Traffic is an interesting term. Many American’s may think of traffic in a negative way- no one likes being stuck in rush hour traffic! However, in the world of SEO, traffic is AWESOME- especially when it comes to your blogging efforts. You want your blog to be a high-traffic website. If it already is, that is proof that your insurance marketing strategies are working. If not, there are always ways to increase your traffic.

Here are a few tips from the experts:

#1: Title tag it. The title of your post is not only the first thing your readers will see, but also the search engines. So make it a good one! Keep it short, sweet and be sure to get your keyword in there! Yes, it can be difficult but it is not impossible.

#2: Be social. Wrote a blog post? Tweet about it! You can put it up on your Facebook wall or even post the link on Twitter or LinkedIn. The use of social media is a great way to get your friends, family and community involved in your blogging efforts.

#3: Make your posts shareable. Make sure you write posts that others will want to share. Posts that include current events and pop culture references are usually the most viewed. Lists are also a great way to grab people’s attention as well as “how-to” guides. These are the things that people want to read!

#4: Bookmark, bookmark, bookmark. As soon as you write a post, bookmark it. Then bookmark it again and again and again. Use bookmarking sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Blink List, Delicious, and Jumptags. Believe us- these are not your only options! The more you bookmark a site, the more exposure it will get.

#5: Be a human. It’s important that you connect with your readers. Don’t just write blog post after blog post. It’s important that you ask your readers questions and try to engage conversation.

#6: SEO strategy. If you are not using keywords, it is time to start. Be sure to choose the best keywords, typically those with high search volume and low competition. Insert them into your blog post naturally to avoid sounding like spam.

#7: Comment to connect. It’s time to enter the realm of blogging. Finding other blog posts and commenting will not only show others that you are social, but will allow you to build back links. If you write something insightful, be sure to link to your own blog- readers will most likely click your link!

#8: Imagery. Adding images or some sort of creative flair to your posts are sure to grab your readers’ attention.

Your blog traffic may not increase overnight because everything takes time. However, with the right strategy you will begin to see results gradually. If not, it may be time to think about your actual blog posts. Believe it or not, blogging mistakes are actually common and you may not even realize that you are making them.

Hopefully these few tips have helped and if you have any questions or anything to add, feel free to do so!

Many people live by a set of standards- and that is what makes a person who they are. Your blogs are the same way! Each and every post should follow a set of standards. This way, your posts will not only be credible and informative, but also give your company a voice. This is an important part of your insurance marketing efforts; you will be rewarded for great content!

I present to you, The 10 Blogging Commandments:

#1: Thou shall not plagiarize. The worst thing that any blogger can do is use someone else’s words. The purpose of your blog is to show readers the company’s voice. Using others’ work is a sure way to ruin your reputation.

#2: Thou shall keep posts positive. No one wants to feel sad after reading a blog post. Insurance may seem like a drag but it does not have to be! Yes, life insurance is a somber topic, but it’s simple to turn it into something positive: give health tips or even ways to zap stress.

#3: Thou shall keep content fresh. Re-using the same blogging topics over and over again? Spend an hour brainstorming topics that work for the season, or even current events. Stale content is sure to keep your readers from coming back for more.

#4: You shall edit all your work. There is nothing worse than reading a blog with grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. Very unprofessional!

#5: Thou shall not link profusely. Too many links in your post will not only look spammy, but it really IS spammy. Keep the links to a minimum (2-3).

#6: Thou shall bookmark every post. Your posts deserve to be read, and not just from your website! Bookmark your posts on sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and Delicious.

#7: You shall accept all feedback. Receive a negative comment? Don’t start an internet war! Be sure to address the comment in a professional manner.

#8: Thou shall show love. Find other bloggers and comment! If you do not put yourself out there as a human being, people will not bother to give you feedback. It’s important to reciprocate.

#9: Thou shall respect a day of rest. No need to be excessive about blogging. Three times a week is usually a good place to be, once a day at most. Take weekends off!

#10: Thou shall not give false facts. All your information and posts should be backed by credible sources. Your words are powerful and your readers will take them seriously. Any false information that you post will be held against you!

If you follow these simple guidelines, your blogging efforts will take off, and pay off! Any questions or comments, please feel free to ask. We are always here to help- now go spread your words!

Think about your favorite band- why is it that they are so successful? Is it their cool hair or their killer vocals? It is probably a mix of both- but there is a lot more to it! Now think about YOUR business. Of course you have been working on your insurance marketing strategies and incorporating social media into your marketing plan. However, are you truly using social media to its fullest potential? Believe it or not- but a good social media strategy is a lot like your favorite band’s strategy.

#1: Patience. Do you think that U2 just became famous over night? No way! Having patience is key in the social media world. You may not have many fans and followers in the first few weeks but if you keep posting, interacting and searching- you will grow!

#2: Originality. Like 311 says, you have to “Come Original” if you want to be heard. In your case, this will mean having an original site, slogan and even original blog posts! If your business is different from the rest, people will remember you and be intrigued.

#3: Time. If you do not have time to update your social sites, it may be time to hire someone who does, or even hire an intern. You need time to build relationships, connect and communicate. Logging on for 10 minutes every morning is not going to cut it. Busy bands do not have the time to promote, so they hire someone!

#4: Open. Show your followers what is going on in your company. Post pictures of company events or blog about future plans. It’s important to keep them involved! Take a lesson from blink-182; every hour or so they update their Twitter AND Facebook with pictures from the tour, their bus and current status. Fans love it!

#5: Visual. What is one of the best parts of a rock show? The light show! You need to WOW your clients with your social site presentation. Use colors that represent your company on Twitter. For Facebook, be sure to add your favorite pages and show the world that you are much more than a business page…you are a real person and a friend!

#6: Consistent. If a band does not put out music every few years, they may fall off the radar. Same with your company! If you tweet once a month, you are going to fall off your follower’s radar. It’s important to update daily and keep content fresh.

These few tips are sure to lead to success. The main goal for a band is to build an audience- and that is exactly what you have to do on your social media accounts. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+…whatever you use- they are sure to boost your business. But without an audience, there would be no show. So keep your audiences coming back for more!  Once you have done that, then you are a true social media rock star!

Okay- so you have been blogging for months now and you still don’t seem to have many readers. What gives? There are a number of reasons why your blog may not be doing very well. Sometimes it takes time to gain a good audience and you need to be patient. But many times, you could actually be the problem. But have no fear! I am here to help with you with your insurance marketing strategies and find the core issue.

Here are 10 blogging mistakes you may not know you are making:

#1: Boring content. This is the number one killer in the world of blogging. Boring and dry content will never get you readers. Don’t be afraid to incorporate some humor in your posts, or even pop culture. Write about things that people WANT to read. Tips & advice are always good go-to topics as well.

#2: Too personal. Your business blog is not a place for you to vent about the fight you and your spouse had last night. This is a place to build relationships with clients! And please, stop blogging about your dog.

#3: Poor grammar. There is nothing worse than looking like a 7-year old wrote your blog. Always go through and make sure all your words are spelled correctly- spell check doesn’t always catch mistakes!

#4: Title lacks creativity. If your title is boring, why would anyone want to click your link? This is your chance to grab your readers’ attention- so don’t mess it up!

#5: Not replying to comments. If your readers comment, it’s time to be social. You can’t just hide behind your blogs…come out and play. Engage with your readers and you will be rewarded with followers.

#6: Repetition. If you have recently blogged about car tips, then lay off the car tips for a week or so. If you do not switch up your content, readers will get bored.

#7: No SEO efforts. There is a fine line between too much and too little. Of course you do not want to seem spammy, so it is best to link only a few keywords (2-3 at the most). But not linking at all is sure to hurt your blog efforts.

#8: Not blogging enough. Not blogging enough is a sure way to lose followers. People will become disinterested in your once a month post.

#9: Blogging too much. Ha! See that? Blogging too much is also an issue. You need to find a happy-medium. Blogging 5 times a day is only going to look like spam. Three times a week should be fine…once a day at the most.

#10: All about you. If you constantly blog about your business and how great your business is, people are going to stop reading. You must blog for your readers, and incorporate your company in subtly. So keep it interesting!

Blogging should be fun for you and fun for your audience to read. If you do not keep content fresh and interesting, your audience is never going to grow. I promise, if you take in these blogging mistakes and re-evaluated your efforts, you will be sure to see an improvement. Just don’t give up! Now go forth and blog your little hearts out (but don’t overdo it!)

Of course you are part of the social media world- you know how important it is! So you comment, post and interact with others and their positive comments, posts, re-tweets, and “likes” always make your day at work worth it! Now think for a second- what would you do if suddenly your audience was gone? Suddenly, there is no one following you and no one is interested in what you have to say. There is no doubt that would be devastating!

If you do not take the time to interact with your clients, this will happen! It’s time to embrace your followers. These are the people who are hearing you out. They are there for encouragement and support and they deserve to be recognized. Whether you are on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, there are so many ways to show your appreciation. Here a few ideas from to get you started—think of it as a quick social network training tutorial!

On Facebook:

-Send an inbox to a client you haven’t heard from in a while

-Comment on a client’s victory or “like” it

-Give your opinion when a client asks for one via status

-Share a funny Youtube video and watch everyone’s reactions

-Share a link to someone you know will appreciate it. Put it on their wall!

-Start a poke war with a good friend! (Hey- it’s there. Let’s use it folks)

On Twitter:

-Send a personal “thank you” in a direct message

-RT a follower’s post that you found funny or interesting

-Start a random conversation with a @follower you haven’t heard from in a while

-Ask a question to generate conversation- serious or silly. Example: “Who watched last night’s episode of Family Guy??”

-Ask your followers for advice. Example: “What book should I read next?”

On LinkedIn:

-Send an inbox over to a new connection saying hello

-Work with one of your connections? Give them a great recommendation for their page

-Refer a friend to one of your connections

-Like/Comment on an update in your feed that speaks to you

It’s clear that there are many ways to show your appreciation to your social sphere. Now, do it! They do not call it SOCIAL MEDIA for nothing! Your audience will appreciate your gestures and will be sure to reciprocate. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is how you grow in the world of marketing. You may not see results over night, but the more involved you are with your audience, the more people will respect you and your business. Ready, set, grow!

Most successful insurance agencies have at least a basic understanding of paid search marketing on Google. An advertiser chooses a product, creates a list of relevant keywords, and proceeds to write meaningful, compelling ad copy. After setting a desired budget amount, the campaigns are ready to roll. However, when digging into search marketing, there are many additional factors that will greatly effect the outcome of your campaign. Proper keyword matching is a prime example.

To assure that quality traffic is driven, advertisers spend a great deal of time performing keyword research, and writing effective ad copy for their campaigns. However, due to the nature of the web, it can be tough to predetermine the quality of users who will view and click on your advertisement. For this reason, Google provides four distinct keyword matching options to help advertisers reach their intended audience: broad, phrase, exact, and negative.

Let’s take a minute to look a the differences of each:
Broad Match. Broad match targeting is the default match-type used by Google. A keyword set to broad match will enable your ad to be displayed to users whose search query is similar to (but not always the same as) your keyword.
For example, the broad-match keyword Auto Insurance would also return a result for someone searching for Car Insurance or even Ice Cream Truck Insurance.
Phrase Match. Phrase match targeting is able to tighten up the search results by requiring that your keyword is entered exactly by the user. While the search may contain additional characters (at the beginning and end), your keyword must appear as-is within the search query.
For example, the phrase-match keyword Insurance in Mass would also return a result for a user searching for Affordable Insurance in Mass or even Insurance in Massachusetts, because the original keyword exists in both phrases.
Exact Match. Exact match is perhaps the most restrictive of the keyword matching options. Similarly to phrase match, exact match requires that your keyword is entered exactly by the user. However, the search query must not contain additional characters.
In other words, if set to exact match, the keyword Insurance Quotes would only display an advertisement for users searching for Insurance Quotes.
Negative Match. Adding a keyword as a negative match would prevent your ads from displaying for that particular term. This can be useful when a particular term consistently drives bad traffic.
For example, adding the negative keyword Airplane Insurance would prevent your ad from displaying for users searching for Airplane Insurance or Airplane Insurance in Warwick.
Each of these keyword match types can be used interchangeably, and adjustments can be made at any time. It’s important to keep in mind that the results of paid search are largely dependant upon the geographic, and demographic targeting, and keyword matching must be tested on a campaign-by-campaign basis. The keyword matching options chosen at the onset of a campaign, are rarely the same as those used when the budget runs out.

In this ever-competitive insurance industry how is an agency really supposed to get noticed? What key ingredients are needed to execute the best insurance marketing strategy? Do pay-per-click ads actually work?

Astonish Results co-founder and President, Tim Sawyer, recently had the opportunity to join former National Underwriter Editor in Chief Sam Friedman along with agency owners Will Penny, Rex Caton and Nathan Dagley to discuss what it takes to develop a successful paid search approach and strategy.

Sawyer opened the discussion with a striking realization regarding the success of paid search optimization, “99.0% of the time it doesn’t work, and the people that believe that are in no danger of it ever working—belief is the key,” Sawyer said openly.

Will Penny of Penny Insurance in North Carolina couldn’t agree more with the Astonish President.

When Sawyer asked how he felt about paid search Penny explained why the tactic works for his agency, “You got to believe in it, you got to have a process to make it work; you can’t just put stuff out there on the web and expect people to react to it, find you, call you up and beg to buy insurance from you,” stated the agency owner. “We have a very specific process. When somebody clicks on us and that lead comes in our agents react to it instantly”.

Both Sawyer and Penny agree that both speed and mobility are key:  the ability to stretch across a community and service the business effectively allows for independent agencies, such as Penny Insurance, to bring a local experience to a much broader geographical base.

Another concept that Sawyer brought up is one that may seem foreign to most—marketing outside one’s market.

Nathan Dagley of Dagley Insurance and Financial Services has developed a strategy that does just that. Marketing insurance in Houston, Dallas and Colorado may seem like a challenge to many, but Dagley and his agency are using paid search to their advantage. “It all comes down to processes,” the Texas-agency owners said. “And timeliness; when somebody calls in we have to be on that phone call immediately. Not only that we have to have scripts that we set aside for people to follow to make sure that there is consistency in that pattern—when you follow a great sales process it ends up getting great results”.

Rex Caton of Caton-Hosey Insurance agrees with the benefit that paid search brings to independent agencies, and explained how he justified the cost. “Think about this for a second, we have seeking insurance for themselves and asking you for it through pay-per-click”. Caton then followed up quite simply with a realization that was sure to hit home, “If you’re spending $5, $ 10, $15 per click, would you spend that if you knew you were going to close and close the right way? Of course you would”.

All in all it’s safe to say that paid search optimization is a powerful, successful tool when utilized in the right way. As Sawyer and Astonish Results are often recognized for saying, it’s all about having the right people and processes; both which are key ingredients for effective paid search campaigns.

Recently, after a whirlwind of a year, Astonish Results CEO, Adam DeGraide and President, Tim Sawyer, had the opportunity to sit down together and reflect upon some of the common themes they saw while talking to insurance agencies.

 It’s obvious that as technology changes so must the approach taken by agents. Sawyer commented on the mindset that today’s agencies seem to have, stating: “they discovered that they can drive traffic; they can increase the quantity and quality of traffic to their websites and they can get more sales opportunities,” – sounds like a movement in the right direction. Well not entirely, “the reality is that ultimately is not going to fix anything,” Sawyer responded.

 So what will?

“Train you people,” Sawyer said. It’s the common thread Astonish Results has seen from all agency leaders they have met with this year. Both Sawyer and DeGraide couldn’t stress enough the importance of the right people, process and tools and how all of that must flow cohesively with proper, effective training.

“Just because someone has been in the insurance industry for 20-years doesn’t mean they are great at serving the modern consumer,” Sawyer explained. Agents must be trained in a way that they aren’t just told how to do something; they must be shown, in addition to being provided feedback and benchmarking. It all comes down to a “comprehensive, consistent training system,” according to the Astonish President.

DeGraide had a lot of insight to share as well, including the vital ingredient that all agencies should be focusing on, “how well do you communicate effectively with the modern consumer”. DeGraide explained how many people think that marketing their company and selling more policies are results that will spawn from the use of “widgets” and “gadgets”; something the Astonish CEO proves is very untrue.

“Technology will be different next year. The thing that will never change though, is that if you have a good process of training your people on how to sell and serve the modern consumer and you’re willing to go through the pain of what that actually takes to listen to phone calls, to actually monitor what’s actually going on in your business, then these agencies can literally change their lives”.

Like Sawyer, DeGraide highlights how vital detailed training is to the success of the modern agency. He also has high expectations for the upcoming year and the field of insurance marketing as a whole. “What I find really encouraging is that they are starting to get it. They realize what the investment is, they realize what the cost is and most importantly they train their people to convert opportunities into sales”. 

As the needs of the modern consumer evolve so do those of the agencies providing them with insurance; it’s all relative to the Astonish “find, keep, sell” method and that cannot be achieved without thorough onsite training.

The “Socialnomics” video created by best-selling author Eric Qualman, states that over 200 million blogs exist across the Internet. Blogs offer opinion, perspective, news, and original thought serving as one of the best information resources across all traditional and social media. Marketing is especially ripe for blogs because of the ongoing social media evolution and the emergence of new platforms. Blogs offer on-the-spot education and conjecture and the Internet would be a much different place without them.

In the insurance industry, a growing number of agents, carriers and vendors are using blogs to battle perceptions, educate and show the industry is filled with good people doing good things. Where are they you ask? The IMHQ blogroll is a nice place to start before heading over to the aptly named Insurance Blog Directory.

With this in mind, the team from Insurance Marketing HQ is proud to announce the second #INSchat set for 10/14 at 2p.m. EST which will focus 100% on blogging related topics. To be clear, you DON’T actually need to be a blogger to get value from the Twitter chat. We’ll discuss popular blogs with content that can foster professional development while touching on other social media tools and skills as well.

With help from the growing insurance community on Twitter, we’ll also delve into SEO best practices, blogging platforms, content strategy, making a blog social, and other areas that will help anyone become more accomplished in the art of bloggery.

Instructions for participating in #INSchat are the same as last time (just fill in the new dates), so bring an open mind and your blog questions, suggestions and advice.

We had an unbelievable response to the first social media best practices Twitter chat and look forward to growing #INSchat.

Building a social media program from scratch, with no experience can be a daunting task. With all the networks, people and platforms, insurance agencies often struggle with where to start and how to proceed. Fortunately, one of the best ways to get up to speed quickly is to follow other prominent social media users from your industry, learn from them, and incorporate lessons into your own social web presence.

Below is an assemblage of 27 of my favorite insurance industry social media resources and people. If you’ve never read a blog, followed a twitter feed or created a Youtube video, here are 27 good places to start.

In no specific order of importance, here’s why social media is cool in the insurance industry:

Lastly, to take the marketing lesson a bit further, this post falls into a category which can be classified as Linkbait. Linkbait is not a bad thing, unless it is done disingenuously or coercively, but it’s useful for growing the presence of your blog.

For a definition of linkbait, we turn to web1marketing.com:

Link bait (or linkbait) refers to anything on a website that encourages links from other websites. It can include content, online tools, downloads, or anything else that another site owner might find compelling enough to link to. Link bait is important because most search engines use backlinks as a major factor in determining ranking.

Many thanks to everyone who’s helped grow the insurance industry’s social web presence. Obviously this list is not complete, so if you know another person or site that is helping to make social media cool in the insurance industry, please leave it in the comments section. Self-promotional plugs are not just OK, they are STRONGLY encouraged.