Your campaign’s website is one of the most important tools you have to reach the voters who will determine the outcome of all your hard work.
It’s there 24/7 to help answer voters’ questions and to convince them to vote as you would like them to.
Every voter who fails to hear your message has a greater potential to vote for your opposition. Make your message as easy to reach as possible.
Just as location is vital to success in real estate, your internet address, your domain name, is vital to success on the web.
Qualities of a Good Ballot Measure Domain Name
-
Reasonably short
- Easier to read from a moving vehicle
- Easier to remember
- Enables larger font size.
-
Easy to remember or guess
-
Standard format voters expect to see
(Ex. YesOn2.com, YesOnProp2.com, VoteYesOn2.com, YesOnAmendment2.com, NoOnMeasureD.org)
- No committee names or other words that are hard to remember or spell
- No hyphens; .com or .org only
-
Call to action
- Your domain name should appear everywhere so when someone reads, hears, or speaks it, they will receive a reminder of the action you want them to take.
- (Ex: Use YesOnProp2.com vs. the less motivating Prop2.com or CitizensForGreenerGrass.org)
Multiple Ballot Measure Domain Names
Are Strategically Important
-
Capture non-search engine traffic
- Many voters guess at the domain name of sites they want to visit
- Ballot measure campaigns typically use standard-format domains like YesOn2.com, VoteYesOn2.org, NoOnProp2.com, NoOnQuestion2.org, etc. Voters know this and will guess at these domain names first.
- Your campaign website can have multiple domain names pointing to it including your domain name from before you received your number/letter assignment.
-
Help prevent interference by your opposition
-
Opposition campaigns occasionally register domain names applicable to your campaign and either forward them to their website or, worse yet,
post a website pretending to be you, a spoof website.
It’s unethical but it happens. Here's an interesting
Time Magazine article on the subject.
- Acquiring these secondary ballot measure domain names not only helps prevent interference by your opposition but it enhances your ability to capture more voter non-search engine traffic.
