Tips For Choosing The Right Domain Name For Your Campaign

Your website is your campaign’s home base for all digital marketing. The address – the URL – you pick for that base is an important decisions.

It should stay the same for the entire election and be consistent across all of your print materials.

Here are some keys to choosing the right domain name for your campaign.

The Candidate’s Name

The candidate’s name is what appears on the ballot and is the best choice. Don’t worry if it’s hard to spell – most website discovery is happening through platforms like Facebook and Google Search, which has autocomplete.

Having the candidate’s name in the URL also boosts your website’s appearance in online search results.

.COM is best

The .COM extension is the most trusted and familiar option. You can use .ORG if you can’t get the .COM, but other choices should be avoided.

Use Your State If You Need

If your name isn’t available, consider adding in the state abbreviation. This keeps it short but unique.

Avoid Using The Office

If you change what you’re running for or run for higher office in the future, being hampered with an office or district number undoes all of your work branding and building backlinks..

Ignore The Trolls

You can go broke buying every variation of your name or campaign. And the trolls will still come up with something. This is dumb and there’s nothing you can do about it. Unfortunately, reporters (and some operatives) still think this tactic is funny or clever.

In digital campaigning, as with real estate, it’s all about “location, location, location.” Your domain name should never be an afterthought because it’s the address of your digital HQ.