Increase Traffic to Your Internet ‘Real Estate’

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Enhance Your Agency’s Online Visibility Through Search Engine Optimization

Nearly half of the United States — more than 163 million people — are using the Internet, according to a recent Nielsen poll. And they are using search engines to research local businesses far more than they are looking them up in the Yellow Pages.

A survey published last fall by Nielsen Online and local online marketing specialist, WebVisible, showed that 82 percent of U.S. consumers are using Internet search engines such as Google and Yahoo to find local businesses in their communities. Meanwhile, 57 percent of survey respondents said they use the print Yellow Pages to research local business. (See “Search Engine as Local Business Research Tool” below.)

This growing use of the Internet to find business services and products demands that small- to mid-sized insurance agencies maximize the effectiveness of their firm’s Web site to attract consumers to their piece of online “real estate,” said James Omdahl, an online marketing specialist based in Denver.

In a presentation at the Independent Insurance Agents of Texas’ Joe Vincent Management Seminar held in Austin in late January, Omdahl pointed out that the Nielson-WebVisible survey also showed a “huge gap” between what small businesses are doing to make themselves “found” on the Internet and consumers’ attempts to seek them out. Some statistics Omdahl found notable:

44 percent of small business owners have a Web site.
61 percent spend three hours a week or less marketing their Web site.
51 percent said their site’s customer acquisition capability — the ability to turn a Web site visitor into a customer — was fair to poor.
50 percent are spending less than 10 percent of their marketing budget on Internet advertising.
26 percent have invested in search engine marketing in one way or another.
30 percent did no Internet advertising.

Becoming Visible

“Big companies will figure out how to take customers from you if you don’t figure out how to do it first,” Omdahl said. The opportunity for small- and medium-sized businesses in the insurance market lies in their ability to specialize and become visible and “findable” for that specialty on the Internet. “Be more specific on the business that you’re focusing on … if you have a specialty, you’re going to be good at that; if you work with a specific type of clients, you’re going to be good at that,” Omdahl said. “That’s where the opportunity lies in 2009.”

He noted two examples of Internet-based companies that began as narrowly focused firms and expanded exponentially later on: eBay and Amazon. Amazon began as an online site for rare books, and eBay started out as an auction site for Pez candy dispensers, Omdahl said. “Eventually they were able to expand their businesses because they built a good foundation and they were able to scale that out into other industries that were related to their industry,” he said.

“The best way to think about your Web site is that it’s a lot of things to your business,” Omdahl said. “No. 1, it’s your storefront. It really is a place online where people are going out and looking to purchase insurance these days. And it is your piece of real estate on the Internet.

“It’s also your resume,” Omdahl continued. It tells people what you know, what you’ve done and your history. It’s your public personality. … You don’t just have to be another bland insurance agent. You can really be someone with a personality, someone who stands out, and you can do that with your Web site. It’s also your cold call, your first conversation and your sales pitch.”

So, what should a Web site do?

“No. 1, it should look professional,” Omdahl said. While that makes sense, he noted there are a lot of Web sites that don’t look professional, that look outdated. Web sites should be redesigned on a regular basis with new content added at least every couple of years, he recommended.

You also “want to be able to convert someone from a visitor to an actual client or a lead or a contact. A lot of people forget this,” Omdahl said. Provide as many options as you can for your visitors to turn into customers, he said. “There are companies out there that can help you with a lead form. There are companies out there that can take somebody through the application process. There are even companies out there that you can actually get to a sale with.”

The ability to add content and have some control over your Web site is also essential. “There are plenty of platforms … that allow you to add content, add photographs and change things up on your Web site without having to pay” someone else to do it, he said.

“Be a master of your own domain. What you want to do is you want to own that piece of real estate online,” Omdahl said. He said if you are going through another company to host your Web site, you are only borrowing your name and that space. He said for around $20 a year — $10 for a domain name and $10 for hosting — an agency can own its piece of Web real estate.

An effective Web site will also have the ability to track who’s visiting it and how they are getting to the site. That is accomplished through analytics tools, such as Google Analytics. “What analytics do is track who’s visiting and from where people are visiting your Web site. How did they get to your Web site? What did they type into Google? What type of Web site did they come from to get to yours? What pages are they visiting, how long have they spent, what are their navigation apps for your Web site? When you gather all that information, you’re going to be better able to tell what’s working and what’s not on your site,” Omdahl said.

If You Build It, Will They Come?

“Even the greatest Web site in the world is worthless if no one can find it,” Omdahl said. But in reality, people won’t find it unless you take steps to promote it.

When someone goes to Google and performs a search for commercial auto insurance, the results page will show sponsored links, which appear at the top inside section and on the side of the page. The owners of those sites pay for those positions. The center section contains the free listings, which are also known as organic listings or natural listings. Thirty percent of the people who do Google searches will click on the sponsored links, but 70 percent are going to be focused on that middle section. “The idea is to get your Web site to appear at or near the top of that list” in the middle section, Omdahl said.

One of the ways to do that is through search engine optimization (SEO), which is basically creating content that will make it easy for search engines to find the site. SEO “is really the process of understanding how Google is looking at the search… it’s about doing things to your Web site to get it to rank highly in those search engines,” Omdahl said.

Spiders, Crawlers and Robots

Google employs programs, sometimes called spiders, crawlers or robots, that search the Internet for Web sites. When they find a new Web site, they copy it and put it into an index, Omdahl explained. “They also follow from one link to another, from Web site to another … and they make note of the relationship between all these Web sites, so they actually understand” how one Web site links to another. Then, using about 200 mathematically based factors, they decide how a given Web site ranks where in the search engine.

Omdahl offered some general tips to enhance a Web site’s visibility on search engines:

Avoid generalization. Target key words and use specific terms.
Create valuable content for your visitors. Post articles about problems your customers regularly encounter. Publish news and data, and sharable tips and guides, targeting your niche industries.
Make your title tag work for you. The title tag explains to a search engine what your Web site is about. It is located in the header, or the blue bar, above your Web site’s home page. The title tag is also the clickable string of words that describe your business and appear in blue on the Google results page. The title tag should contain key words to convince people to click on your listing.
Link up. Linking is extremely important in the insurance world because the industry is so competitive. Possibilities for linking to other Web sites include professional organizations to which you belong, Web sites of clients or businesses in your niche focus, associations and professional groups that represent the types of businesses you specialize in, as well as family and friends.

This article was based on a presentation, “Tools of the Trade: Strategies for Marketing Your Agency Online.” For more information on search engine optimization, visit James Omdahl’s Web site at www.jamesomdahl.com.

Search Engine as Local Business Research Tool
Nearly 4,000 U.S. Internet users and 261 small business owners participated in the Nielsen-WebVisible survey, according to Search Engine Land, www.searchengineland.com, which posted a summary of the survey results on its Web site.

Commonly used local business information resources: