Ah February, the month of love! With Valentine’s Day around the corner, I thought it would be interesting to write up a post about love. As a blogger, you hope that all readers will fall in love with your blog and keep coming back for more. However, in order for this to happen it is important that you reciprocate the feeling! It is time to learn how to show your readers some love this V-day!

#1: Always give back. For all those loyal followers and readers, give something back. Perhaps you hold a contest or give away prizes. Whatever you do, a reward will be greatly appreciated and have readers coming back for more.

#2: Comment your way into their heart. If you have readers who write on their own blogs, be sure to read and comment on theirs, too. There is nothing better than two bloggers supporting each other back and forth.

#3: Do not be afraid to get personal. Posts that are geared towards your products and niches are great, but it never hurts to get a little personal. Post about an experience or even a general topic that has been on your mind. This way, you will come off as more human!

#4: Recognize your readers. If you have a few loyal readers who will comment every once in a while, give them a quick shout out! You can do this on Twitter or even Facebook. They are sure to appreciate the recognition!

#5: Ask a reader to guest post. Sure, it is your blog but it does not hurt to have another voice every once in a while! Find a loyal reader and ask if they are interested in writing a guest post. This will not only build on your relationship but show readers that the blog is about them just as much as it is about your company and services.

With these few techniques, you will be able to build stronger relationships with those who check out your blog on the daily- not to mention generate more comments! It is so important that you continue to work on your insurance marketing strategies. If not, your blog will fall behind and soon be forgotten- and no one likes to be forgotten on Valentine’s Day!

As an insurance agent, it is a constant goal to attract and keep your customers. Having reliable products is one factor in being able to provide great services. However, one crucial component to reaching success may not be as obvious as you think. With social media on the rise, it is important to create quality content that not only engages customers, but encourages them to share.

According to Top Rank, a recent study by Exact Target found that 55% of Facebook users have “liked” a company and then later, decided they no longer wanted to see that company’s post. You don’t want this to happen on your social media outlets. Therefore, you must do everything you can to keep customers reading with relevant posts and provide content that can be easily shared. The following are tips on how to do so:

Tip #1 – Know Who You’re Talking To & Provide Relevant Information

A review of your social media accounts can help determine who your current followers are, what they tend to share information about, and the format in which they use to share socially. Once you see what your audience is sharing and “liking”, you can attract their attention by producing relevant content. In addition, by promoting your agency through contests, giving helpful information, and providing tips on safety, this will help increase your visibility.

Tip #2 – Think Outside The Marketing Box

In order to increase social shares, you need to place focus on your insurance social networking strategy. This can be done by updating your Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin around 1-3 times a day, but remembering to keep your content fresh and interesting. In addition, you can search for followers that you believe will be interested in your services. By building up your community, you can watch your agency grow in social success.

Tip #3 – Love Lists

Twitter lists are a great way to segment different types of followers, or recognize them as an expert in a particular field. By making the additional effort to organize your audience, share relevant content, and making information easy for others to share, you can see the benefits of your strategy in the numbers.

Once you develop an engaged audience, this will allow you to become a community leader on your social outlets. Consider social sharing a way to gain additional prospective clients, contributors, or employees that could inspire the growth of your business!

It’s a question that I am often asked by my clients who are looking to launch their digital marketing strategy: should they focus on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or Pay-Per-Click (SEM, PPC)?

Too many people are under the impression that their online marketing presence should be guided by one strategy or the other.  I’m here to tell you that the most effective digital marketing strategies take a blended approach, using components of both tactics.

SEO and SEM strategies are complementary ways of achieving the same goal: prominent inclusion in search engine results that lead to traffic to your website.  However, while each is effective and critical tools in your digital marketing arsenal, they each have unique principles that can help you reach your objectives.  Let’s take a look.

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the tactic of using your site’s content, linking structure, blog posts, and social media exposure (amongst other things) to help you rank organically in search engine results. Search engines take all of these cues into consideration when deciding where to rank your site in their results for a particular keyword, like “auto insurance in Rhode Island”. SEO is the critical foundation to your website’s visibility in search engine results. The things that you do to optimize your online content and relationships will have a long-lasting effect on your rankings in search engines.  However, those effects, while critically important, might take a long time to take hold in the search results.  Google indexes your content at its own pace, and the general rule of thumb that search engine marketers go by is that it can take between six and nine months before you begin to realize the results of your on-site optimization.

On the other hand, SEM has more of an immediate impact. Once you build a campaign that targets your specific keyword set, and you set that campaign live, you are eligible to see an instant impact on your traffic and visibility in search engines.  While inclusion in organic search results are merit based, your SEM campaign can force Google (or any other search engine) to place you within the top results of some competitive keywords.  With that newfound visibility, your website is bound to see traffic increase.  That’s what the pay-per-click model does for marketers.   However, the effects of your SEM campaign are not as long lasting as your SEO strategy – that is, unless you have an unlimited marketing budget.  You see, your site is guaranteed inclusion in search engine results for only as long as your campaign is funded.  As soon as your campaign has generated enough clicks to exhaust your budget, your traffic will stop.  The great thing about SEM is that it is a guaranteed source of traffic – if people aren’t clicking on your ad and visiting your site, you don’t pay a cent!

Now that we’ve reviewed the different characteristics of SEO and SEM strategies, it is important to note how they work together.  In fact, our best e-agencies have told us that the best performing digital marketing strategy leverages both SEM and SEO in tandem.  This blended strategy has helped them appeal to a broad and comprehensive audience, and has resulted in their website being a more prominent piece of customer acquisition.

Here are three reasons why you should have SEO and SEM as part of your site’s digital marketing strategy:

These are just three reasons for you use SEO and SEM in a blended strategy.  Doing so will give you a well-rounded digital marketing presence, and likely drive enhanced search engine traffic as a result. Stay tuned to this space for more reasons why you should focus on a blended approach to digital marketing.

Happy New Year to all! Have you been keeping up with your New Year resolutions? While some of you are planning to lose weight and be more active, others have vowed to work on their insurance marketing efforts. In order to step up your game, you must continue to blog on your site, bookmark your posts, and keep up with your social media strategy. We understand that it may be hard to keep up with these efforts, but trust us- the end result is worth it!

In order to keep up with these efforts, I have put together a list of strategies and tips in order to make the most of your efforts.

Blogging:

-If possible, make sure you have a blog post up every single week. If you can get two or three up, even better!

-Make sure you include keywords in your content with the correct link attached. Choose keywords with high search volume and low competition.

-For the New Year, test out a few different blogging strategies. Try posting in a list form one day and then paragraph form the next- see which blog receives better feedback and has more shares! Pinpoint the best strategy for 2012.

-Do not be afraid to add some humor or pop culture references to your posts. The more interesting, the more shareable, the more memorable!

-In order to have your blog be seen by others, bookmark! Choose bookmarking sites such as Delicious, StumbleUpon, Digg and Reddit in order to share your posts with the public. It doesn’t hurt to share on your social media accounts, too!

Social Media:

-Set aside 10 minutes every day to look through local business pages on Facebook and accounts on Twitter. Follow those who you hope to connect with!

-Be a real person. It is important that you do not only spit out links all day. Throw up a few personal tweets and status updates to engage your followers

-Tweet and post at least 3-5 times a day. One post will not cut it- you will be lost in your followers’ twitterfeeds/newsfeeds!

-Motivational quotes, fun facts, and other random posts are always appreciated by your followers and tend to be the most retweeted/liked!

-Have you been shy on your social account? Reach out to your fans and followers this year!

Start 2012 off the right way! By sticking to your resolution, you will not only feel accomplished, but are sure to see results. Good luck!

As an insurance agency in a digital world, there has now become an increasing need to understand your customers. However, this applies not only to face to face meetings, but through social media outlets as well. Therefore, in order to relate to your customers, you need to know how to communicate with them on a variety of levels.

According to SocialMediaToday, you should never be too busy to spend time getting to know each of your customers. A couple years ago, socializing with customers was taboo to some. However, now a days, one of the few ways to understand your customers is socializing with them, specifically through social media. A key factor in learning to do this is through having social media literacy.

By interacting with your clients in their own language, this will make them happy and feel like they have a personal relationship to your business. In addition, to continue to strengthen your social networking strategy, the following are 4 steps you can take to boost your social media literacy:

With a new year comes new learning experiences and changes. Therefore, take action with your insurance social networking strategy and build on your social media literacy. Once you grasp this concept, you can leverage that knowledge to build your business to bring it down a successful path!

In the old days, small business owners had limited avenues in which to spread awareness for their companies. Whether it was radio or print advertising, the platforms available for getting a message across were few and far between. Needless to say, advertising has come a long way for local businesses. Before, only the big boys could afford mega advertising campaigns in national magazines, newspapers, and television. But now, with the internet leaving everything else in its wake, anyone can bring attention to their business for relatively little money. Currently, if you don’t have a website you’re considered to be behind. If you’re not taking advantage of Facebook and Twitter, you’re deemed old fashioned. Additionally, if your business isn’t putting its name up on Google Places or Yahoo! Local, you need to begin to soon! Local listings pages are an easy and inexpensive way to bring customers to your website. So what are local listings pages, anyway?

Local listings, or “local search,” are pages created on specialized search engines that allow users to submit geographically constrained searches against a database of local business listings. A local listings search will normally include the “what,” such as restaurant, hotel, etc., but also the “where,” such as city name, address, or postal code. For instance, if someone is looking for insurance in Warwick, R.I., they’d search terms like “insurance in Warwick” or “cheap insurance Warwick.” Your goal as an agency is to optimize your page so it shows up in search results for users in your region.

A standard local listings page will include three important components: location, business description, and customer reviews. The two most popular platforms, Google places and Yahoo! Local, provide a map in addition to your business address. It goes without saying, but it’s important to have your address exactly as you need it to appear. If you ever change locations, always remember to update your address and any other information such as phone and fax numbers.

Your business description can be as standard or creative as you want. A good rule of thumb is to always include your agency name as well as a few examples of services you provide. Keep it short, but always make sure it is longer than one sentence and at least two.

The customer reviews section can make or break a page. A listing with customer reviews will make your page look more legitimate because users will see that customers have come to you for help and have been influenced enough by your business to share their thoughts on the web. Also, the more reviews you have, the better traction you will receive.

Additional information you can include, depending on the platform, can be business hours, payment methods, keywords, and even a photo.

Remember, the days of print, radio, and local TV advertising are long gone. While you can still use these to advertise your agency, the internet, especially local search, is a platform you need to take advantage of.

Aside from Yahoo! And Google, feel free to check out these platforms as well:

Merchant Circle

City Search

Insider Pages

Yelp

It’s that time again – a time when we are reminded to be thankful for what we have, and look forward to things (and gifts!) yet to come.  Most people, this time of year, are asking for jewelry, clothes or video games to satisfy themselves this holiday season.  But you, the savvy marketer, know better than that.  What you want, what you REALLY want, is an optimized and profitable SEM campaign.  This blog post is here to give you some hints as to what you should be asking for from your successful SEM campaign.  If you’ve been on digital marketing’s “Nice” list, your campaign might demonstrate some of these characteristics.

Wish #1: A high conversion percentage (conversions/clicks)

Too many marketers focus on click through rate (CTR, clicks/impressions), when the more important metric is conversion percentage.  With pay-per-click advertising, maximizing your visits is the key to a successful campaign.  After all, the campaign that produces 100 clicks but no conversions is a very expensive branding effort, but the campaign that produces 1 click and 1 conversion provides a positive ROI.

Do these two things to maximize impact of your paid search traffic:

Detailed ad copy should not only persuade search engine users to click on your ad, it should also dissuade unqualified visitors from clicking.  If a user is looking for a red widget, but you only sell blue widgets, detailed ad copy will be attractive to blue widget seekers who are hit with a targeted advertisement, and red widget buyers will be directed away from your ad before they waste your money with a click on your PPC ad.

A landing page, for paid search campaigns, should focus on your conversion point.  Don’t waste space (and your visitor’s attention span) with too much content or too many links pointing away from the page. They’ll have no choice but to focus on your conversion point (contact form, “purchase” button, white paper download).  That focus will translate into a higher percentage of visitors who convert into potential customers.

Wish #2: A decreasing cost per lead

Digital marketers are often focused on a revenue (or potential revenue)-based metric. Cost per lead (CPL) is often a great way to measure your campaign’s performance. Often, CPLs are at their highest at the inception of your SEM campaign, but gradually decrease with constant monitoring and optimization. Generally, the longer your campaign runs, the lower your cost per lead (ideally!).  Keep in mind that clicks (and subsequently, conversions) are more expensive during certain parts of the year (lower search volume during the summer leads to greater competition amongst advertisers), so it is best to take a year-over-year view of your campaign’s performance.  But in general, you should see some efficiencies in your campaign as time goes by.

Constant improvement of your CPL (which is directly impacted by your cost per click) is dependent on constant monitoring of your campaign’s keywords (and groups of keywords, called Ad Groups).  Make sure that you change your keyword bids to reflect the performance of each keyword – increase your bids for those terms that have produced conversions at a tolerable CPL, decrease bids for those keywords that are driving traffic (and eating up budget!) with little return.  Be sure to give your campaign enough of a sample size before making decisions, I usually like to wait for at least 100 clicks before I have enough data to make an informed decision.

Wish #3: More budget!

Okay, I get it.  Every marketer has limited budgets, except, apparently, for these guys.  And one of the beautiful things about SEM is that you can set your marketing budget to whatever you are comfortable with.  But if you DO find yourself with some extra marketing budget at the end of 2011, be sure to put it in the right places.  SEM campaigns will give you a detailed view of which pieces of your campaign are working most successfully, and you’re digital marketing team can help you allocate that budget in the right places. After all, it might be useful to put more budget to search marketing during a potentially slow time of year.

2011 has been a great year, as Search Engine Marketing Continues to be a vital part of your digital marketing strategy. Here’s hoping that, when you open your SEM stocking this Holiday season, you find more candy (conversions and customers) than coal (high CPC’s and no traffic!).

I am sure that by now you have gathered how important it is to constantly enhance your blog posts. We constantly remind you that CONTENT IS KING, but how should you be writing your content?  As a blogger, I have tested out a few different styles of writing, from paragraph form to bullets, to numbered lists. The results? I found that using numbered and bolded lists receive much more shares than any three-paragraph post.

Structuring your blog post as a list is your next challenge when it comes to your insurance marketing strategies. Here are a few reasons why lists are so great!

#1: Easy to plan. Planning out what you are going to say in a post is much easier when you have headings. First, number your points and then go back to fill in the details.

#2: Easy to scan. It is important that readers will be able to quickly scan over your content. It is also much easier for readers to go back when they go to reference a specific point. Your main points can get lost in a paragraph!

#3: Less intimidating. A bunch of paragraphs are much more intimidating than a simple list. Many readers may actually pass by your post if it seems to be cluttered and lengthy.

#4: Creates a structure. Having a structure to your post will benefit both parties; makes it easier for you to write and easier for your audience to read.

#5: Straight to the point. It is easy to stray while reading a paragraph. With a list, you will be getting right to the point without any useless filler content. Your readers will appreciate that.

#6: More shareable. If your readers enjoy your easy-to-read blog post, they are much more likely to share! It will also be much easier for your readers to say “Check out bullet #5!” then having to scroll around and search.

Once you start writing your posts as numbered lists, you will never go back to paragraphs! Not only is it a much easier way to produce content, but much easier on your readers eyes as well. Once you are done, don’t forget to edit your work. If you need some advice in the editing department, feel free to check out a few editing tips from one of our past posts!

Having an offsite blog in addition to your insurance website has many advantages. Not only can you increase traffic to your Virtual Insurance Office, but you also have the ability to draw in readers and create conversations through comments. Utilizing this tool will help you learn more about your customers and help them better understand all of the products you have to offer.

According to SocialMediaToday, receiving comments provides insight into the readers’ thought processes, which will help you better understand their needs as well as challenges. This advantage is why it is crucial for you to write value-driven content in order to better relate to your audience. In addition, the more honest and quality content your produce, the more trust and credibility you build with your customers.

Therefore, by increasing the number of comments on your blog, the more viewers will take notice. This is because you will be showing you have the ability to engage and have a conversation with your audience. The following are three tips on how you can increase your comments on your offsite blog:

Tip #1: Make it easy for the reader to comment

People who are new to blogging often forget to turn on their comment feature. Is the comment section large enough for the reader to find it? Do you require only minimum information from the viewer before they can comment, such as their name and e-mail address? If it’s technically difficult to leave a comment, readers will leave the page. Therefore, make it easy for them to start a conversation on your offsite blog!

Tip #2: Ask Questions!

Remind your readers that you want their comments and opinions by asking them a question at the end of the blog post. Ask them directly to share their response in the comment section. You can mention a direct call to action like “Let me hear your thoughts by writing in the comments below”. The more specific the request is, the more likely the reader is to leave a comment. So encourage your reader to take action by leaving a comment and participating in the conversation!

Tip #3: Always respond to people who comment

People don’t want to feel like they’re ignored. This is why taking the time to respond to readers who write a comment shows that you are paying attention to them. This creates an opportunity to further engage with that reader. When other readers see that you are interacting with the people commenting on your blog, they will feel more encouraged to join the conversation!

Once you learn to master the art of writing strong, unique content, you can watch the comments roll in! Always pay attention to how your audience reacts to certain posts or what they seem to enjoy about what you have to offer. By focusing on the audience, you will increase the success of your onsite and offsite blogs!

As a Search Engine Marketer, one of the questions that I get asked most by clients is “What determines my position in Google search results?”

It is a popular point of confusion — clients have a separate SEO team establishing the importance of using keywords on their website in order to gain visibility in search results while their SEM team touts the ability to use marketing budgets to force Google to place their advertisement in search results on important keyword searches.  While SEO (search engine optimization) is a merit-based system of ranking, SEM (pay-per-click) is an auction-based system that allows advertisers to gain visibility based on keyword-specific bids.  Let me explain!

PPC results, as we all know, appear at the top and right side of Google search results.  There are ten available positions on each search result page (normally three at the top and seven on the side).  On the surface, Google uses a simple formula to determine how these results stack up against each other.

PPC ads are ranked using this formula:

Ad rank = keyword bid ($) x quality score

Keyword bid (or CPC bid) is the maximum dollar amount that you are willing to pay for each click on your ad for that specific keyword (“car insurance”, in this instance).  Quality score is a Google metric that determines how relevant and useful your ad is to the search engine user. The higher your quality score, the better. Google actually assigns a quality score for each keyword that you wish to advertise for (1-10 scale).

Quality score measures “relevancy” by looking at two things: your PPC advertisement and the page to which you are directing traffic after the click (the “landing page”).  Both must be directly related to the keyword on which you have placed a bid, or else Google will assign you a poor quality score.

For example, if your PPC campaign contains insurance related keywords Google will:

What happens if you have a poor quality score? Good question.  In most instances, this poor quality score will be reflected in a higher required cost per click or in a lower ad rank (if you do not compensate by increasing your keyword bid).  In other examples of ads that are not remotely relevant to their associated keywords, Google will simply not show the ad in search results in an effort to improve their user experience. Remember, Google’s ultimate goal is to provide the exact information that it believes its user is looking for.

Google will determine your specific click cost on a keyword-by-keyword basis, using the formula above. But remember this when wondering how your cost per click is calculated in Google: just because you have bid $4.00 per click for a particular keyword doesn’t mean that you will pay that much.  It is the maximum that you will pay for that keyword.  All things being equal, the advertiser will pay will pay the minimum amount for their ad’s position as possible.  If the quality score is the same for two advertisers competing for the same keyword, the high bidder will pay only $0.01 more per click than the next highest bidder and be placed one rank higher in search results.  Confused?  Don’t be.  Let’s look at an example:

Advertiser 1 has a maximum keyword bid of $10.00 for the term “boise auto insurance”, more than any other competitor. They have a quality score of 8/10. Advertiser 2 has a maximum keyword bid of $8.00 for the same keyword, with a quality score of 8/10.  They are the second highest bidder.  Advertiser 1 will be in position 1 in search results, with a cost per click of $8.01.

You won’t always pay a per-click cost equal to your maximum bid, which is pretty cool!  You can further improve your cost efficiency by doing things to raise your quality score, but that’s a different blog post for a different day.

There you have it – a quick explanation of how Google determines your position and cost in Paid Search results.