Online political campaigns and SEO

Randfish over at seomoz.org posted a good piece that delves into the usage of SEO (search engine optimization) for online political campaigns.


What if Ron Paul fans became SEO savvy?


Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has a ton of fans online but they could be doing a much more effective job of getting the word out. So far they are limited to Google searches for "Ron Paul" and a few social bookmarking sites like Digg and Reddit. I found the Ron Paul SEO piece from a post over at Sphinn.


It would be interesting to see what happens if Ron Paul bloggers started using some clean SEO techniques to draw in traffic from other areas of the Internet. I've seen a few attempts from Paulites to mesh busy keywords into their posts, but no serious effort has taken place in that respect. Most just stick to saying "Ron Paul" as much as possible. Maybe they should read about keyword density to learn how sometimes less is more. Anchor links would be another useful thing for some to learn, including me.


Can Ron Paul take it to the next level if his supporters hone their techniques and learn how to spread their message through different channels? Who knows. Give them some credit though. No other candidate for president outside of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has as much vocal support online or in the outside world. I've been to a few Republican events. Ron Paul fans are everywhere and they are energetic. The more level-headed supporters might want to take a few cues from randfish and lead the pack in a more effective direction.


Online, Ron Paul already leads other Republican candidates in web traffic by 45%. He has already raised over $700,000 in October and his performance in various straw polls around the country has been amazing. If web traffic and straw polls determined party nominations then Ron Paul would have it locked up. Unfortunately for them, a bunch of grumpy old men with deep pockets ultimately choose the nomination, so if supporters of Ron Paul want to be sure that they can't be shoved aside then they need to diversify their message, utilize legit SEO techniques and start reaching out to different audiences.