Regardless of your political views, it is hard to deny that newly elected President Donald Trump is a master marketer, if nothing else. During his campaign, he zeroed in on his target audience, reached them, and ultimately converted the opportunity into a successful presidential bid. And it doesn’t stop there—many media outlets have pointed out that he intends to use his public position to market the family brand. Perhaps some may find this inspiring–good marketing can lead to a limitless stream of possibilities. Others may be feeling concerned by the current climate of political instability, and wondering how a Trump presidency will affect the rules of SEO and legal marketing. After all, it seems to be affecting just about everything else in our lives.
SEO is a function of algorithms controlled by Google and other search providers. Search providers make changes and updates to their algorithms to stay competitive with other search providers and provide the best possible service for the users. They are not manipulated by government regulations. So in short, a Trump presidency should not affect the rules of the SEO game.
However, that doesn’t mean that firms can’t take advantage of the current political situation. “Newsjacking” is a legal marketing concept that borrows key words form topics that are dominating media coverage in an attempt to bring traffic to your website. If you can tie current events into “long-tail keyword variations,” you may be able to draw new traffic to your site.
Long tail variations are keyword variations that are similar in root or meaning to other high volume key words, but not as competitive. These are often used by new or smaller businesses that can’t afford to bid for top keywords. By including location-specific keywords in your long-tail variations, or niche practice area keywords, you could gain some traffic to your site. For example, “President Trump” and “Van Nuys personal injury lawyers.”
Another implication to consider is trademarking. Trump has been somewhat vocal about alleged trademark infringement of his family’s brand. For example, while campaigning for the presidency, he threatened STOPTRUMP.US with a lawsuit after becoming angered that they were attempting to sell T-shirts with anti-Trump slogans such as “Donald is Dumb,” “America Is Already Great,” and “Stop Trump.” Although critics pointed out that he had no real case, perhaps now that he is in office, he will take action to strengthen trademark protections. This could be meaningful for firms that utilize some sort of trademark in their marketing scheme.