Why Every Political Campaign Website Needs a Blog
As a candidate for elected office you need to have a dedicated campaign website.
And one of those things you need on your campaign’s website is a blog.
What? A Blog???
Yes, a blog.
But Why?
Because news papers are dying and providing very little coverage of local campaigns, if they giving them any coverage at all.
According to Penny Abernathy of the University of North Carolina while a guest on the PBS News Hour:
(N)ewspapers are often the prime, if not the sole source of news and information, especially in small and mid-sized communities.
So, over the last decade-and-a-half, we have seen 1,800 newspapers disappear off the landscape of the U.S.
But there’s also the equally troubling situation that we have with the surviving newspapers, where we have lost more than half of the newspaper newsroom journalists that we had just in 2008.
We’re calling that the rise of the ghost newspaper, in which papers are basically shells of their former selves.
Abernathy also states that the disappears of local news papers “means the rise of news deserts, in which residents in communities, hundreds of communities, even thousands, in this country have limited, very limited access to the sort of news and information that’s been the lifeblood of our democracy, everything from when and where to vote, to topics such as education, health, emergency and safety information that we need.”
What exactly does this mean for candidates?
With the local press flatlining, political candidates – specifically local candidates – have the opportunity to step up and fill the news void.
You do this by having a blog section or page on your campaign website.
Now please don’t mistake what I’m saying here.
I’m not saying that you need to become a blogger.
What you need to do is have a section of your website that serves as a blog.
And I advise that you title that section or page as “News.”
While all of the other parts of your campaign’s website will be static and change very little during the campaign, your blog will be the part that is regularly updated with new information.
Such new information will include announcements of endorsements, policy positions, responses to attacks by your opponents, and so forth.
Your blog in other words will contain all of the information you’d send out in a press release.
You’ll be able to then email these posts/articles out to supporters or to voters in general.
Links to these blog posts can also be shared on your campaign’s social media accounts.
At the same time you’ll be improving the chances that someone Googling your name will find your website.
How does that happen?
By adding content tied to your website that contains your name in it, you’ll improve your relevance in the search engine.
So by having a blog on your website you’ll not only be driving voters looking for information about you to your website, you’ll also be putting information favorable to your candidacy in front of these voters.
The loss of local news coverage will then become a win for you and your campaign for office.
And you’re interested in how to write proper political campaign press releases, tap this link to take our free course Writing Winning Press Releases.