Your Website is Running for Presidential Office

August 20th, 2008 by Adam Fullerton

Filed Under Blogging, Internet Marketing, Social Media, Web 2.0 | 1 Comment

An online visibility metaphor

Presidential candidates travel the country to gain exposure and voice their platforms; your business should be traveling the Internet to spread the name and message of your business. In the political world we hear speeches, in the online world we read blogs. Just as your neighbor has an Obama ‘08 bumper sticker on his Subaru, a client of yours may link to your site on their Facebook page.

In the end the candidate with the most relevant policies, best speeches and most bumper stickers will usually take the White House. The website with the most inbound links and popular blog posts will rocket to the top of a Google search result page.

Step 1: Make sure campaign headquarters is staffed and ready. You want to promote a site that is appealing, useful, promotes your business objectives, and is full of good content. This is about the functionality of the site. It doesn’t matter how many people go to your site if it doesn’t convert them, a bad site with good visibility will promote your brand as “the guy everyone knows but no one uses.”

Step 2: Hit the campaign trail. Not only should you host a blog and post often but respond to comments. Be an authority! Be friendly! Be helpful! It is important to gain presence “on the road”; be sure to comment on related blogs, this will give you presence and help you start developing inbound links. As we all hear, inbound links are crucial to your internet marketing.

Step 3: Diversify, Web 2.0 style. Besides blogging there is a whole country full of social media voters. Get to know and use Facebook, Twitter, Localism, YouTube etc. All these keep your audience in tune with you and all provide inbound links as well. This is huge because as the demographic of social media users grows and ages more and more of your audience will be using social media tools. For some insightful tips on blogging as related to social media, check out Chris Brogan’s blog.

Online visibility is a cornerstone of your internet marketing, without it your website will fail to reach the critical mass required to make you President. Or whatever it is you’re after.