Who do they think they're talking to? Political party website content reviewed

This blog post is a supporting post in a series examining the effectiveness of British political party websites – for a summary of the short study, and my conclusions, click here.

I ended my summary post with the question “how did the party websites become so universally dull?” It’s easy to leave a question floating, much more dangerous to attempt to answer it. Below, I lay out my thoughts not as a polished prescription, but as a conversation starter for the parties.

As we aproach a general election and I open a political party website, it can be a little like sitting next to a stranger on a long train journey. I might be lucky enough to find someone interesting and engaging, who is up for a stimulating conversation. If it goes really well, maybe we’ll exchange contact details, have a few drinks, and a beautiful friendship is born out of a chance encounter. Alternatively, I might get the latent drunk – peacefuly asleep until the very last minute, when he suddenly starts shouting meaningless babble over my head at no-one in particular.

Political party website content generally takes one of three forms. First is rolling news and comment – press releases, and web news stories. Second  is information on campaigns and policies. Finally, information on conferences, and things like resources for activists – content for the internal audience.

Given that there will be a heavy supporter bias in the visitors to any political party site, rolling news well done is an opportunity to keep activists and supporters engaged and motivated. A balance is required between news and comment on the issues of the day, and news and comment on the party itself. This latter group of content – information about the people in HQ, the process stories, candidate selections, has a significant, and I would argue growing,  pulling power. However, parties are too keen to push this news to infrequently produced paper newsletters, or to Home sites.

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Who do they think they're talking to? The political party websites reviewed

In the 2005 General Election the minor parties scored 6% of the vote in the Norwich North consistuency. After a febrile summer in Westminster politics their share of the vote rose to 28% in the recent by-election, and they could be ready to steal a march online too.

Over the past few weeks I have been studying the websites of the big British political parties. Generally ignoring their presence on social networking sites, or any microsites, I have examined the effectiveness of their core website – I wanted to know how serious each of the parties is about using their home on the ‘net to reach out to their key audiences. Political party websites receive relatively low levels of traffic, which is one of the reasons why the parties find it important to get out there on to the wider ‘net – if during your lunchbreak you quickly surf Facebook, perhaps a news website, or your email, you would probably never dream of including a political party in that list.

So the parties need to get out there and grab your attention wherever you are. Back at home however, the party’s own sites may get low traffic, but the visitors are generally high value. They include:

• The media
• Party activists / PPCs / staff / potential members of staff
• Existing and potential voters (including members and supporters)
• Political stakeholders (eg Electoral Commission)

These audiences are served through the provision of:

• Excellent content. Party narrative / messages (including rich media, eg video)
• Media releases and statements
• Means to join / support the party financially or through email
• A database of candidates (and local / regional parties, outside of election time)
• Policy information
• Means to contact / interact with the party

I used nine tests to examine how well the parties are serving their audiences, and these are the results…

The best political party website in Britain

Relative to the rest of the field, the Conservatives come out as the clear winner, nearly 20% ahead of their nearest competitor.  This is well deserved and no surprise, as it is by far the most fully resourced of the sites. Perhaps more surprising is that the nearest competitor is the BNP – and that the Labour party come bottom of the pile. The Liberal Democrats are beaten by both the BNP and UKIP.

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Who do they think they're talking to? How the results were calculated

Each site was scored 1 to 5 against nine different measures. The scoring and the choice of tests is subjective, but informed by my time running national web projects for the Liberal Democrats. I have tried to leave aside my personal political background, and approach the scoring as objectively as possible.

Not all of the measures were equal. After the scores had been weighted, the final score for each party was multiplied to give an overall percentage score for the party. The full results are available here.

The criteria for inclusion used the most recent election to inform the choice – any British political party which elected one or more MEPs to the European Parliament in June was included. In order to keep the scope of the project manageable, I have looked in each case at the ‘main’ cross-Britain party website, and not Welsh/English national sites.

The nine measures were:

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