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.

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

Social Media isn’t just for Twitter and Facebook anymore.  More people are utilizing Foursquare to let their friends and family know what they’re up to.  This application is a location-based check-in system allows customers to boost your business’s status in the community.

“Foursquare unlocks your city and makes your world a more interesting place,” writes Carmine Gallo, author of ‘The Power of Foursquare’.  He continues, “It informs, illuminates, and inspires.  For small businesses, it can help attract, reward and engage customers in ways that were never possible.”  Gallo’s book give seven tips that educate business owners how the application can help them.

• Connect your brand
• Harness new fans
• Engage your followers
• Create rewards
• Knock out the competition
• Incentivize your customers
• Never stop entertaining

With the November 15, 2011 revamp of Foursquare.com, your business has the opportunity to get noticed without a customer “check in”.  Users who sign onto Foursquare via the web at certain times the website will suggest places they should visit.  For instance, sign in at 11:30am and they will suggest great lunch spots near their office.  The same will occur later in the day around dinnertime.   Foursquare is committed to helping your business connect with your customers.

Compatible with other Social Media tools, when your customers “check-in” they are able to notify not only their friends who utilize Foursquare, but Facebook and Twitter.  For every check-in, Foursquare users have the ability to “unlock” different achievements:

• Mayorships
• Reward points
• BadgesDeals

Foursquare helps your business connect with your customers in a new way.  It also brings attention to your business and community.  “Unlock” the possibilities.

It’s no secret that it’s becoming increasingly important for small businesses to take advantage of the benefits of social media. Because social media platforms are constantly updating and innovating their software, it’s necessary for small businesses to keep up to date with the changes and happenings in the world of social media. Thankfully, you have this excellent blog as a resource when it comes to receiving advice! To kick off the week, here are some additional ways for small businesses to get ahead with social media.

A Plan and Strategy Are Key

Many small businesses often create social media accounts without any clear plan intact. They simply see that the major corporations are doing it and haphazardly sign up but don’t utilize it to their advantage. While you may not have as many resources as larger companies, social media is still an inexpensive way to spread your band. Whether the goal is to increase web traffic, sales or online presence, having a specific goal and strategy in mind is essential. Otherwise, your Twitter and Facebook will look like chickens running around without heads!

Interact!

It’s easy to simply post photos, links and quotes from your social media accounts. The key, however, is to reach an interaction level with your audience that will cause them to spread the word of your social presence. Promotional components such as contests, trivia, and virtual gifts will help engage your friends and followers to a much higher degree and keep them wanting to get your status updates and tweets. Remember, if you’re not supplying quality online content users will not hesitate to either unlike your Facebook page or stop following you on Twitter.

Make Yourself Available

One of the underrated aspects of having social media accounts is actually checking them on a consistent basis. There are too many brand pages out there that look more barren than Antarctica that can and will lower the reputation of a business. Large companies have the luxury of employing community and social media managers whose main job is to run the social accounts. However, since you’re a small, independent insurance agency your only option is to have someone add these tasks to their additional workload. Whether it’s you or another employee, it’s imperative that posting is relevant and done on a daily basis, and we recommend at least one Facebook post a day and at least three tweets per day. You never know, your availability online may be what prompts a potential customer into contacting you for business!

Aside from these three tips listed above, there are countless ways to better manage your social media presence. Use these to your advantage, and always come back to our blog for more social media information that will improve your insurance agency website!

Conducting your own keyword research can be difficult enough – it’s important that you’re not overlooking small tweaks that can really make a difference in the success of your strategy.

When it comes to keyword research, make sure you’re not doing the following:

• Using broad match data instead of exact match dataSearch volume and competition rates are two very important metrics to consider in your keyword research. While a keyword may look amazing in the broad match data view, that’s really not the case. Broad match keywords tend to have a lot more traffic than exact match, but this won’t help your strategy. The catch with broad match keywords is that you cannot guarantee what combination of the words within each keyword phrase people are searching for – there is no precise science to broad match keyword phrases.The number for exact match keywords tells you how many people are looking for that exact keyword phrase on a monthly basis. Using this data in your strategy will ensure that you know exactly what you’re getting into in terms of what the traffic and competition rates are for your keywords.No tool is 100% accurate in reporting search volume data, but with exact match, you can get the best data available – this will help you decided which keywords are right to target.
• Having Unrealistic Expectations
  This is big point. You cannot be unrealistic in your expectations of your strategy. Keywords with high search volume are definitely terms you want to include in your strategy – but not at the cost of competition. If a keyword has a high search volume and a really high competition rate, then chances are that’s not a good keyword for you. Sometimes, you have to sacrifice a little search volume in order to get keywords that you can actually compete for. Volume is a one of the most important factors in creating a strategy – but it’s not everything.
• Researching Keywords Without Variation
  Search engines, Google especially, are placing a lot more importance these days on humanizing content and keywords. You really have to consider both the user who will be reading your site and pleasing the search engines when you’re building a strategy. In this regard, it’s important to make sure you explore all variations of a keyword. For example, someone who is searching for auto insurance could actually be looking for a number of things, such as an auto insurance quote, auto insurance rates, etc. Same goes for plurality as well – i.e. California insurance agents versus California insurance agent. It’s important to humanize your data and research as much as possible and make sure the context of your keywords is correct.

There’s a lot that goes into keyword research and building a solid SEO strategy, but sometimes remember the “little” details can really help. Are you performing any of your own keyword research? Share your tips and tricks with me on Twitter, @Astonish_Shawna.

Following the news that Google has acquired Zagat to bolster local reviews, more attention that ever should be devoted towards asking your clients to review your performance and give you reviews on your local listings.

As a business owner you obviously want multiple five star reviews, all of which declaring you to be the best insurance agency ever, but the somewhat elusive local review is not the easiest to obtain. Also, you may be thinking that you want the review but only if it is going to be positive and five stars. After all, I don’t want BAD reviews all over my Google Places account. After reading this post, you may have a different opinion of the local reviews.

How to Attain Good Reviews?

The first step to good reviews is to always keep customer service in mind when you are interacting with your clients. There will be the occasion where a customer is irate or upset about something that has happened to them. As a business owner, it is your job to do your best to serve them and offer helpful solutions to their problem. Many good reviews can come from experiences that start out negatively and are turned around with exceptional customer service.

Make it as easy as possible for your customers to leave you a positive review with a combined strategy of making the effort to provide the best customer service possible and directing customers to a page with buttons to all of your local listings. From there you simply e-mail, post to Facebook or Tweet out the link to your Local Reviews Page. Now, leaving a great review for your business could not be easier.

When a person posts a review on your Google Places listing, they are taking the time to let you, and the rest of the world know how their experience with your business went. Whether they had a negative experience or an exceptional experience, you will reap the benefits that a review can give your listing.

Granted, if every review you have is a 1-star review with negative comments about you or your employees, you may want to speak about the interactions they are having with clients. But if you have some good and some bad reviews, that is fine. Your company’s reviews are authentic customer accounts from people who have used your services. Remember that your reviews are essentially word of mouth insurance marketing for your agency. These referrals can get people to pick up the phone or drive to your brick and mortar location so they are important to monitor and stay on top of.

What to do with a bad review?

It is a very real possibility that someone could leave a negative review about your business on your listing. So what is the best way to deal with a negative or less than satisfactory review?

Monitor and respond; you may think that a bad review will hurt you more than help you but you should think more about the content of the review. I hear all the time that “I only want positive, 5-star reviews”, the reality is even bad reviews are filled with keyword rich text. Here is an example of a 1 or 2 star review that I have seen;
“I do not recommend anyone to this agency………….them, it speaks for all the representatives……… I was a previous customer………back to get auto insurance with them when I was transferred to ******………to tell me that my auto policy was cancelled due……….and I STRONGLY DONT RECOMMEND anyone to this company unless you wanted to be treated like dirt. They are not the only insurance agency in orange county!!! “
If you look at the review it is pretty harsh but, there are few keywords that a search engine will find that can help return this local listing as a relevant search result for someone searching for insurance in Orange County.

When it comes to reviews, it is a best practice to respond to the less than stellar comments by offering an explanation or helping the customer ultimately find what they are looking for. By responding to the review, you are seen as a proactive business owner that really cares about his customers and that can go a long way for developing future business. You will be seen by the online community as someone that wants to do right by people, find out how to improve for next time or even offer a mends.

Be Proactive:

Give your clients an outlet to express their feelings on your site. Offer your unsatisfied clients a form to vent before they take their frustrations out on your local listings or review sites. This may not catch everything but it gives you the opportunity to respond to a review before it is public.

Once you receive a negative response, follow up with the customer immediately and try to make amends. Customer service should always be paramount in any interactions with customers but now, providing a high level of customer service can lead to an increase in traffic to your site and revenue to your agency.

Your local listings should be a large piece of your overall SEO strategy and can really produce great results when utilized correctly. Taking the time to ask your clients to review you and your agency is very important and will give you valuable feedback on how you can continuously improve the way you serve your clients.

The internet started as a revolutionary platform for information and communication, and guess what? It’s still revolutionizing the way we inherit and consume information, albeit much differently than how it was ten years ago.

Ten years ago there was no Facebook or Twitter and communication between friends was based on instant messaging and phone calls; even texting hadn’t become as widespread as it is today.

Now?

Facebook seems like it has become the norm for communication among younger generations. Email has been replaced by Facebook messaging, while phone calls have been replaced by texts and wall posts. Instead of calling friends to see what everyone’s plan is for the night, it’s now acceptable to post a status update reading, “what’s the plan tonight?” with links to various profiles of friends.

Facebook and Twitter have undergone significant changes since their debuts in 2004 and 2006, respectively. Remember the old Facebook layout? If you don’t, then we’re not surprised, because that was the layout all the way back in 2005. In order to keep up with the changing uses for the internet, social media accounts have to change, too.

So what changes have social media platforms made, and how does your insurance agency adjust and adapt?

Social media platforms change based on what they think people are currently using the internet for. For instance, Facebook was one of the first websites to really understand that users wanted to share photos as much as possible. On their initial run, photo space was limited, and now? Unlimited. Foursquare started up because the developers realized that people wanted to know where their friends were and what they were doing. And now recently, they have altered their website to allow users to not only check into places, but check into events as well. Although social media platforms all have different services and philosophies, they do have one thing in common: acceptance to change.

Social media platforms are always changing, so it’s necessary for us to change with them. If we don’t, then we’ll fall behind and we won’t be able to successfully implement them back into our lives and business strategies. It’s always funny when a website like Facebook drastically changes their layout: there is always a public backlash, but users will begrudgingly continue to log in because they can never get enough of Facebook.

So how should your insurance agency be adapting to changes in social media? Simple: as much as you can. As social media platforms change, your agency must change with it in order to better acclimate itself for future success. The old saying is, “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” which directly applies to this situation. If Facebook or Twitter makes an adjustment, you should make sure you and your social media team are aware of the changes.

Perhaps the biggest change within the last year is social media’s adaption to mobile phones. Mobile is primed to become a large part of social media in the near future, with LinkedIn announcing that they are revamping their mobile application in an effort to streamline the way users interact on the actual website and the application. Also, the new Apple mobile operating system, iOS5, is going to have innovative Twitter integration. It also does not hurt to mention that Facebook is the most downloaded free mobile application ever.

As an agency, it’s crucial to step up your game when it comes to the internet. The internet is where many current and potential customers spend a lot of their time whether it’s for work or for personal use. Keeping your agency up to date on the internet—especially social media—will allow your company to remain competitive in the online field and add traction to your insurance agency website.

Don’t be afraid of change!

If you ever had the thought that you cannot blog, trust me, it’s not true. In my own experiences, I have found out that anyone can be a successful blogger to contribute to your agency’s insurance marketing efforts.

When I was first approached with the idea of blogging, I was a little skeptical to say the least. I didn’t think I would have the right writing style for it, and I honestly didn’t think that I would enjoy it. I soon found out that I couldn’t have been further from the truth.

I am very analytical. In middle and high school, I was on the math team. No joke, there were weekly meetings, even competitions. So how is someone so number-centric able to write, and do it well? I’ll tell you!
Have the Right Attitude
Your attitude toward something is almost always a deciding factor in your success. If you come into something with the idea that you will fail, you have no doubt already sealed your fate.

Always step into new experiences with a positive attitude. Know that there aren’t any downsides to trying something new. At best, you have discovered a skill you never knew you had. At worst, you gave something a good, honest try. You will also learn something in the process. If those are the only outcomes, there is no reason to not try writing a blog post or two!
Pick a Good Topic
Once you have a positive attitude, it is time to pick a topic to write about! This is probably a longer and more frustrating process than the writing itself, honestly. After all, when you are researching, there’s a whole internet of possible topics! How on earth are you expected to pick just one?

When you are searching for a potential blog topic, try not to get too bogged down with ideas. Keep it simple, and keep the following in mind:

Pick a topic that is relevant and interesting to your audience. Ask yourself this: what are people coming to your blog to read about? Make sure your topic answers this question.

Pick a topic you like. If you don’t like the topic you write about, no one will enjoy reading it. Picture for a moment being a high school English teacher. It would take all the patience in the world to get through a stack of thrown-together and last minute essays on Friedrich Nietzsche and nihilism written by 16 year olds. Can you even imagine the torture?

This is something that you must avoid putting your readers through at all costs. If you write about something you like and are passionate about, you don’t run the risk of your reader’s eyes glazing over.

To really avoid putting your readers to sleep, make sure to read your blog over after it is written. Make sure that you can read it fluidly, and fix any awkward wordings that are hard to avoid when writing. This is a very important step in writing, because sometimes what sounds good in your head when you write needs a better logical flow once is it actually on paper.
Show It Off!
After you have written and revised, take pride in what you have done! You are now a blogger! Show your new creation to friends and co-workers. Nothing will motivate you to cultivate a new skill like praise.

Then it is finally time to post your work! Putting your writing on the internet may seem strange or scary at first, but be assured that it will become old hat after a while.

And remember, with a plan of action, a positive attitude, and some practice, anyone can be a blogger!

Keeping up with the latest local search optimization tactics in addition to maintaining your overall insurance agency marketing focus can be a formidable, but worthwhile task. Changes to the Google algorithm can occur without warning and effect how local search results are shown; there has never been a better but more difficult time to rank for high volume, local keywords.

Over the past 12 months, there have been changes in Google Places with tags, check-ins, deals and other extraneous but relevant information pulled into your Places listing. More information than ever was used to determine rankings for local search. Even third party citation sites like Yelp, Insider Pages and CitySearch were all pulled into a Google Places listing and given weight in rankings.
As of late, it has been suspected that Google has placed less emphasis on the third party review sites with the appearance of the RED “write a review” button on listings. Also, Google displaying reviews from Google users exclusively and placing links to the third party sites under the listing.
Your first thought might be to only go after the Google listings. But rather than putting all of your eggs in the “Google Reviews only” basket, a more robust and natural approach would involve a review strategy that is more diverse and includes several different local citation sites.

That all sounds great, but how will you execute this new plan?

Encourage your customers to leave reviews for your business on their preferred site. Google may be a place that many people start their search but it won’t be the only place users will go to find information out about a business. Give your customers a nudge. Incorporate review buttons in a conspicuous location on your site to direct traffic to review sites directly from your site.

Point Your Customers in the Right Direction.

Develop a one-sheet to hand to customers or e-mailed along with your products or services confirmation e-mails. Asking for the review in the sales process will help it to become part of the culture of your agency. Utilize your e-mail list and send out a review e-mail with a link to a handful of prominent review sites to make giving your agency a review as easy and painless as possible.

DISCLAIMER: Make sure your service warrants a good review. By telling your customers to give your products or services a review, you become vulnerable for bad reviews. First and foremost, make sure that you are giving your customers the best customer service you possibly can. Typically, when you make a conscious effort to provide excellent customer service, obtaining five star reviews can become less of a chore.

People want their opinion to be heard, so when your company provides an above average customer experience, point them in the direction a review of your site. Remember also that below average or poor experiences can lead to a poor review of your business. That’s ok. Take a moment to respond to the review and offer a solution to the problem. People will see that you are actively monitoring your reviews and you have taken the time to remedy the situation and do right by your customer. Consider this…

Are Your Reviews Honest?

When you see a business with 50 reviews with five stars do you become a little suspicious? Maybe they really earned all of those five star reviews but most likely some of those reviews were not genuine. Instead of trying to get as many “perfect” reviews as you possibly can, monitor your reviews and deal with the good and bad reviews as they roll in. Thank someone for a good review and address the concerns of a bad review. Being a proactive business owner will say more about your business than 50 five star reviews can. You can also learn where you may need to improve as a business.

GET MORE LOCAL REVIEWS FOR YOUR BUSINESS TODAY!

Try this, each month select a winner from your reviews and try to get in touch with that person. Alert people to the drawing and highlight the winner on your on-site blog and social media sites. When people see that you actively monitor your local reviews and actually select a winner every month for a prize, people will be more likely to 1. Leave a review because there is something in it for them, and 2. Interact with your business on social media and blog pages. This is a great way to get people interacting with your business on a continuous basis.

Keep in mind that customers that leave positive reviews are much more likely tell people about your business. People who refer their friends and family to your business are also more likely to write a review for your business on a local review site. Connecting with the local user is the end goal and finding new and innovative ways to make that connection that will be beneficial to your business now and in the future.

As social media has expanded over the past couple of years, it is obvious the affect it has had on our society.  We have now become more fast paced and invested in understanding the true definition of communication.  According to the Harvard Business Review, the future of social media stands right in front of us.

From Washington, with Obama utilizing Twitter for his campaign, to millions of Facebook users all around the world, it is clear that social media as something spontaneous reflecting how we behave in the real world is coming to an end.  We are entering an age of social business, bringing about a purposeful, planned, orchestrated, and integrated way of doing business in a social context.  This strategy allows one to complexly make a message feel personal to the outside, while on the inside, the organization is planning and navigating every move.  As further evidence to the shift, one can look to technology.

Over the past several years, innovative companies who have geared their mindset towards the future have begun to understand the value of monitoring conversations.  Therefore, they have purchased software licenses from platforms such as Radian 6.  Additionally, the notion of listening to social conversations is only a small portion of understanding social business.  The true opportunity lies in scaling and operationalizing “social”.  Thus, if the next phase of social media is operating as a scalable social business, then expect to see an increase of activity in the following:

Organizational Design: Social media is focused on parts of an organization or business where communications and marketing encourage social media tactics, while a social business is redesigned to look through a lens that is more holistic for the organization.  For further proof, we can look to Facebook, where business and brand pages deal with both customer “likes” and complaints.  Corporate Facebook pages are great examples of the need for marketing, PR, customer service, and HR to all figure out how to work together.  This is because users on Facebook don’t make the distinction behind which department is running what and to them, a company page represents all departments.

Social Business Intelligence: The rise of social media has led to many technology solutions, allowing organizations to become involved on conversations happening across multiple digital public spaces.  Organizations that have become accustomed to listening in on conversations are now positioned to take the next step and convert listening into organization-wide business intelligence.  Socially intelligent organizations will be able to adapt to conditions in their environment and eventually predict and plan for future scenarios.

Cultures of Collaboration, Co-Creation & Shared Value: The most significant recent business case, which illustrates the business side of social, comes from creating an ecosystem.  This idea operates by having value enter into it and then extracted by multiple stakeholders for mutual gain.  An ecosystem, by definition, is sustainable.

The relationship between social media and social business is complicated.  On one hand, the public desires authentic interactions in social spheres from real people and expect a real-time response.  On the other hand, a business or organization requires a system to be in place that coordinates activities.  Therefore, the oncoming shift is moving from a focus on external media consumption to the internal business integration of what it means to become social and connected. Is social media something you have included in your insurance agency marketing plan? If not you should make sure to include it, social media really is becoming the number one way to communicate with your audience.