6 Ways to Craft a Digital Political Campaign with SEO

In this climate, a digital political campaign requires the right strategy to optimize the results obtained from the dissemination of information online.

Implementation of digital political campaigns is a way of promoting political figures who will run for office.

This is a political tradition aimed at influencing public opinion about political candidates or parties online.

Therefore, integration between digital marketing strategies and political campaigns needs to be carried out so that the process runs smoothly.

One of the digital strategies that can be implemented in this campaign is SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Before going into the discussion of how to campaign with SEO, let's first get to know what a digital political campaign is.

What Is a Digital Political Campaign?

Digital political campaigns are promotional strategies for political figures or parties that are carried out on online platforms.

Usually, campaigns will be held on social media and websites in the form of advertisements and content.

This ad will appear when internet users perform online searches or automatically based on algorithms.

Lately, it is not uncommon for political figures to market themselves through various social media accounts.

Starting from political activities to personal activities, branding that can lead people's voices can be built from there.

This digital method is seen as bringing political figures closer to prospective voters in the upcoming elections.

The easier it is for a political figure to be found online, the more online interaction will be built.

The Importance of Digital Marketing for Political Campaigns

It is important to carry out a digital political campaign because, in this upcoming election, voters are dominated by young people who are active online.

Based on the data gathered by KPU (Komisi Pemilihan Umum), the number of young voters in the 2024 election could reach 53-55% of total voters in Indonesia, with a maximum age of 40 years as of voting day.

Given this, implementing digital marketing strategies for political campaigns is becoming increasingly important.

The role of the media in political communication in the digital era is one of the determining factors for the success of the campaign.

By carrying out a digital political campaign strategy, candidates or political parties that will compete in elections can:

• Connect with a wider range of potential voters
• Reach audiences that are difficult to meet face-to-face
• Embracing generations who are active online
• Attract the attention of prospective voters programmatically
• Target audiences according to the context of the campaign

To do some of the things above, just carrying out campaigns via social media is not enough.

Related political figures or parties need to use other marketing channels in order to maximize the reach of the audience and the effectiveness of the campaign itself.

There are three digital marketing channels through online search to use, namely:

• Search Engine Advertising (SEA)
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Among the three strategies, SEO is a marketing strategy that relies on organic search.

In other words, SEO does not target campaign success relying on paid advertising, but on the online visibility gained from organic traffic.

For this reason, the existence of a special website for political candidate forums is very necessary.

6 SEO Strategies for Political Campaigns in the Digital Era

As previously mentioned, SEO is an organic marketing channel for an efficient digital political campaign.

SEO activities are carried out on political candidate websites to increase their ranking and appear in the top results of online searches.

Having an official website that contains accurate information will be easier to believe than posting on social media.

This is the importance of SEO-based optimization activities that focus on website quality and content based on search rather than paid advertisements or content on social media.

It should be noted that, on average, young people from 21 countries trust national and international news channels more than social media.

Research from UNICEF in 2021 states that people's high use of social media does not indicate their level of trust in the content presented on the platform.

Therefore, it is very important to build trust through websites whose information is curated and well monitored.

There are several ways that can be done to optimize a digital political campaign through SEO, namely:

1. Relevant Keyword Research

Before mapping out a website optimization strategy, be sure to do keyword research first.

In this stage, use keyword research tools to find terms that are relevant to the website niche for political figures or parties.

Then make a list of keywords to use in page optimization activities as well as article or content production to increase online visibility organically.

2. Do On-Page Optimization

After the keywords are obtained, use them one by one in several aspects of website pages, such as:

• Slugs
• Meta titles
• Meta description
• Alt text
• Page content

On-page optimization can also be done by creating a hierarchical page structure with heading tags.

In the content or articles, be sure to add internal links and outbound links to strengthen DA (domain authority) and PA (page authority).

3. Maximize Off-Page Optimization

One of the roles of the media in political communication in the digital era is to create positive branding for a political candidate.

Here, political figures or parties need mention of their names in well-known publications in Indonesia.

This is a form of off-page optimization that can increase the credibility of your official website as a political candidate and make your name appear in the top search results.

For this reason, the Media Buying service from cmlabs can help digital political campaigns run optimally by mentioning them in well-known media.

4. Pay attention to Technical SEO

Apart from on-page and off-page, you also need to pay attention to website performance from a technical point of view.

Optimization in this section can be done by paying attention to several things, such as:

• URL structure optimization
• Use of the robots.txt file
• Ensuring mobile friendliness of the website
• Increase loading speed
• Generating structured data with the JSON-LD Schema Generator

5. Write SEO-Friendly Articles

One way of doing digital political campaigning that cannot be ruled out is to write SEO-friendly articles.

The information presented must be relevant to the search query and describe the image of a political figure or party in a positive way.

Writing SEO-friendly articles can be done by paying attention to keyword density in the content.

Make sure the percentage of keywords in the article is not more than 2% to prevent keyword stuffing.

Other than that, you should pay attention to the quality of the writing. Ensure that the information presented is reliable and meets Google's E-E-A-T criteria.

That way, users will view your website as a credible source of information.

6. Disseminate Information Through Social Media

In addition to an optimized website, political campaigns in the digital era can be maximized by spreading information via social media.

Create content that attracts the attention of social media users while linking to your official political website pages to get additional traffic.

Make sure to use this opportunity to interact with potential voters according to the political agenda they are carrying.

That is information about digital political campaigns that political figures or political parties need to know in the upcoming elections.

In order for political communication in this digital era to be conveyed effectively, use SEO services from cmlabs specifically for political campaigns.

With an optimization plan strategically created by our SEO specialists, your official political website will be able to compete better on search results pages (SERPs).