Political Campaign Tips and Strategies
Practical guides for candidates running local and state campaigns. Find advice on starting a campaign, building your online presence, fundraising, messaging, voter outreach, and more.
Essential Guides for Political Candidates
How to Prepare for a Run for Local Office
Learn the basics of preparing for a local campaign, including qualifications,
budgeting, fundraising, building a campaign team, filing requirements, and
getting voters to the polls.
Read the guide
Political Campaign Timeline
See what needs to happen before, during, and after a campaign launch, from early planning and filing through fundraising, voter outreach, and Election Day.
View the timeline
How to Build a Political Campaign Website
A practical guide to planning, building, and launching a campaign website that gives voters the information they need and supports your campaign goals.
Read the website guide
Campaign Website Pages: What Every Candidate Needs to Include
Find out which pages and content your campaign website should include to inform voters, collect support, accept donations, and keep your campaign active.
See the essential pages
Comparing Political Donation Platforms
Compare common political fundraising platforms and the factors campaigns should consider when choosing a service for accepting online contributions.
Compare donation platforms
Differences Between a Campaign Slogan, Message and Platform
Understand how your campaign slogan, core message, and issue platform work together—and the different role each plays in communicating with voters.
Learn the differences
Need a Campaign Website?
Online Candidate has helped political candidates build their online presence since 2004. See our custom campaign website packages and campaign-specific features.
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.
Negative Linking Your Political Opponent
One online ‘political dirty trick’ that is perfectly acceptable is to link to outside content about your opponent using the opponent’s name as the link text. Here’s how to do it.
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...
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.
6 Political Microsite Ideas
Although we discuss political microsites in our training modules, we’re going to go into a little more depth about campaign microsites, how you can benefit from them, and a few reasons why you may want to use them.
What Impression Does Your Campaign Website Leave On Voters?
You only have one chance for your campaign site to make a good first impression. On the web, that first chance might be your only chance, and that chance might only be a few seconds. Good or bad, your online presentation will leave an impression with visitors.
Are You Measuring These Metrics On Your Campaign Website?
Knowing what your campaign website traffic does when it arrives at your site can help you tailor your web content for maximum effectiveness.
Critical Elements of a Campaign Website Header
With Internet users making a snap decision about the quality of a web page, a nice design is critical for making a positive impression. The first part of a website that a visitor will see is the site header. Below are the most common features of successful header images.
Creating an Online Political Press Kit
Online political press kits are helpful in that the information can be kept up to date, and the information is easily accessible. What goes into one? It depends, really. Unlike a physical press kit, a digital press kit can be broken up so it can be downloaded in part or in whole.
Sign of the Times for Political Candidates – Best of Posts
No matter the changes or trends in politics, yard signs were and still remain a mainstay of political campaigning. We’ve written about signage several times over the years. For newer readers who may have missed some posts, you’ll find them all here in once place!
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