Do's And Don'ts On Your Campaign Website

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

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

Do's And Don'ts On Your Campaign Website

by Henri Makembe on Jun 09, 2010

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