Baklon in Production: Building a Calm Campaign Site Workflow

I rebuilt our campaign site because the old one behaved like a poster, not a system. It looked active, but it didn’t stay coherent when real work started: volunteers adding updates, the team pushing announcements, and supporters trying to find basic “what happens next” information. I moved the rebuild onto Baklon – Election Political WordPress Theme as a baseline, not because I wanted a more dramatic design, but because I needed a structure that could absorb frequent changes without turning into a cluttered timeline.

This is not a theme review and it’s not a marketing write-up. I’m documenting what I did as the person who has to operate the website under pressure: how I defined page roles, how I reduced navigation chaos, what I changed after launch, and what I watch week to week so the site stays stable.

The core pain: time-sensitive content drift

Campaign sites fail quietly. You don’t always see a “broken” page. Instead, you get drift:

• The same event is described differently on two pages.

• A volunteer posts an “announcement” as a blog post, and it ends up competing with the real schedule.

• The homepage accumulates blocks until nobody knows what to update.

• Visitors land deep from social, can’t find context, and bounce.

• Returning supporters want “what’s new this week” but have to scan everything.

The operational cost is real: staff spend time answering questions the site should answer, and volunteers lose confidence because they’re not sure where to publish things.

So I framed the rebuild around one goal: reduce the cost of small updates by making content roles obvious and repeatable.

My constraints before I touched layout

I wrote a short constraint list to keep myself honest:

1. Make “what’s happening now” easy to find
   Visitors should not hunt for dates, locations, and next steps.

2. Separate page roles
   News updates are not events. Events are not long-form posts. Donation/volunteer actions are not announcements.

3. Create predictable templates
   Volunteers need a consistent structure so edits don’t break the site’s logic.

4. Keep tone calm and factual
   No exaggerated language. No hype phrases. More “process” than “pitch.”

5. Mobile-first clarity
   People check campaign info on phones quickly; pages must be scannable.

6. Maintenance routine matters
   Updates should be boring; if updates are scary, the site is too fragile.

Everything I shipped needed to satisfy at least one of those constraints.

Why Baklon worked as my baseline

I didn’t want a site that looks like it’s shouting. I wanted a site that behaves like a routing layer: clear paths for supporters, volunteers, press, and undecided visitors who just need context. Baklon gave me a usable starting skeleton for a campaign-shaped site: sections that can be mapped to real workflows, and layouts that don’t force everything into “latest posts.”

But I treated Baklon as a starting point, not an answer. The real work was enforcing structure rules.

The page grammar I enforced

I define “page grammar” as the order and role of content blocks. It’s how you prevent chaos when multiple people edit.

The visitor modes I designed for

Campaign visitors are not one audience. I simplified them into four modes:

1. Supporter mode: wants next steps (events, volunteer, donate, share)

2. New visitor mode: wants a quick understanding of what this campaign is about

3. Returning visitor mode: wants “what changed since last time”

4. Press/partner mode: wants facts, contact, and official assets quickly

The old site tried to satisfy all modes on every page. That creates noise. In the rebuild, each page had a primary mode.

Homepage grammar: router, not billboard

I made the homepage do one job: route visitors.

My homepage structure became:

• A short “current focus” line (one sentence, calm)

• A “This week” block (events + key actions)

• A “How to help” block (volunteer / donate / share paths)

• A “Get context” block (about / priorities / FAQs)

• A “Contact” block (press + general contact paths)

I avoided turning the homepage into a feed. Feeds feel active, but they’re hostile to decision-making. They also become messy fast when people publish frequently.

Events grammar: one canonical home for dates

Events are where drift hurts most. If you mention event details in three places, you will eventually contradict yourself.

So I made a rule: event time/location lives in one canonical event entry. Other pages can refer to the event, but they shouldn’t restate details unless absolutely necessary.

This prevents the “two truths” problem (supporters showing up at the wrong time because the homepage says one thing and the events page says another).

Updates grammar: short, scoped, and expiring

Campaign updates can become a dumping ground. The site starts to look like a chat log.

I used a simple discipline:

• updates are short

• updates have a time scope (today / this week / next week)

• outdated updates are removed or archived

This isn’t about tidiness. It’s about trust: stale updates make a campaign look inactive.

About / priorities grammar: stable, evergreen

Evergreen pages should remain evergreen. I stopped mixing weekly updates into evergreen pages. People rely on these pages to get oriented; if they’re filled with last month’s announcements, they stop being useful.

So I kept:

• “About”

• “Priorities”

• “FAQ”

• “Contact”
  as stable, carefully edited pages.

Everything time-sensitive went to events/updates.

Volunteer editing rules I enforced

Campaign websites often involve multiple editors. That’s where good structure either saves you or fails you.

I created internal rules (not public rules):

• Don’t publish an event as a post.

• Don’t put dates in three places.

• Don’t add new homepage sections “just once.”

• Keep headings consistent.

• If you’re not sure where something goes, put it in Updates and label it with a time scope.

This reduced accidental chaos more than any design decision.

The mistakes I corrected (because they are extremely common)

Mistake 1: navigation as a dumping ground

Old navigation had too many items. Every new program, every new page, every flyer became a menu item. That makes the site feel disorganized and makes visitors hesitate.

I kept top navigation as a decision tree:

• Events

• Get Involved

• Priorities / About

• Updates

• Contact

Everything else lives inside those pages.

Mistake 2: too many competing CTAs

If every block has a different “act now” message, visitors stop trusting the site. It feels like pressure rather than guidance.

I reduced CTAs and kept wording consistent. Predictability matters.

Mistake 3: treating mobile as an afterthought

Campaign traffic skews mobile-heavy. Long paragraphs become walls.

I enforced shorter sections, clear headings, and “first-line clarity” (the first line of each section tells you why it exists).

Post-launch adjustments: what real usage revealed

After launch, I made a few changes that mattered more than visual tweaks.

Adjustment A: people wanted “what’s next” earlier

Even when the site looked clean, some visitors still scrolled looking for the next step. I moved the “This week” and “How to help” blocks higher and made them more compact.

Less text, clearer routing.

Adjustment B: updates needed a single weekly anchor

When updates were posted frequently, people couldn’t tell what was important. I consolidated into a weekly “anchor update” that summarized key points and linked internally (without duplicating dates or details).

This made the site feel calmer and more intentional.

Adjustment C: volunteer edits needed guardrails

I noticed small drift patterns: slightly different headings, inconsistent summary lengths. I responded by tightening templates and reducing “freedom” where it caused confusion.

A campaign site should be easy to publish on, but not so flexible that it loses coherence.

What I monitor week to week

I don’t need complex dashboards to know if the site is healthy. I watch simple signals.

1) Are people asking basic questions repeatedly?

If staff still get repeated messages like “Where do I find events?” or “How do I volunteer?”, the site isn’t routing well.

The fix is usually:

• placement

• headings

• fewer choices
  not more content.

2) Do supporters reach events but miss details?

If yes, it usually means event pages aren’t scannable. I check:

• is time/location visible without scrolling?

• is there one clear next step?

• is there any contradictory info elsewhere?

3) Can returning visitors move faster?

Returning visitors should be able to see “what changed” quickly. If they keep wandering, your structure isn’t memorable.

That’s a structure problem, not a copy problem.

Light technical thinking: stability under pressure

Campaign sites often break because they chase flashy effects or pile on scripts. Under frequent edits, fragile layouts crack.

I kept the build conservative:

• predictable layout blocks

• minimal decorative scripts

• consistent image sizing (less layout shift)

• centralized styles (fewer one-off fixes)

Operationally, I keep updates routine:

• update during quiet windows

• check homepage, events, and contact

• mobile spot-check

• verify nothing time-sensitive disappeared

A campaign site is successful when updates feel boring.

A workflow note: keeping a stable theme shelf

Because I manage multiple builds and want consistent reference points, I keep a catalog shelf bookmarked. I use the hub under WooCommerce Themes as an internal reference point to standardize theme choices and avoid wasting time searching (not as part of the visitor-facing journey).

Closing: the goal was calm structure, not louder messaging

Campaign sites don’t stay credible because they look intense. They stay credible because they remain coherent through frequent updates. The people running the campaign need a site that is easy to maintain; supporters need a site that is easy to navigate; new visitors need a site that is easy to understand quickly.

Using Baklon as a baseline, I focused on:

• separating events, updates, and evergreen pages

• reducing navigation clutter

• making “this week” and “next steps” easy to find

• tightening volunteer editing patterns

• keeping updates routine and safe

I measure success by whether the site stays clear after dozens of small edits—and whether fewer people hesitate because they can find what they need without friction.