Interesting if brief story about the way the presidential campaigns are using search engine marketing in the New York Times today. Their conclusion:
Noah Elkin, vice president for corporate strategy at iCrossing, an Internet marketing firm that studied the campaigns’ search-engine visibility in May, said Mr. McCain’s strategy was the most effective: focusing on issue-related keywords. “He was appearing around terms that people were searching ” based on iCrossing’s analysis, Mr. Elkin said.
A search last weekend (results can vary by the time or day) suggests the candidates are tweaking their strategies. Of the Democrats, Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut apparently bid on “war in Iraq,” while John Edwards and Senator Barack Obama of Illinois appeared to have dropped it. Among Republicans, Mr. McCain’s Web site came up in searches of “Abu Ghraib,” “earmarks” and “bipartisan.” Mitt Romney had “social conservative,” “universal health care” and “energy independence.” Representative Ron Paul of Texas joined Messrs. Romney and McCain on the “war on terror” list.
Elections always have meant windfalls for local media companies; looks like this time out the right search terms might do pretty well too!