Do's and Don'ts on Your Campaign Website

Henri Makembe, localpolitechs.com

Isaac Salazar, mddems.org

Maureen Higgins, mddems.org

Overview• Introduction

• Do's

• Don'ts

• Sample Websites

• Q/A

Why your website matters• 24% of Americans learn

about campaigns online

• 55% of American adults get news or information about political candidates online

• 1 in 3 forward political content to friends

Do's

 

1. Design for lowest Common denominator• Most visitors do NOT use current browser

version.  Be Backward Compatible 

• Design your pages for 1024x768

• Test (connection speed), Test (browsers), Test (user flow). 

2. Focus on Content• Be short, sweet and to the point

• Make it easy to scan your website. Use H tags & Bullets, Bold important words

• Good content is good SEO

• Write for the web & Keep it fresh

• Promote your content

3. Have Prominent Action Buttons• Contribute, volunteer,

register to vote, links to social networks ABOVE the fold

• Give user elements interactivity right away 

• Established baseline for ladder of engagement

4. Prominent E-mail Capture

• Email signup  must be visible and obvious

• Keep the from simple of short -E-mail sign up form is NOT  volunteer form

• Use cookie-based splash pages

5. Use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)    • Creates consistent

formatting across site

• Easier to maintain

• Easier to deal with browsers' quirks

• Increases load speed

Don'ts

 

 1. Flash or Flash Intros• Difficult to maintain

• Not present on all machines & requires download

• Not backwards compatible 

• Does NOT work on mobile devices

• Use JQuery instead

2. Long paragraphs/welcome letters• Average time spent on the website is

 less than 120 sec.

• Most visitors only read content 'above the fold'

• Long letters take up valuable real estate on your site

•  Use short paragraphs, bullets & links

3. Music / Sounds• Increases page size

• Does NOT echo message

• Detracts from User experience

• Lacks professionalism

• When using video, disable auto-play

 4. Gimmicks or Overdo widgets• Blink/Scrolling text 

• Pops-ups windows

• Automatic window resizing

•  page counters

• Distract visitors from Message

5. Leave it to your kid/nephew

• Lack of campaign experience

• Lack of knowledge of affordable solutions

• Design best practices

• Use professionals or freelancers with proven portfolio

Sample Websites

The Good• Kevin Yoder for Congress• Sean Duffy for Congress• Hickenlooper for Governor of Colorado

The Bad & Ugly• Paul Hamann for U.S. Congress• Bill Conner for U.S. Congress• George Hutchins for U.S. Congress

The Good

Kevin Yoder for Congress

Sean Duffy for Congress

Hickenlooper for Colorado

The Bad & The Ugly

Paul Hamman for u.s. congress

Bill Conner for U.S. Congress

George Hutchins for U.S. Congress

RESOURCES• http://www.w3schools.com

•  Web Writing: http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/

• Design: http://www.killersites.com/

• http:// www.localpolitechs.com 

• http://www.epolitics.com

• http://freelanceswitch.com OR http://www.elance.com

Q&A