign should be determined by your priorities such as price, quantity and re-usability. An experienced sign manufacturer can help you determine what is best for you.
Related posts:
- Common Campaign Sign Questions
- Tips For Designing Your Campaign Yard Sign
- When Is The Best Time To Order Campaign Signage?
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Online Candidate Now Provides Political Brochure Templates
Online Candidate is pleased to announce that it has updated its selection of downloadable political brochure templates to assist local political campaigns in creating and self-publishing attractive campaign materials.
Canva brochure templates for political candidates
Designing a brochure is a must for any political campaign. A brochure can be used to convey the candidate’s political agenda and discuss their qualifications.
We offer a variety of Canva templates that are suitable for political campaigns. Candidates can use these templates to create professional and attractive brochures without the need for design skills or expensive design software.
Political Brochure Template – Canva
Sheriff Brochure Template – Canva
School Board Brochure Template – Canva
Judicial Brochure Template – Canva
View all Canva Political Templates
Free up your valuable time! Download these templates to add a professional edge to your campaign brochures and handouts. View all of our digital products.
Negative Linking Your Political Opponent
One online ‘dirty trick’ that is perfectly acceptable is to link to outside content about your opponent using the opponent’s name as the link text.
For example:
<a href=”https://www.localnewspaper.com/article/ councilman-caught-doing-something-wrong”>Councilman Bob Jones</a>
This type of targeted linking helps ensure that when someone looks up your opponent’s name, certain content may appear in the search results.
Make sure the page you link to is real, preferably from a reliable source like a newspaper, rather than some obscure blog. You don’t want to be accused of promoting bad information if what you link to later turns out to be false.
You also want to link to your targeted source from other places, particularly from social media. Ask you followers to like or retweet your posts to multiply the linking effect.
This technique works best against targets that do not have much of a web presence. If you are trying to have a negative article rank for someone’s name, Google will need to see the article as more important than a person’s website, social media accounts and other related information about them. That can be tough.
Repetition is important and this technique works better when multiple links come from a variety of sources. The more people that link something, the better. This can your campaign website, other websites, blogs, social media accounts and so on.
While ‘Google Bombing’ is pretty much a thing of the past, particularly after the technique was used against a former president, it can still work on a smaller scale.
In fact, we pulled a variation of this trick back in 2003. The work on that local campaign led us to create Online Candidate.
There’s no guarantee this technique will always get results. Your mileage may vary. Either way, you never want to pass up an opportunity to nail an opponent online.
For more online strategies, visit our exclusive companion site, OnlineCandidateResources.com.
Besides providing affordable, full-featured Campaign Website Packages, we carry popular digital products including our Campaign Letter Templates and a wide selection of Brochure and Print Templates.
Online Writing Tips For Local Campaigns
The web provides a cost-effective method for political candidates and campaigns to reach voters and supporters. However, writing for a website is different than writing for print. Simply copying your campaign print material onto your website limits the potential of online campaigning.
Nobody likes scrolling through pages and pages of poorly written, overblown website content. Studies show that people read from computer screens about 25% slower than from paper.
Make your website content more readable:
- Start each written section with the conclusion. Put the main points of your document in the first paragraph so that readers scanning your pages will not miss your point.
- Write concisely and stick to one idea per paragraph.
- Bullet lists rather than using wordy sentences or paragraphs. Readers can pick out information more easily from a list than from paragraphs.
- Use meaningful subheadings. Guide the reader by highlighting the main points of your information.
- Remember that readers do not read web pages in sequence. Providing information in precise segments allows readers to quickly locate the material they seek.
- Separate your ‘white paper’ information and link out to it for readers who want to know more detail about a particular subject. PDF files work well because they can be easily printed out for offline reading.
Online content layout tips:
- Don’t set your text size too large or too small.
- Capitalizing all letters gives the appearance of shouting at your visitors. SHOUTING IS RUDE!
- Keep your text left-aligned. Justified text can be harder to read online, particularly if the width is wide.
- Space out blocks of information. Large chunks of text are intimidating to a reader and probably won’t get read.
Or course, what works for one candidate or campaign may not work for another. These tips should be adapted to suit your unique needs as part of a larger, multifaceted online campaign strategy. To find out what content works best, use website analytics to measure the impact of your online content and make data-driven adjustments.
Remember that anything you put online becomes part of ‘the record’ and will not only be read by your supporters, it will be read by your opponents – and you can be sure that they will keep an eye on what you do!
Our exclusive client resources site, OnlineCandidateResources.com, has sample website copy and content tools that you can use for inspiration.
We are here to help! Start your campaign website today. Online Candidate website clients get full access to our political campaign resources and articles.
Political Campaign Design: Our Top Posts
In politics, style often trumps substance. For campaign websites, a good design is more than just an attractive header and complementary colors. A good layout, images, and even the arrangement of the site content effects how your campaign is perceived by voters. So here are a few of our more popular posts on political web design.
What’s Your Campaign Theme?
Hammer that message home so every voter can easily recall what you stand for, and why they should vote for you on Election Day!
Campaign Sites – What Impression Does Yours Leave On Voters?
You only have one chance for your campaign site to make a good first impression, and that chance might only be a few seconds.
How Much Should You Doctor Your Candidate Head Shots?
You wouldn’t go on television without makeup. Why wouldn’t you enhance an important online image?
Political Campaign Website Design Trends
Here are some of the biggest changes we’ve seen since we made our first site in 2003…
Campaign Writing Can Make or Break a Vote
First impressions will make or break a voter’s support. Words have meaning.
The image above is from the website of the 1996 Clinton/Gore political campaign. Designs like that just aren’t in style anymore. Fortunately, most campaigns today are able to put together something a bit more pleasing to the eye…
Here are some of our own campaign designs for websites:
See our client design gallery. Try our campaign site demo.
Get the look you want with a custom-designed Online Candidate campaign website. Our system includes an easy-to-use content management system and plenty of included tools to make building your online presence as pain-free as possible.
