Top 7 Tips for Effective Customer Testimonials

Posting customer testimonials on your website is a great way to let prospects learn more about you and your agency. However, care must be taken to make these testimonials valid and compelling to potential customers. Here are 7 tips for posting effective customer testimonials:

1. Add credibility to your testimonials. Make your customers sound authentic by adding full names and places, and maybe even adding their picture. Make it easy for your prospects to see instantly the real-world comments from your customers which will remove any doubt right from the onset.
2. Include measurable results wherever possible. Asking your customers to include specific amounts of time and money saved will help to add validity to the testimonials. It is better to hear, "I saved $500 in 15 minutes!" rather than "I saved some money today."
3. Make your testimonials as detailed as possible. By asking customers to add specific details of their interactions with your agency, you are making it easier for prospects to identify with them, which in turn will help them consider your agency for business.
4. Gather a variety of testimonials. Posting testimonials of customers from different backgrounds, who have purchased different products and services will help potential customers relate to current customers.
5. Get permission. Make sure you have written approval from your current customers to publish their names and/or pictures on your website.
6. Format your testimonials for easy reading. Use the handy Testimonial Builder in your Administration Console from IWB to create a layout that is legible and easy to understand.
7. Bonus Tip: Use video. Seeing a happy customer is more effective than reading about one. If you can get your best customers to make a short video (30 seconds to 1 minute) it will instantly make your customers more accessible, which may elicit better response overall. I mean, let's face it, nobody reads anymore.

Your satisfied and loyal customers are a valuable resource. Use their positive and honest feedback effectively and people will respond which ultimately helps to grow your agency.

Effectively Building Backlinks For Your Website

Commenting:  
Find blogs within your area of expertise and leave relevant comments. A lot of the time you can post your website URL along with the comment.

Guest Posts: 
Offer to post for another blog. Typically they will allow you to add a backlink to your article in exchange for the article you write for them.

Article Writing and Article Sites:
Writing for article sites will generally ensure a backlink to your site as well. Just make sure that you change the wording if you want to post the same article on another site.

Forums:
You can usually include your URL with your forum comments. The more informative and interesting your post, the better the chance it will be approved by moderators and the better the chance people will click through to your site.

RSS:
Use your RSS feed. Submit your RSS feeds to directories that constantly update. This will attract the attention of search engines and help create backlinks.

YouTube:
Post an intriguing and entertaining video and you can create traffic to your website. People will also link to your site too.

Our SEO team at Insurance Website Builder can build backlinks for your insurance website. Call us today at 1-800-383-3482 for more information.

Your Fun Friday Facts!

Be sure you check the rest of our blog entries to see how these SEO tools can be implemented on your own website.

Bing overtakes Yahoo! as the #2 Search Engine

New figures just released last month, show that Bing (Microsoft sites) has overtaken Yahoo as the second most popular search engine on the Web, according to comScore. Microsoft sites increased their search share by 0.1% compared to the previous month, and interestingly Yahoo decreased theirs by 0.5%. This is in-keeping with the recent move by Yahoo to merge their Site Explorer with Bing's Webmaster Tools, as Yahoo focuses more on paid advertising and Bing focuses on search.

Tips on How to Deal With Unhappy Facebook Fans

Every business can receive a bad comment on Facebook, even the best of the best need to know how to handle this type of situation to keep the good reputation of the brand. Some customers will have a simple complaint and some can be really offensive, but we have 4 tips on how to deal with unhappy Facebook Fans:

1. Respond to the complaint

It is very important that you respond to the complaint no matter what. Not responding to what the upset fan posted on your wall may create more anger and will increase the chance of getting more complaints from this fan in the future. Additionally, although this complaint may be from only one fan, if other fans see that you don’t reply to complaints it may appears as if you don’t pay attention to customers and don’t offer any customer support, which in turn harms the reputation of your brand. Do not try to delete the negative comment. Not everybody is going to have a good review of your product or service and if customers see only positive comments, they may think that you are deleting the bad ones.

2. Try to be understanding

Dealing with an upset fan is not always easy, but try to put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Don’t try to find who is at fault, apologize and find a solution.

3. Contact the customer directly

Trying to contact the customer directly can be more effective than just a reply to the wall post. Apologize, try to find a solution and be personable. If you decide to make a solution publicly, some other customers could try to create a problem to just get the special treatment so beware of your response. Consider asking the customer to remove the wall post. If you don’t feel comfortable asking this, or the customer doesn’t want to remove it even though the issue was resolved, try to express happiness in the resolution and thank them for their business directly on the post.

4. Last option

If the fan doesn’t respond after you have tried to contact them and it is evident that they are trying to just start arguments on your community wall, as a last resort you can always ban the user. Other fans in your community, along with your staff do not deserve the abuse and they always expect respect.

All customers are important and solving their issues can create more loyal fans on your Facebook Page. Our SEO team at Insurance Website Builder can help you optimize your insurance websites as well as your Facebook Page. Call us today at 1-800-383-3482 for more information.

What Should I Put on my Homepage Content?

Many insurance agents ask me what kind of information should be added to their homepage. This is a pertinent question as a website's homepage is the most important page. It sets a tone for the type of agency you are, as well as providing relevant information, such as products and services offered. A good homepage provides just enough information to grab the attention of a prospect, without giving too much information which could be a turn off. Here are a few things to remember when composing your homepage content.

What is the Goal of your website?

Answering this question will help to narrow down what to add to your homepage content. Do you want to raise awareness about your agency? Do you want to increase your agency’s web visibility? Provide easy access to your agency’s products and services? Provide insurance information, tips and tricks? Whatever the answer is, customize your content, so you achieve those goals.

In no particular order, these should be available on the homepage of your website:

• Types of products and services offered, including specialty or niche products
• Agency’s unique selling point, how do you stand out from your competitors?
• Easy access to quote forms
• Agency values, perhaps a brief history
• One or two testimonials
• Other companies you work with
• Geo-targets (cities, states) you service

On the whole, make sure that your homepage reflects your values as an insurance agent and puts your agency’s best foot forward. Incorporating all of the points above will result in naturally occurring keywords for SEO. Try not to write copy solely with SEO in my mind, which could have the effect of sounding contrived and spammy. Just have fun with it, and if it sounds interesting to you, then chances are, it'll sound interesting to a prospect too!

Insurance Website Builder provides content writing for insurance agents’ websites so give us call to create your perfect homepage, 1-800-383-3482.

Extreme Example from CopyHackers.com.

White Hat SEO & Black Hat SEO

Search Engine Optimization can be divided into two categories: methods that search engines consider “best practices”, and practices that search engines frown upon. Search engines try to lessen the effects of black hat SEO. The search engine industry and the SEO community have classified these methods as white hat SEO and black hat SEO. White hat techniques typically produce long term results and black hat practitioners, in the back of their mind, know that their sites may be de-indexed from the search engines if they’re found out.

White Hat SEO
White hat methods follow the search engines’ guidelines and do not try to trick the internet visitor or the search engine. White hat is not only about following guidelines, it’s about making sure the search engine content matches what the user will see. White hat recommendations include creating content for users, not for the search engines, and then making the content easily accessible to the search engine spiders, rather than to try to deceive the search engines.

Black Hat SEO
Black hat SEO tries to improve rankings in ways that are not approved by the search engines. One black hat technique is to use text that is the same color as the background. Another technique is to take the user to a different page than the one that was requested, a technique called cloaking.

Search engines may penalize sites they find using black hat methods. Punishments include reducing their rankings or removing the website from their index. These penalties can be implemented automatically through search engines’ algorithms or manually by review.

Our SEO team at Insurance Website Builder only uses white hat methods that will ensure your insurance websites will remain indexed in the search engines and highly ranked.

5 Practical Email Newsletter Tips for Better Deliverability and Readability

While content is king, creating an effective email newsletter is about more than just writing. To encourage your readers to open your emails, there are some technical best practices to consider that can help improve your results.

5 practical email newsletter tips for better deliverability and readability:

1. Keep it short. An email newsletter shouldn't contain the full article, especially if you include multiple articles in your newsletter. You want your readers to be able to easily scan the newsletter for articles that interest them. Provide them with easily absorbed fragments of information in the form of headlines and short article introductory paragraphs that link to the full article on your website.
2. Include a table of contents. A simple way to improve the scanability of your email newsletter is to place a table of contents at the top of the newsletter. The table of contents should include article titles and anchors linking to the articles' introductory paragraphs further down in the newsletter.
3. Provide your newsletter in HTML and plain text versions. While HTML is the version you'd prefer everyone to see because it's more visually attractive, not everyone will be able to view it because of firewalls and filters. If you don't have a plain text version of your newsletter, those who can't view HTML won't be able to see your newsletter at all.
4. Use a minimum of graphics. Emails with a large number of graphic images are often marked as spam and never reach the reader. Also, the majority of email clients turn off images by default so readers won't even see the graphics unless they turn them on. Keeping the pictures to a compelling few combined with your relevant content is best, as long as the email design isn't dependent on them.
5. Test test test. Email clients are not created equal. What looks great in one doesn't always look great in another. Send tests of your email to the major email clients - Outlook, Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail - to review your email in the various settings and prevent any blunders.

A well-designed template combined with relevant, informational content can have a great impact on the deliverability and readership levels of your email newsletters. To learn more email marketing tips and tricks read the AgencyBuzz blog.

Image: Idea go / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

7 Tips of Effective Email Marketing Campaigns

It takes time to follow up on individual prospects and give your customers the personal attention they want. But time is a limited resource in a busy insurance agency.

Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to consistently communicate with many prospects and customers at one time. When done well, it develops more meaningful, longer-lasting relationships and open, two-way communication so customers can share their pain points and you can demonstrate your expertise. Email marketing also increases the likelihood of future purchases and gathers information that can be used for improving customer service and retention.

Here are 7 tips you can use to create high quality, effective emails that will positively impact your agency growth.

1. Ask for emails. To drive subscription, you need to be asking for your customers’ email addresses at every touch point – on your website, over the phone, in your office, etc.
2. Be consistent. Emailing your customers on a regular basis will keep your agency at the top of their minds. Be careful not to overload them with constant messages. A good rule of thumb is no more often than once every 2-3 weeks. Less than that and it might be difficult for them to remember you. More than that and they might be tempted to hit the spam or unsubscribe button.
3. Relevant content. It doesn’t matter if they gave you their email address and you’re only sending messages every three weeks. If your subscribers don’t find your content interesting, they’re not going to read it. We recommend implementing a mix of insurance specific content with general interest articles, such as tips to reduce gas mileage while driving or to make easy home improvements.
4. Be yourself. People do business with people they like. Your customers already like you so don’t change your writing style because it’s an email. Keep the same style and tone as if the customer was sitting across from you in your office.
5. Segmentation. It’s easy to create a general newsletter that appeals to most customers. However, specific messages sent to specific groups can foster even deeper relationships and make more sales as segmented emails are more likely to be opened and acted upon. Producing different email messages for different groups may be more work, but it is worth the extra effort.
6. Track your results. You’ll never know which email messages are successful and which ones aren’t unless you’re tracking your results. Before you start an email marketing program, determine what your objectives are. They can be as straightforward (an open rate for driving brand awareness) or as complicated (tracking conversions and ROI) as you want. Just make sure to check your results against your objectives to determine your success.
7. Be CAN-SPAM compliant. CAN-SPAM is the law. Violating it can subject your agency to criminal penalties. You are required to include clear instructions for how subscribers can opt out of future email and unsubscribe readers promptly. Also, don’t steal email addresses and don’t be misleading.

Email is an incredibly cost-effective channel of communication for driving new sales and retaining current customers. Once you begin gathering emails, don’t wait to get started. Launch your insurance email marketing campaign as soon as possible.

Additional Resources

• Best Practices For Bulletproof E-Mail Delivery
• 31 content tips and ideas for your B2B email newsletter
• To learn more email marketing tips and tricks read the AgencyBuzz blog.

New Features for Insurance Website Builder

We've added new features to IWB.

Complete integration with our new product: AgencyBuzz

• You configure AgencyBuzz within IWB here: http://www.insurancewebsitebuilder.com/Admin/agencybuzz.aspx
• Whenever the site is configured with AgencyBuzz, any submissions will also be auto inserted into AgencyBuzz from the website. The user has the ability to configure whether they want the submissions entered for Quotes, Service Requests or Newsletters.
• Normal newsletter screen on IWB : http://www.sampleinsurancewebsite.com/newsletter.aspx
• Newsletter screen when integrated with AgencyBuzz : http://www.freedemowebsite.com/newsletter.aspx

QR Codes on the employee directory for easy downloads of Contact Information

• http://www.sampleinsurancewebsite.com/contact/Patricia_Morris.aspx

Blog Comments have been enabled and can be moderated

• http://www.sampleinsurancewebsite.com/blog/Basic_Blog_Post.aspx

IWB now has a mobile version that includes the following features at no cost to the agent and is available on all plans. (If you don’t have a mobile device then you can still view a sample of it here: http://www.sampleinsurancewebsite.com/m/)

• Automatic Mobile Device Detection
• Quote Forms
• Manage My Policy Forms
• Report a Claim Form (all forms are mobile friendly forms)
• Line of Business Pages
• About Us Page
• Locations
• Click to Map (using the built in mapping app of the device)
• Employees
• Click to Call
• Click to E-mail
• Click to Download vCard (not supported by iPhone)
• Contact Us Page
• Blog
• FAQs
• Important Links
• Important Files
• View Full Site
• Privacy Policy
• Integration with Submission Manager and AgencyBuzz
• Mobile Sitemap (the same as the Google Sitemap but designed for mobile)
• A VERY good looking interface

We hope you enjoy all your new features!

Contact us at 1-800-383-3482 for more information about these exciting new features.