How to Choose a Main Keyword Phrase

A main keyword phrase (kp) is the most important part of your SEO campaign. This is the phrase you would like potential customers to use to find your website in the search engines. It is used as an anchor text to link back to your website. It must also appear "as is" without any variations, at least 3-5 times on your homepage.

A main kp normally consists of 3-4 words. Any more or less will dilute the effect your SEO campaign. A main kp can take two main forms:

1. Geo-target Line of Business e.g. Dallas car insurance
2. Line of Business in Geo-target e.g. Car insurance in Dallas

The geo-target can be a city, county or state. It can be the city your main offices are in, a place that you would like to attract a larger customer base from or a new area that you would like to break through to. If you cover multiple cities then the county that encompasses all of them or even your state will be beneficial.

Some things to consider when choosing a geo-target:

• A city is what most potential customers search by. If it is a common name, it may be necessary to add a qualifier, eg. the "TX" in Dallas TX Car Insurance.
• Consider the number of search results in your decision. Do a search in Google for the different geo-targets with the line of business, and see how many other companies/entities you are competing with. The larger the area, the more entities you are competing against e.g. State vs. City. If the results run in the millions then it may not make sense to pursue that keyword. Consider adding a qualifier or changing the geo-target altogether to reduce the number of results.
• Choosing a lesser known or smaller city will get you to the top of search engines faster as there are not many entities you are competing with. However, that may also mean that less people will consider using a smaller city to search by.
• Not many people search for insurance by county, however if you feel it most accurately describes your geo-target then go for it.
• Choosing a state as a geo-target will have the largest pool of competitors. You should think seriously about choosing a state, as this will take longer to show favorable results.

Some things to consider when choosing a line of business:

• Choose a line of business that you want to attract the most new customers with.
• Choose a line of business that you can guarantee will get most the new customers and then entice them with another line of business once you have them.
• Consider the number and kind of competitors for that line of business; if you have numerous competitors in your area who concentrate on auto insurance, then it may be viable to focus on something else like home insurance which may get you to the top of search engines faster.

Bear in mind that the main kp you choose is not the be all and end all of your SEO campaign. With this type of “natural” SEO, it can take up to a month or two to see favorable results. However if you find after two or three months, this main kp is not working for you, then change it to another geo-target or line of business.

You can also create secondary and tertiary kps. These are normally in the form of the same geo-target but with different lines of business. You can add these to the page keywords or anywhere else it is necessary.

As with all SEO, no guarantees can be made with regards to results. Consult your SEO Coordinator to determine what is best for your agency.

Read more about how and when to use your main kp for On-site Optimization and Off-site Optimization.

How to Write an Optimized Blog Post

Keyword phrases (kp) are the most important elements of SEO. IWB customers can log in to the Administration Console to blog on their website.

• Title - The title of your blog post must have some keywords in it. For example, Dallas Auto Insurance, New rate cuts for Dallas Auto Insurance, Fresh focus on Home Insurance in Dallas etc. Google loves fresh content, and if that content has your keywords in it Google will pick up on it and associate it with your website. Also, IWB websites automatically converts the title of your post to a URL, which once again helps the search engines find your website easier.

• Body - The body of your blog post must not be too long, ideally 1-2 paragraphs, maximum of 3 paragraphs. People do not want to spend too much time reading, so the shorter and more concise your post the better.  Always include links back to your website. Make sure those links include anchor text or the actual keyword phrases. Do not link “Click here”, “Visit us”, “www.agencyname.net.” The more links that go back to your website the better. The links do not necessarily have to link to the homepage. If you have something interesting to say about health insurance, link back to the health insurance page or even the quote forms. Just make sure you have at least one backlink in your post.

• Pictures -  Add pictures to your entries. These help to make your posts more interesting and break up the content. Make sure you have permission to add them.

• Content - Writing your own content is highly recommended – it’s unique to you and therefore more valuable. However if you don’t have the time to write something yourself, you can re-post news articles, community news, industry news on your blog. Just make sure you cite the source, with the original web address. If you are copying insurance articles on to your blog, make sure to delete links to other insurance agents websites. You can still link something within that article back to your website. It’s important to blog at least once a week or as often as you can. If you cannot do it yourself, perhaps get another agent or secretary to do it, as long as you have fresh content. Ask questions in your blog posts. This gets your readers thinking, and they can now post their comments in IWB's new blog commenting section.

• Tags - Also known as keyword or blog tags. Tags help you to categorize your posts, which makes it easier for people as well as search engines to find your blog entries. Make sure to use the same tag whenever you can, rather than variations of that tag, e.g. use blog instead of blogging, blog entries or blog posting. This helps us find entries easier and especially with the way IWB websites use them, and makes the search engines find them easier too. IWB websites handily displays all tags used to the right of every blog you post.

Additional Resources:

• To Blog or Not to Blog
• How to Choose a Main Keyword Phrase
• Top Blogging Tips by the Best Bloggers  

(Photo courtesy of BlogTrepreneur.com)

How to Optimize your SEO settings

This information should be entered in the SEO Settings section of the Administration Console. Watch a video on how to optimize your SEO settings for your IWB website.

Page Title

• Should be the Main Keyword Phrase (kp)
• Must 60-70 characters long (including spaces)
• The main kp is normally 3-4 words long in the format “Geo-target Line of Business”, e.g. Dallas Auto Insurance, Cheap Dallas Home Insurance, Dallas TX Contractors Insurance
• Only insert the main kp. The Website automatically adds “ - Company Name” at the end

Site Description

• Must be 150-160 characters (including spaces)
• Must include main kp
• Must describe the website, what it offers, what the company specializes in
• Must be a full sentence, i.e. humans read this, so it must make sense, with a full stop at the end, appropriate capitalizations etc.
• Can include areas covered, e.g. cities, counties, state
• Do not include address, hours of business

Page Keywords

Note: The top 3 search engines, Google, Yahoo and Bing do not take page keywords (meta keywords) into account when ranking a website. As such, these are not important if you want to rank in the top 3. However the smaller search engines may still use this data, so it's best to add some.

• Must be at least 10-15 keywords
• Must be comma delimited
• First keyword must be main kp
• Can include derivatives of main kp e.g. home insurance, home, insurance etc.
• Each keyword must be present somewhere on the homepage, be it in the main body or navigation.
• Can include areas covered
• Do not include zipcodes, area codes

Read more about how this is reflected on Google's Search Engine Results page.

Off-site Optimization

One of the two main components of SEO is off-site optimization. Off-site optimization involves putting links on other websites to your own website, otherwise known as backlinking or inbound links. The other is on-site optimization.

• Social networking sites. You can create Twitter, Facebook and Linked In profiles or any other type that is popular, and then link those back to your homepage.
• Commenting on blogs. You can comment on other insurance blogs, or blogs in general and put your web address in the comment.
• Google likes fresh content. One way to do that is to blog on your website. You can find this in the Admin Console under Communication Settings. You can have links that link to other pages in your website. You can blog about interesting news articles, community news, financial news, any promotions your business is holding. Watch a video on how to blog on your IWB website.

On-Site Optimization

One of the two main components of SEO is on-site optimization.  This involves optimizing your site by using keyword phrases both in the source code and the content of your website. It is crucial to have unique, keyword-rich, relevant content on your homepage. Google puts heavy emphasis on website content and this is one of the easier requirements to meet. 

• Choosing a main keyword phrase (kp) and sticking to it. This phrase must have a geo-target and a line of business associated with it, e.g. Dallas car insurance, cheap Dallas home insurance, Dallas TX business insurance.
• Optimize SEO Settings on your website. Your page title, page description and the first phrase in the page keywords section in the Admin Console should all contain your main kp.
• Embolden important keywords. This will alert the visitor and Google what is most important on your page. 
• Make sure all words in your meta keywords appear somewhere in the homepage. Navigation links and footers can include the phrases.
• The kp must appear in at least 3 places. Your main kp must appear on your homepage 3-5 times. This can be as a heading, in the footer and the body of the content.
• Add an H1 heading tag containing your main kp. In the Admin Console, under Site Content Editor, select Home Page from the drop down menu. In the HTML side type your heading like this:  <h1> Dallas Auto Insurance </h1>
  The main kp is closer to the top of the page and Google will read that first. Google reads text from top to bottom, so it is crucial to have your most important information close to the top of the page. Alt tags for images are also very important (contact your webmaster or IWB Support for help on this).
• Add your main kp in the footer. For the footer go to www.reliableins.net to see an example. In the Admin Console, under Site Content Editor select Site Footer. Type in your main kp, Dallas Auto Insurance. To make it a link do the following:
• Click the chain link icon on the toolbar within the content editor to open the Hyperlink Manager.
• In the URL textbox type in the URL.
• In the Link Text textbox type in the link's description.
• Select New Window in the Target drop down box. 
• Once completed, click the Ok button.
  

The other main component is off-site optimization. This involves creating inbound links to your website.