When we form opinions today, we do so through a mix of impressions that did not previously exist. Where we once read editorials, consulted encyclopedias, and learned in school, we now increasingly gather our knowledge from entirely different online sources. This is something political parties need to take advantage of.
While we often think that social media and Wikipedia are the places where political opinions are formed, there is also a rising challenger. Our article from yesterday shows that undecided voters can be influenced by search results by 20% or more. If you have an advantage over your political opponents in the search results—where your articles, positions, and proposals rank higher—you can expect greater voter support.
Why political parties need SEO
SEO, Search Engine Optimization, is the work of making your website visible in search engines. This work is long-term and typically consists of four main components: analysis, technology, content, and authority. We won’t cover all of these today, but instead focus on how to move forward with creating content that works well for search engines. These elements can be addressed in any order, but some approaches are smoother than others. We will start with keyword research.
Keyword research for a political issue
To work in a more focused way, we assessed that the best first step is to select a single issue and start working with it. From there, you can move on to additional issues, one at a time, that are suitable for the website. In this case, we chose to look at environmental and climate-related topics, but any subject can serve as a starting point.
The first thing we did was to create a list of keyword suggestions based on what might be of interest within areas such as the environment, climate, meat production, emission rights, and so on. If it’s difficult to come up with ideas, we usually use tools like Keyword.io and Sistrix. After that, we ran the list through Google’s Keyword Planner to retrieve search volumes—how many people search per month. From there, we organized the keywords into reasonable clusters. We have not done a full analysis (that would generate too much data for an article like this) but rather focused on providing inspiration.
List of environmental keywords
Keywords (Searches per month)
climate (2400)
climate change (2900)
climate change in the world (40)
causes of climate change (140)
what is climate change (170)
causes of climate change (140)
carbon dioxide emissions (1600)
car carbon dioxide emissions (320)
what is carbon dioxide (260)
what can I do for the environment (90)
what can you do for the environment (40)
environment (2900)
environmental issues (390)
environmental goals (1600)
Sweden’s environmental goals (390)
environmental problems (590)
environmental problems in the world today (30)
environmental problems in Sweden (70)
environmental destruction in Sweden (20)
global environmental problems (30)
the environment in Sweden (70)
environmental issues in Sweden (40)
renewable energy (1000)
renewable energies (480)
renewable energy sources (590)
renewable energy source (90)
renewable electricity (50)
what is renewable energy (90)
the greenhouse effect (8100)
the greenhouse effect consequences (320)
greenhouse effect facts (140)
greenhouse gases (1900)
global warming (2400)
global warming (590)
emission allowances (720)
buy emission allowances (110)
emission allowance price (70)
how do nuclear power plants affect the environment (20)
nuclear power disadvantages (320)
nuclear power advantages (480)
meat environmental problems (10)
why is meat bad for the environment (140)
meat environmental impact (170)
meat production environment (140)
meat industry environment (140)
meat consumption environmental impact (70)
Use the list to create content
Once you have this list, you can choose to create content matched to the different keyword groups. Some of the keyword groups above can be covered in a single article, while others may require multiple articles with sub-articles. The bolded keywords are those we consider especially suitable and likely to be the main focus of an article.
Regardless of your stance on each issue, it is possible to produce content that works. If meat environmental impact feels far removed from your position, explain why. There is nothing that says you cannot write critically about something.
Each article will need to follow general search engine guidelines to be easily understood by search engines—this is one of the cornerstones of SEO. To ensure clarity, the keyword you want to rank for should appear in:
- Title (a tag in the page header, shown at the top of browser tabs)
- H1 (the page’s main headline, marked in HTML as H1—the largest and first heading on the page)
- Body text (the word or phrase needs to appear in the running text of the page)
The page must also be accessible through the site’s navigation. It should be possible to click through to it from the homepage.
Take this list and get started
It really isn’t much harder than this to get started with building for search engines. Beyond this, there are many additional measures and strategic decisions required to become the best, but this is a solid foundation.
If you start today and create articles that belong to these keyword groups, you will attract more and more searchers. Once you’ve completed this list, move on to the next topic, and before long you’ll have the most complete website from a search engine perspective.
If you want to dive deeper into the subject, we recommend our SEO School. Of course, we can also help you if you feel you need professional assistance—an email to info@brath.se or a call to +46 20 10 00 08 is a great place to start.
