7 SEO 2 Techniques Obama Used to Score on the Web
What is SEO 2? It’s not just about getting found via search engines!
It is a term that encompasses modern techniques of making a message heard online.
It’s also using any feasible way of reaching an audience by use of the Web.
Barack Obama was among the first politicians who uses the Web to popularize ideas!
Read how he actually did it and see the examples for yourself.
SEO 2 Techniques the Obama Campaign Employed
The whole blog here covers SEO 2 techniques. There are about 400 posts on it!
Thus let us just focus on the few techniques that were successfully used here.
Some of the typical SEO 2 techniques the Obama campaign employed were:
- business blogging
- social Media participation
- online reputation building (not solely management)
- video, especially viral video
- user experience (UX) focused website (instead of looking fancy)
- local SEO (optimization for Google Local/Maps etc.)
Indeed back in 2008 the Obama campaign exhibited inspiring ways of popularizing his message.
He was been far better at employing modern web technologies than the McCain campaign
McCain lagged behind on the Web and preferred more traditional ways of disseminating his message.
I already outlined this in my Obama vs McCain post.
The Web alone does not make you a President though.
We’ve seen the Republican candidate Ron Paul fail spectacularly despite dominating social sites like Reddit.
In spite or maybe even due to his overwhelming Web presence – especially on social news sites – Ron Paul was just a negligible candidate in the end.
Nonetheless Barack Obama is also hugely popular in real life.
We can see it based on the campaign funding from citizens and the large crowds that followed him everywhere.
Whereas the McCain campaign had to order school kids to fill in the ranks like they did in the former Soviet Union.
From a SEO and SEO 2 perspective you can’t help to admire Obama for his Internet campaign.
Thus I will outline the 7 SEO 2 techniques of the Obama campaign
Using them allowed Barack Obama to score with on the Web.
Ultimately he would become president of the US twice – in 2008 and again in 2012.
Pull vs Push
SEO 2 relies entirely on pull tactics that is attracting people’s attention to make them followers.
It’s similar to permission marketing as explained by Seth Godin or inbound marketing as introduced by Hubspot.
Conventional SEO 1.0 in contrast depends on push tactics to force people to see a message even if they don’t like it.
The Ron Paul campaign used especially obvious push tactics flooding social news sites like Reddit.
The Obama campaign relied on people subscribing themselves voluntarily on
- MySpace
Yet he also let people subscribe by mail on his own website.
The subscription form was in the center of the site and the calls to action were strong.
The McCain campaign did use social media as well but far less prominently and successfully.
They focused mostly on their own site.
Blogging
Obama’s blog has been far more lively than McCain’s.
As I already have written it has offered both better quality content and the number of blog posts is much higher.
On the other hand the blog has created some serious information overflow no single person can digest.
There were more than 20 posts on one day after the last debate!
This surge of activity will drive more search traffic though.
Viral video
One of the first things many people noticed on the Web in connection with Obama’s campaign was a viral video made but musicians and actors.
The video has a very positive empowering message and it has a quality on its own.
You can watch without being interested in politics.
It’s not just a “cool video” in case you like Obama already but it makes sense to watch it just for the music or the recognition of super stars.
Also it has much “beautiful people” value with appearances by famous actress Scarlett Johansson for instance.
The McCain campaign focused on their conventional video ads displaying them right away on their website.
This is probably the better solution for more conservative voters they aim at.
Social Networking
I mentioned MySpace, Facebook and Twitter above.
Yet the Obama campaign used far more social networks, especially “niche” social networking communities.
Obama appeared on sites where religious people, sexual or ethnic minorities or other groups convene online.
This can also backfire in some cases as examples show.
On Glee the first thing we saw on Obama’s profile was an anti-Obama ad.
A 3 days old post titled “Will you join Barack on Election Night?” got ignored.
It had also an embarrassing zero comments after all that time.
Also the number of “friends” on hispanic Batanga seems to be pretty low (177).
UX focused website
Business oriented web design is not artsy, fancy, flashy or decorative!
UX focused website design is based on your objectives.
The most important element of web design for ROI (Return on Investment) is not the homepage (which must look cool in conventional web design) it’s the forms.
Obama’s website greeted you with a form. A form that encouraged participation.
When you skipped the first form you encountered more forms like that on the main page and throughout the website.
Local SEO
While subscribing on Obama’s site they ask you where you live “Enter Your Zip Code” and then you get localized alerts.
This ensures that your online subscription does not make you an armchair activist but also has community relevance locally.
Mobile Marketing
Obama not only provided a text messaging subscription and a mobile phones website version (which seemed to be made in an outdated format though, WAP) he also offered an iPhone app.
The iPhone has been the single most popular smartphone to access the Web during the election.
Whether you supported Senator Obama or not you have to admit that his usage of web tools for his campaign has been outstanding
and far more advanced than of any campaign before. Many people won’t agree with the label SEO or SEO 2 to describe this phenomenon but that’s exactly what SEO 2 is about.
As Obama prevailed nobody will be ever able to ignore SEO 2 techniques to spread the word on the Web again.
More insights on the successful Obama campaign and SEO 2 elsewhere on the Web:
- It’s Not Just Words: The Importance of Empowering Your Audience
- Barack Obama & John Mccain: A 2008 Presidential Election Search and Social Marketing Analysis
- Propelled by Internet, Barack Obama Wins Presidency | WIRED
Updated: April 10th, 2018: added line breaks and white space for mobile users. Removed broken link. Simplified the sentence structure.
Updated: June 30th, 2015: Removed/fixed broken links, added white space.
Hi…
I’m looking forward to a bit of life change, not just USA, but universal change. I think Obama will help trigger that. He uses web 2 in a clever and effective fashion. It’s been a great e-marketing campaign, and we can learn a LOT from it.
Thanks for the pointers. :)
Martin
The internet is such a important such of information and daily life. That SEO should be a very top priority for all candidates. And I believe with Obama the fund raising is done through web 2.0 myspace, iphone apps, and the other above mentioned SEO 2.0 methods giving him a strong ability to raise lots of campaign money through the average website user.
Amazing what a quarter of a billion dollars can accomplish isn’t it? (Actually, I have no idea how much they spent, but I’m sure its up there, or higher.)
[…] πολύ ενδιαφέρων και το blog post του SEO blog για τις τεχνικές που ακολούθησε στο web ο νέος πρόεδρος […]
SEO 2.0 methods put to very good use and it paid off. Congratulations Mr Obama.
[…] 7 SEO 2.0 Methods Obama Used To Score On The Web by Tad Cef […]
I am right deep into the Internet marketing scene and the entire Obama campaign I felt was incredibly well put together. It wasn’t without it’s flaws but overall was a great campaign.
It really displays the power of web 2.0 in promoting literally anything (in this case obviously to get people voting for Obama).
Similar tactics can be used in the promotion of websites, products and services very effectively. All that is needed is the desire and know how to get the job done!
Congrats Obama on a great campaign!
Obama has a very good reputation both in online and real world. His reputation in real life was a good based to build his online reputation. I believe he is the right person in the right place and time.
And McCain doesn’t even use a computer!
Great post! This is what i like! There is unlimited potential when you use the internet for your cause.
@Vicky Adams: You must understand that McCain is of the older generation.All that he knows is the military stuff.But that should not be an excuse at all.Someone running for the biggest office in world politics should be able to learn some of these things in no time.
Yeah, I heard that gossip too. McCain doesn’t use computer. I cant imagine how someone can work without computer nowadays.
Another thing he tought us is money can make you visible everywhere.
I think Obama’a online campaign was a huge reason for him winning the elections (something Mcain almost completely overlooked).
He leveraged the internet and SEO to such a level in which his exposure would be much wider.
Obama has a great way to promote himself both online and offline. Great post.
There is no doubt that Obama used Web 2.0 to his advantage. He flat out beat McCain on marketing himself, using technology to what may have been a major and deciding factor.
I guess the end justifies the means. So SEO strategy of Obama proves to be effective than Mc Cain.
If the rumors are right Mr. Obama had some help from seo guru Jerry Booth, apparently he has Oprah as a client.
Samantha: With the help of the Internet. Most people in the US still watch TV instead, but the fund raising and community organizing was facilitated online.
So is safe to say that the 2008 elections were won on the internet??
Sorry but I don t understand the discussion whether he used web 2.0 or not. Thats his right to do that for his election at least it is legal.
It’s interesting that Ron Paul did the very same thing that Obama did in terms of trying to gain supporters through the Internet, and did very well with that. The problem was that Republican party basically abandoned him and went for McCain instead. I guess the Internet is a little bit too modern for them.
Congratulations Mr Obama and thanks for the SEO lesson. Great post.
The Internet campaigning of Barack Obama was nothing Like ever seen before,Actually It was the Largest Ic I’v ever seen,The website was receiving unbelievable amount of hits,It had a ranking of around 800.
He was on Fabebook and other communities.
It was unlike any thing.
[…] konusunda McCain’i çok gerilerde bıraktı. Obama grubunun neleri doğru yaptığına dair SEO Blog’da pek aydınlatıcı bir yazı yayınlamış, özetleyerek aktarmak istedim. itmeye karşılık çekme SEO 2.0 insanlara mesajınızı kendi […]
Hahha. McCain doesn’t even use a computer. TO some extent you can say that 2008 elections were won on internet.
On my.barackobama.com, everybody can create his own webpages. It may be useful to use it to build small websites with externals links because of the trustrank of this domains…
Haha, yeah, wasn’t he on twitter? I remember seeing his face all over the internet, even on IM’ers blogs.