A Deep Dive Into Campaign Websites with Candy Phelps | Hello Merge Tag Ep 3

Candy Phelps is an expert in a lot of things. She’s an entrepreneur, a visionary and a content marketing and SEO expert.

Through her company 1 Day® Campaign, she’s also the creator of the 1 Day® Website, which creates amazing, SEO-optimized websites developed specifically for her clients… in a day!

She’s worked with dozens of political campaigns and hundreds of brands on web development, graphic design, branding and more.

Throughout our conversation, we covered a wide range of subjects on the topic of campaign websites. We explored essential elements like branding, budget considerations, and differentiating between essential features and optional enhancements.

We discussed key questions to ask before hiring an agency or developer to build your campaign website, as well as options available for building a site based on even the most limited of budgets.

We also delved deep into the realm of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and highlighted important factors to consider when building your website.

And we answered the oh-so-important question: can a digital program win an election? (Spoiler alert: it can!)

Our conversation was packed with valuable, actionable insight, relevant for any organization or campaign thinking about building a website, or just looking to get more out of their digital program.

You can find Candy Phelps and her agency at 1daycampaign.com and see a few sites they have built at madisonformadison.com and dinaninaformadison.com.

Listen to the full episode right here or wherever you stream podcasts.

SEO Tips – An Infographic

1. Get your site live as soon as possible. The earlier it goes live, the more love Google will give it.
2. Google loves new content. Blogging is a great way to keep adding content to your site. You can call that section news, or updates or whatever you want, but adding regular content to your site will help you tremendously in the rankings.
3. When it comes to SEO, one-page websites are fine. But multi-page websites are much, much better.
4. If you want to rank on Google for your name (or your candidate or organization’s name), include it in the copy! This might mean putting your site in the 3rd person, or adding more descriptive headers, or simply working it into the text in other ways. But if your site simply says “I” whenever referring to the candidate, Google isn’t going to show you the love you need to rank.
5. This tip was 🔥 (imho): don’t just rank for your name, also rank for your office. Especially if you are running for a downballot race. In the days leading up to election day, a ton of people are going to search for your race. You want your site to come up on Google before your opponents!
6. If you have a common name (ex: John Smith) and your URL is Smith4Office.com (or whatever), don’t use /about as your slug. Use Smith4Office.com/About-John-Smith. It will help you rank for your own name faster.
7. This one is good for ADA compliance, but also for SEO: use alt text and name files with searchable terms. Don’t just keyword stuff into these two spaces, they have real functionality. But use them strategically, both for those who need them and for Google.
8. If you plan to run radio/audio ads, be sure that everyone who hears your URL can find it! If your site is Smith4Office.com, almost buy SmithForOffice.com and redirect it to your website. It only costs a few dollars a year and it can help people find you when they come looking.