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The US presidential election is coming soon and the candidates are fighting for votes for several months now.
Today I want to dissect the various reasons why Barack Obama is outperforming John McCain on the Web, especially in terms of visitors or in other words people viewing and using his website.
The SEO 2.0 blog deals with business and not politics so I will refrain from speaking out on behalf of one candidate. Those who know me do not have to be told anyways whom I support.
So what are the 7 reasons why Obama’s website has many more visitors than McCain’s? The first 3 reasons are due to demographics, the 4 ensuing are based on merit and strategy.
Note that this article is based on data provided by Compete.com a search analytics service that checks US traffic stats.
#1 Young vs Old
Obama is much younger and besides this simple fact he is targeting the younger population. On the Web the younger generations are still the most active ones. Although many people in their fifties and even sixties embrace the Web not those of Mr. McCains age (above 70).
#2 Urban vs Rural
Obama supporters are mostly better educated urban citizens, many college students but also racial minorities obviously. Two of the 3 groups are quite web-savvy or working on the web anyways. While the African American and Hispanic population catches up it still is disadvantaged due the poverty and/or language barriers.
McCain supporters are often highly religious people, farmers and people from rural or suburban areas. At least the first 2 groups are not that often on the Web due to their healthier lifestyle and physical work. Affluent suburban families are more prone to be heavy users of the Web. All in all the Obama audience outweighs McCain supporters on the Web though.
#3 New vs Old Media
McCain supporters are naturally more conservative than Obama followers so they tend to read or use more traditional media like newspapers and TV. On the other hand Obama is very strong in the new media sphere, especially blogs, social media and social networking platforms.
#4 Community vs Content
Obama relies on user participation while the McCain website focuses on consumption of information. The first thing you’ll notice when you visit barackobama.com is a form to join. Johnmccain.com offers a video instead. While Mr. McCain catches the attention quickly with moving images Mr. Obama concentrates on user retention. You might be pretty satisfied with a one-time visit on the McCain site while you will be drawn in to be part of the community effort at the Obama site.
#5 Social Media
The Obama website is a hub connecting several platforms where his staff is actively rallying. They are very active on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter etc. and make people visit the homepage by sending updates. There is a whole list of social sites collected in the right bottom corner called “Obama everywhere”. The McCain campaign does the contrary, it encourages readers to print material and share it with friends. John McCain is also on MySpace and Facebook but you won’t find a Twitter account of him in the Google.com Top 30.
#6 Blogging
The Obama blog just published a whopping 21 posts on October 16th while the McCain blog hasn’t posted a single one yet. Also it sports only one or two posts per day usually. Moreover while the Obama team is offering real content on the blog, the McCain team links out to “news releases”.
#7 News vs Beliefs
While Senator Obama offers real news, ideas and opinions we don’t know yet senator McCain concentrates on beliefs. Obama says things people don’t know yet while McCain says what is already expected of him. Obama will outline change. What to change and how to change it (plan to end war in Iraq, tax cuts for the poor and middle class paid by the higher taxes of the hyper-rich, boosting economy by assisting those in need, universal health care). McCain repeats what we already know (we need more oil thus more drilling, God is great and the bible very important, he was a POW and served his country, tax cuts for the rich for trickle down effect, war will go on as long as it needs).
Of course the sheer traffic of his website does not make Barack Obama a winner but it’s interesting to see from a SEO 2.0 perspective how Obama uses social media, blogging and other tools to it’s full effect while John McCain focuses on old media and traditional word of mouth tactics.
This thing has 13 Comments
This is true.I agree so much on the New vs Old Media. Interesting post. I enjoyed reading it.
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I had to remove your signature.
I agree with you on all points except one:
When visiting a politician’s website, I’d rather be presented with a video than a form (if those are the only two options).
I don’t like to fill out forms because I know I’ll get emails. I get enough emails as is. So, while Obama’s form is indicative of “consumption of information,” whereas McCain’s video is a form of “user participation,” as one can socially bookmark that video, email friends about it, etc.
I wonder if McCain has been to his own website. While I’m sure Obama doesn’t oversee his website, I’m sure he’s been there to a time or two.
I’ve been to both of their sites. While I understand that most of McCain supporters are fans of print/news/radio media, I think he would outreach to the web more. It’s not like it’s a newfangled invention. I had an email address for over a decade.
Great post. I saw an advert on one of my games for Obama, that is some serious new age thinking. Obama has a better new age marketing team.
I think the single most important reason is that the demographic is favoring Obama. Youngsters, especially web-savvy ones, are going for Obama (yay!).
Also, Obama seems to have hired a very good team to ensure his web presence - they are embracing social media and other web trends very well.
I’d written a post about similar observations too - Obama’s Digg/Twitter accounts are very active, whereas McCain’s accounts aren’t.
Well, it only makes sense that Obama has much higher visitor rates than McCain because he is ahead in the campaigns. The Obama campaign is getting much better sponsors and more support of the people, which equals more visitors. Also, Obama would be the first black president, and so this makes it more interesting for people to visit his campaigns and news.
Very insightful. I really like how Obama updates the blog so often and allow people to participate so easily. Didn’t see it that way before, but the Obama website is a great SEO success story.
G Web is right Obama’s got a better new media marketing team: it just happens to include Facebook founder Chris Hughes. (see http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/technology/07hughes.html)
I couldn’t agree more with this and I think it’s an obvious indication about how well Obama has handled his campaign. His taken full advantage of social networking sites, e-mail registries and text messaging to stay in close contact with this constituents. It’s a whole new way to stump to the masses.
I’ve just been to both sites and I’m not sure there is all that much difference in the general content of the sites. I do appreciate the value of the opt-in if your going to try to build a grass roots organization. And Obama does seem to be better at social methods of campaigning. We’ll have to wait and see if it works.
Do you think it was planned rather than a coincidence with regards to blog posts and social media. In a way it shows who McCain was targeting.
Here is what I read and agree relating with this topic:
Obama’s site links to mainstream media news stories about his candidacy more frequently than does McCain’s, which tends to bypass the mainstream media and link in its “news” section instead to campaign-generated press releases. That has ebbed somewhat recently, as the site has begun linking to news stories about Palin.