The 2020 presidential election was an absolute rollercoaster. There were insults, attacks, the pandemic, and plenty of chest-beating brinksmanship. Russia did its best to influence proceedings, and the standing president appeared to lose his grip on sanity more and more as the days went by. We took an unexpected trip to Four Seasons Total Landscaping. It was a ball; it really was. From the nomination of candidates to the final days of the race, the internet was more important than ever before for candidates during this election cycle. This article zooms in on the Democratic candidacy and showcases some of the best and worst Democratic candidate websites of 2020.
The Worst
Let’s get the awful websites over with first.
Steve Bullock
Montana governor Steve Bullock never really had a serious chance of becoming the Democratic presidential candidate: and his website reflects that. It scored very low on a number of important SEO ranking factors and received the least organic traffic of any candidate website as a result.
John Hickenlooper
Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper didn’t fare much better than Steve Bullock. His website scores poorly in a number of areas. Its sloth and poor mobile compatibility are particularly damaging factors.
Tim Ryan
Ohio Representative Tim Ryan’s site was built using WordPress, but the usually SEO-friendly Content Management System has been somewhat abused by Ryan’s web designers. The site loads extremely slowly and ranks very poorly in domain authority. He could have benefitted from hiring a company competent in WordPress maintenance and SEO optimization, which would have implemented some sweeping changes.
The Best
Now for something completely different; some good candidate websites.
Andrew Yang
Andrew Yang didn’t do too well at the polls, but his website was top-notch. The Entrepreneurial candidate’s website scored extremely well when it came to incorporating organic keywords, fitting in over 20,000 SEO-friendly examples.
Elizabeth Warren
The Massachusetts senator was an ‘almost’ candidate in 2020. Her website was rather good. It received 1.3 million unique visitors, loaded quickly, and was very SEO friendly. Warren’s message was clear, and the design of the site was unobtrusive and intuitive.
Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders might be a rather old fellow, but his message appealed directly to America’s disenfranchised youth. His website felt just as youthful and spritely as his supporter base. It had almost 1 million backlinks from over 11 thousand domains, which is a very important ranking factor. Sanders’ socially leaning message and policy points were on clear display throughout the site – leaving visitors absolutely sure of what he stood for. His site had the most unique visitors of any candidate, with 1.4 million people visiting. Sanders did not receive the presidential candidacy, but his successes will likely inspire other left-leaning political candidates.
You might have noticed that this article does not mention the winner of the Democratic presidential candidacy – and indeed the election – Joe Biden. His website was decidedly average and was rather confused in its messaging.
