With Internet users making a snap decision about the quality of a web page, a nice design is critical for making a positive impression. The first part of a website that a visitor will see is the site header. Below are the most common features of successful header images.

Candidate Photo: This is the most common feature in a campaign site header. Must be the nature of candidates, but we’ve never encountered one who did not want thier photo front and center. The best shots to work with are those with the subject in front of a solid color. This makes it much easier to crop and edit the image.

Colors and Fonts: The colors of the header (and website) should be consistent with the color scheme of any other campaign material to be used. Be sure the main logo or name matches other materials, as well. Consistency builds familiarity.

Location: This one gets missed sometimes, particularly the location. It’s great that the site is about ‘Smith for Mayor’, but mayor of where? Never assume a visitor knows where you are located. Your muncipality should be in the header. For SEO purposes, you should include both the municipality and state somewhere in the body text.

Slogan or Quote: This is optional, but if you have great campaign slogan, why hide it?

Landmarks: Readily identifiable natural or man-made landmarks make a great addition to a header, particularly as a background.

The header size, particularly its height, can vary from site to site. When we started creating Online Candidate websites, most of our headers were quite narrow. Today we tend to make them taller, and the candidate head shot now usually includes the shoulders and chest. Part of this is simply a style change in general, and also the fact that the average monitor size is larger than it was a few years ago, allowing for more area to appear ‘above the fold’.

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