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

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.

Last week Google released information about another algorithm change that will have an effect on their search results. Their algorithm is an intricate set of instructions and functions that helps Google determine how certain sites should rank in the SERPs, or search engine results pages. Precisely how the Google algorithms work is highly confidential but every once in a while we’ll catch a glimmer of insight into what Google is looking for from us.

The current algorithm update is focused on the freshness of content on the web – it’s being referred to as the “Freshness Update”. Google wants to gear their search results toward the most relevant AND up to date information available. This is not a new initiative for Google, but simply an improvement to their ongoing efforts. Google reports that the percentage of effected queries has doubled, meaning that 35% of searches will now see fresher results.

So, what does this mean for you?

For those of you who are clients of Astonish Results, you’ve heard over and over again how important and beneficial it is to be involved in blogging and social media. Our nagging is being reinforced by this Google algorithm update. Keeping up with your blogging and social media efforts is the easiest way to continuously send updated content to the web. So log into your onsite blog and make sure you’re giving Google what they want – fresh and exciting content!

Bringing it back to the basics, the search engines are looking to provide searchers with the best experience possible. So whether you are trying to keep up with Google’s algorithm updates or are looking for best practice tips from Bing’s webmaster guidelines, it’s important to make the needs of searchers a priority. If you’re providing searchers with up to date, useful information then you have a solid platform to build off of.

When optimizing your website for the search engines, a good starting point is to work with a basic recipe. You want to optimize your content with good keywords, follow the webmaster guidelines established by the search engines, format your content and links so they can be easily crawled by the search spiders, and implement an integrated strategy including blogging and social media that will help catapult your site toward the top of the search results.

It’s Halloween, so I want to have a little fun today. Some furry friends are going to help me tell the story of a basic SEO strategy. I hope you enjoy these photos as much as I have!

Find and optimize your content with long tail keywords that will help you emphasize your specialized focus.

Your content should be user friendly. You need to avoid the use of ghostly tactics such as hidden text.

You want to be sure your site uses the proper keyword linking strategies so the search spiders will deem your content worth a high ranking in the search engines.

Make sure you read up on and are compliant with webmaster guidelines to avoid being penalized.

Implement an integrated strategy with blogging, social media and linking that will help your keyword strength and web presence bloom.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

There’s no way around it – Google is the head honcho of the search engine world. If we want our websites to show up in the search results (and stay there) we need to acknowledge Google’s webmaster guidelines. While we may not follow these guidelines to the T, it’s clear that following Google’s suggested best practices will mean a healthier life-cycle for our sites.
Google breaks down their guidelines into three main sections: Design and Content Guidelines, Technical Guidelines, and Quality Guidelines. Let’s take a look at what Google wants from each category.

Design and Content Guidelines

• Easy to Navigate
• Provide useful, relevant content
• Keep the number of links on each page to a reasonable number
• Include appropriate keywords in your content

Technical Guidelines

• Test your site to be sure it displays correctly in different browsers.
• Optimize your site speed and performance
• Regularly monitor your site’s performance
• Allow search spiders to crawl your sites without session IDs

Quality Guidelines

• Don’t try to trick your users or the web with cloaking (presenting different content to the search engines than you users).
• Avoid tricks to improve search rankings.
• Don’t take part in link schemes

Specific Quality Guidelines

• Avoid hidden text and links
• Don’t use cloaking
• Don’t create multiple pages or sub-domains with duplicate content
• Don’t fill your content with irrelevant keywords

Overall, Google wants websites to provide unique, useful and relevant information on sites that are easy to use – the end goal being happy searchers. This was verified with their recent Panda update which focused on increasing the exposure of sites with quality content. As we always say here at Astonish Results, quality content is king.

Bloggers Beware: Five Common Writing Errors to Look Out For

In today’s fast-paced world, online writers are expected to be able to pump out fresh and informative content on a regular basis. Furthermore, it is essential that this content is readable, shareable and correct. People who blog for their business carry a lot of responsibility since every piece of work they publish can reflect on the credibility of their company.

As all writers know – whether they publish online or in print – it’s all too easy for mistakes to slip through the cracks and make their way into a final copy. However, simply being aware of some of the most frequently made errors may be enough for bloggers who want to avoid making them in the future. The top five include:

• Mixing tenses
• Misplacing apostrophes in plural or possessive words
• Missing words, often prepositions like “to” or “in”
• Dangling participles or modifiers. For example, in the sentence “Researching insurance marketing, the team developed a great idea,” the first part of the sentence is “dangling” because it is not associated with the subject that the author intended.
• Lacking proper subject-verb agreement

These types of errors may not be as glaring as misspellings, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t apparent to attentive readers. Keeping these things in the back of your mind can help ensure that the content you post to your company blog is engaging and easy to read. Nothing can drive people away from your insurance website like content that requires re-reading in order to understand it!

Every industry has its own language – the Internet Marketing world is no different. For those of us who work in the industry, it can be so easy to get swept up in the jargon that we forget not everyone uses these terms on a daily basis. At Astonish Results, we’re constantly communicating with clients who do not have backgrounds in Internet Marketing, so it’s important that we stay away from the lingo we’ve become accustomed to and speak in plain English.

My goal for this post is to translate some of the terms we throw around most often into basic English. Here we go…

Internet Marketing

The practice of marketing products or services over the internet. It is also referred to as online marketing, web marketing, or digital marketing. Internet marketing includes websites, email marketing, search engine optimization, search engine marketing, and social media.

SEO

Search Engine Optimization – The practice of helping a website show up in the search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. Search engine optimization is an internet marketing strategy that analyzes web searches – from determining how the search engines are ranking websites in the search results to figuring out what people are searching for and what specific terms (or keywords) are being used.

SEM

Search Engine Marketing – also known as Paid Search – is the practice of increasing a website’s exposure through paid search tactics such as PPC (pay per click). In a very general overview, SEM involves paying to have a search result appear when a search is done for a certain keyword term. If someone clicks on your ad, you pay an agreed upon price. The goals are in line with those of an SEO strategy, but SEO involves organic results and SEM involves paid results.

Link Building

Link building is the practice of getting other websites to link to your site in order to boost rankings in the search engines. Having a relevant, quality website link to your site is like getting a vote. If the search engines see that other websites want to share your information and promote your website, then they are more likely to deem your site worthy of a higher search ranking.

Search Spiders

When we refer to search spiders, or web crawlers, we’re referring to the computer program that can browse the web to find search results. The search engines use search spiders to come up with a quick, up-to-date, organized list of what’s available on the web so the search engine can then determine how relevant the content is – this turns into the search results you see on Google, Yahoo! and Bing.

Unique Content

We all know about plagiarism and the negative consequences associated with it – providing unique content for your website and blog will keep you out of trouble. The search engines love fresh, honest, helpful content – doing so will make your site seem more useful. Every page on your website and every blog post should say something different. You cannot copy content from your website and post it on your blog – the search engines will recognize this as duplicate content and you could be punished. The best way to stay in the search engines’ good graces is to create unique content every time you write.

Search Volume

Search volume is the number of times a certain term is typed into the search engines on a monthly basis. When we decide which keywords should be used in your SEO strategy, we are comparing the search volume for hundreds of terms to determine which are the best fit. In addition to the search volume, we need to look at a term’s search competition before we decide to select it as one of your keywords.

Search Competition

A term’s search competition lets us know how many other sites are trying to be found for the term. If we find that a term has a search competition of 100% then we know it will be very difficult to rank for that keyword because a lot of other sites are also trying to rank for it. We want to find a term that has a high search volume and a low search competition when we are selecting your keywords.

There is much more internet jargon that we use on a daily basis, this was a peak at the topics we reference most often. What are some of the Internet Marketing terms you hear on a regular basis? Let us know if there are any terms you need clarification on and we can feature them in a future post!

Fear has a lot to do with the unknown. SEO is still a relatively new development in the marketing industry, so it stands to reason that many companies are hesitant to dig into it. I’ve outlined five of the top reasons companies fear search engine optimization in hope that eventually we can quell these fears. The more you learn about SEO, the less intimidating it will become and the easier it will be to implement a solid optimization strategy.

Fearing SEO or being intimidated by all of the work required of a successful strategy is no reason to steer clear of this proven marketing tactic. According to G.I. Joe, knowing is half the battle – so start your education today. If you can grasp the fundamentals of SEO, then you are one step ahead of the pack. If you don’t have the time to implement an SEO campaign on your own, team up with a consultant but be sure to stay away from the false “quick results” scams out there. Then prepare yourself for some hard work and eventually you’ll see some astonishing results!

By now, it’s safe to say that we all are aware of how crucial blogging is to one’s overall Internet Marketing strategy. Whether you publish content weekly, 3 times per week or even daily it’s likely that the time will come when you are struck with writers block. It’s not easy to create content that not only naturally incorporates your keywords but is also readable, entertaining and something your readers will want to share.

When you’re struggling for ideas, where do you turn? Perhaps you scour the office for industry-related updates or maybe you check your favorite news station’s website; whatever you do to dig up some blog-worthy ideas can easily be combined with these tips for creative content creation:

Behind-the-Scenes Insight

Your blog serves many purposes including the need to: to increase your overall SEO efforts, thus increasing traffic and generating leads – as well as highlighting your agency’s culture. The goal with any good Insurance Marketing strategy is to capture the attention of prospects, retain current clients and inevitably grow our business. To do so you have to position yourself at the forefront of your consumer’s mind; and how do you do that – by separating yourself from the competition.

When you think of insurance, what comes to mind? Most often you’ll envision accident scenarios, policies and claims. But there’s so much more to what you do and who you are, so showcase that on your blog. Do you celebrate employee birthdays with a giant cake? Maybe you volunteer with a local charity. Perhaps you have launched a friendly office-wide competition…take Astonish Results for example and our office’s RFM Weight Loss Challenge! By providing current clients and prospects with a sneak-peak into what life is like at your agency you are allowing them the opportunity to connect with you on a different level and build a relationship that goes beyond simply selling them an insurance policy.

Appeal to the Season

Changes in season are the perfect starting point for an informative, yet appealing blog post. You can coordinate your blogging efforts with the ever-changing weather patterns; think about including information about recent storms, local damages and how to best prepare for severe weather.

Seasonal posts can stretch farther than what may be falling from the sky. Think beyond weather and consider the activities that your consumers may participate in during any given period of time. Perhaps in the winter you talk about preparing your vehicle for the colder weather or in the summer you highlight the watercraft insurance policies your agency can offer its avid boaters. Nearly everything has its own season; weddings, back-to-school, holiday prep, etc. focus on providing useful, valuable information that can apply to your consumers’ everyday lives.

Tips & How-To’s

One of the most popular and well-received blogging styles is those that include tips and “how-to” information. Alongside your mission to gain a competitive edge, increase your agency’s visibility and strengthen your SEO, your blogging should also serve a greater purpose—providing value to the reader. You should strive to craft content that can positively impact your current and prospective clients, give them the facts, advice and general knowledge they both want and need.

These types of blogs can include general insurance tips, such as how to keep particular premiums low or can span across a variety of topics such as how to protect your home from burglars or fires safety tips for one’s home and office.

Current Events

Another aspect of your blogging strategy is using your content to brand your agency as a credible, knowledgeable expert – and better yet an active community leader. To do so you need to know what’s going on in the world around you and how it both applies to and affects the lives of your consumers. Developing a reputation for your agency which portrays you as a trusted resource for valuable information and news can help you both draw in readers (and prospects!) as well as keep them coming back for more.
When blogging about current events, make sure that they are either applicable to the industry or specific to your local community. Look for changes in legislation, new acts or regulations or even choose to stay up-to-date on the constantly evolving issues with health care. Perhaps a new driving-while-texting ban was passed in your state; that would serve as a quality blog post as well as provide you with the opportunity to incorporate some auto insurance information within the content. Or maybe flood damages reached a record high in your region, explain what this might mean for area homeowners and their insurance premiums.

Whatever you choose to write about, make sure your blogs are always valuable, interesting and portray your agency as a leading insurance resource. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box—do what you can to make your insurance content appealing and share-worthy.

Have any suggestions? Where do you go when your content has you stumped? Share your suggestions and comments with us below and feel free to check out our additional blogging tips for making the process more enjoyable!

Writing content for the web is much like cooking – you have to use the right balance of ingredients in order to get the desired result. When it comes to search engine optimization, you need to find the right keywords and then use them appropriately throughout your content. There is a definite skill involved with finding the right measurement of keywords in your web content – if you use too few you won’t be recognized but if you use too many to the point of saturation your content can be perceived as spammy. Utilizing the proper portions is key.

SEO Recipe

Ingredients:

Strong Keywords

Keyword Links

Content

Directions:

Much like testing out new recipes and tweaking old favorites, there is no singular technique to creating the perfect SEO strategy. The search engines alter their algorithms on a regular basis, so it’s important to be willing to experiment with various methods. Now, while it’s important to try new practices there are definitely some aspects of search engine optimization that are go-to’s. It’s vitally important to determine a set of keywords and incorporate them naturally into your content. This is where things can start to get tricky – it is so important that you use your keywords appropriately. Think of keywords as an ingredient, if you use too much the whole recipe will be thrown off.

While we cannot say for sure exactly how many keywords should be used on each page of your site, it has been determined that overloading a website with keywords is a bad practice. Keyword stuffing has been identified as an unethical misuse of the web and it can even get your site penalized. Keyword stuffing can be defined as the act of over-filling your website’s pages with keywords by creating lists or paragraphs of terms or unnecessarily repeating terms throughout the content. The search engines want to promote a positive and useful user experience, keyword stuffing detracts from that.

Keyword overkill can also result from hidden text – for example: hiding terms by putting them in a white font on a white background, including text behind an image, or setting the font size to 0. Just because the standard user cannot see the hidden text doesn’t mean the search engines can’t. When the search engines find hidden text, they are likely to deem the website as untrustworthy because it is offering a different experience to users than the search engines. Such a discovery can mean reductions for your website’s rankings.

There are many facets that must be incorporated into your online marketing strategy, but a major key to remember is keeping a balance. Any reasonable talented chef understands that you need to use a properly portioned mix of ingredients – the same is true for search engine optimization.