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As the fastest-growing resource in politics, the Internet
provides a cost-effective method to reach supporters and
potential supporters. However, writing for your local campaign
website is different than writing for print. Simply copying your
local campaign print material onto your website limits the
potential of online campaigning.
Online campaign writing tips
Nobody likes scrolling through pages and pages of poorly
written, overblown website content. Studies show that people
read from computer screens is about 25% slower than reading from
paper. Give your visitors the information they want, and then
some. Include information about your campaign and your local
political scene. Post all your campaign releases, including
press announcements, speeches, advertisements, and policy
papers. Also, create content that is exclusive to the website,
and remind visitors return to your website frequently.
Use these tips to make your campaign website content more
readable:
* Include your most important keyword phrase as close to the
beginning of the description as possible. For example: John
Jones for Anytown, NY Town Council.
* 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.
* Keep in mind that many web readers still use dial-up access.
Don't bog your site down with too many large images or
extra-long pages.
* Bullet lists rather than use wordy sentences or paragraphs.
Readers can pick out information more easily from a list than
from paragraphs.
* Use meaningful sub-headings. Guide the reader by highlighting
the main points of your information.
* Bold your keywords.
* 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 give the appearance of shouting at
your visitors. Shouting is rude!
* Keep your main text left-aligned on the page. Center-aligned
text is best used in headlines.
* Use spaces between blocks of information. Large blocks of text
are intimidating to a reader, and probably won't get read.
* Left and/or right-align images to your paragraphs. This will
break up your text a bit and allow your text to flow down the
pages and around your images.
Remember -- anything you put on your campaign website becomes
part of 'the record' and will not only be read by your
supporters, it will be read by your opponents! Once the
opposition finds out that you have a website, you can be sure
that they will keep an eye on it.
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