Don't make a vendor decision solely on the appearance of their website and portfolio. Do your due diligence. Talk to current and former customers. Ask questions of the vendor. Use these sample questions when interviewing the person or website development company who will be building and / or maintaining your political campaign website.

• What is your / your firm's background?
• How long has your company been in operation?
• What additional services does your firm offer?
• How would you describe your preferred client?
• How big is your company? Will work be done locally? Do you outsource?
• Who will be working on the site initially? Between now and election day? Can we meet with that person(s)?
• What experience do you have building political campaign websites? What have been some of your favorites? Why?
• Are you working or expect to work on any other campaign websites? Which ones?
• What technology would be used to run the site? What is the content management system (CMS)?
• Would you recommend that we have a secure area or separate site for campaign staff? For supporters?
• Can you describe your company's project management process?
• How do you communicate with clients? Email? In person? By phone? Text? Video conference?
• What kind of measures do you take to ensure the security of sites? How do you keep code up-to-date?
• How do you notify clients of potential outages? Actual outages? Site maintenance?
• How frequently do you perform back-ups? What steps do you take to ensure they work?
• If the site were to go down, how long would it take to restore?
• Will the site be hosted in the United States? Where will data be stored? What data privacy and security policies do you have?
• What will campaign staff be able to update / change on the site?
• How quickly can you turn around change requests / updates?
• Do you provide any kind of training? Tech support?
• Would we have support 24 / 7? During business working hours?
• How do you work with clients after a site has been built? What is the process for changes or additions?
• What is your approach to search engine optimization (SEO)?
• How do you ensure a site is ready before it goes live?
• How do you ensure that a site is usable across multiple devices?
• What services do you offer to ensure that the site is accessible to those using screen readers or other assistive technologies?
• Would the campaign or would your firm own code written for the site? What about the design? Graphics?
• How will passwords be stored and maintained through the course of the campaign? After the campaign?
• Do you handle domain purchases and renewals?
• Is email included?
• Given the high level parameters we've discussed, what would be a ballpark budget?
• What kinds of ongoing fees should we expect? How much should the campaign budget per month?
• Before the project starts, what will you need from me or my campaign? Over the course of the project, what will be expected from me in terms of time? Resources / materials?
• Can you share 3 - 5 references?

Additional considerations:

• How well are you and members of your campaign able to connect with the vendor? Do you understand what they have to say or is it overly technical?
• What is the vendor's overall demeanor / vibe?
• What does the vendor share on their blog, social media, and in their newsletter?
• Campaign contributions are vital to the financial health of a campaign. If using a third-party service, ask how it would be integrated into the site. If a separate campaign donation service is not used, find out about what they plan to build, how money would be processed, processing fees, and reporting. Read ElectionSeason.co's political campaign donation guide for more on possible approaches.
• Ask questions about third party tools that the campaign will be using and integration with the site. One place to start is with mailing list service providers. It will be important for the campaign to collect email addresses from interested site visitors.
• What are the campaign's plans in regards to collecting volunteer information? Will that be done via a third party service or Google doc? What kinds of website integration needs exist?

In need of a place to start? Use this list of companies who have built sites for other political campaigns.

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