Easy List of How to Fully Benefit from Your Website

1. Site Title & Description
   This is what search engines read and display, so make it concise, but descriptive. (For example, ‘Auto, Home, Life Insurance – Dallas, Plano, Richardson TX’ for the title and ‘Example Insurance Agency specializes in auto, home and life insurance in Dallas, Plano, Richardson and the surrounding areas of Texas.’ for the description ) Limit your title to 65 characters and description to 150 characters. Search engines will not index characters beyond this limit. Use this Javascript Kit webpage to count your characters.

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Tip of the Iceberg

This is your Fun Friday posting, but it's actually a very honest depiction:

Be sure you let this one sink in!

What to Blog About?

Create a content calendar.

In the world of business, families, school, and so many other things, people have adapted to calendars; on their phone, at their desk, on their computer, even through sticky notes on their car windshield. Calendars seem to make things easier. Less stressful. Less intimidating.

So when faced with the impossible task of blogging, some people will run scared and not even try. And some will start off strong, only to waver after 2 or 3 weeks. We know you’re busy. We know you’ve got better things to do besides stopping to put your genius into words. But blogging can be your escape. Like the working mother who has to schedule dinner and a bath into her life just so she doesn’t forget to take care of herself. Schedule blogging into your life, and give it the importance it deserves.

You have a website because you want people to visit. You care about the design of your website because you want people to stay. And Insurance Website Builder gives you an easy-to-use blog because we want people and search engines to come back.

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again—Content is King. Blogging is the easiest way to satisfy this straightforward desire for fresh content. But it must be done in accordance with SEO efforts. And it must be done consistently. Here is where a calendar comes in.

Create a list of events that will give you an excuse to write something. Date these events and pick the ones you deem most fitting for you to target. Decide what type of content you can produce for each of these events. Don’t worry about keeping your ideas 100% business related, that’s what news events are for along the way.

Like I said, we know you’re busy. So to help you start brainstorming, here’s a handy (& long) list of events to get your gears turning:

Your Products

• New product launches
• Product upgrades / relaunches
• Announcements about big new clients

Your Business

• Anniversary of the company
• Company conferences
• Other events / meetups
• Publication of non-commercial content (new Whitepapers, etc)
• Announcing new job openings
• Announcing new hires / senior personnel changes
• Mergers and acquisitions

Industry News and Events

• Annual Reports
• Industry Awards
• Industry Conferences (esp. those you will attend or speak at)
• Industry Exhibitions (esp. those you will attend or exhibit at)
• Industry / Partner Events

Niche Events & Celebrations

• Niche occasions (eg: new driving laws, new insurance guidelines)
• Widely recognized events (eg: ‘National BBQ Month’)
• Events just made up for PR (eg: ‘National Pool Party Week’)

Politics & Community

• Local / regional / national election cycles
• New laws / bills
• Opening / closing of political seasons
• Annual budget announcement

Holidays (Federal & Unofficial)

• Christmas
• New Year
• Easter
• Independence Day
• Mardi Gras
• Diwali
• Ramadan
• Hanukkah
• Valentine’s Day
• Halloween
• Mother’s / Father’s Day
• April Fool’s Day
• Friday 13th
• Feburary 29th
• Pi Day
• St Patrick’s Day
• Chinese New Year

Seasonal / Calendar Events

• First day of Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring
• Summer Vacation / Back to School
• The Equinoxes and Solstices
• Start & end of daylight savings time
• Tax Season

Historical Celebrated / Well-Remembered Events

• Look for 10th/25th/100th anniversaries
• Tragedies (natural disasters, plane crashes)

Once-in-a-Lifetime Events

• Halley’s Comet
• The last NASA shuttle launch
• Royal Wedding / Coronation
• Solar eclipse
• Turn of a century

War & Conflict

• VE / VJ Day
• Remembrance Day
• Independence Days
• Famous battles (Bosworth, Hastings, Normandy Landings, Dunkirk, Stalingrad)
• Terrorism memorials (7th of July, 11th of September)
• Internal conflict (eg: Bloody Sunday, various Civil Wars)

Annual Sports Events

• NFL Playoffs & The Superbowl
• NBA Playoffs
• March Madness

Non-Annual Sporting Events

• Ryder Cup
• Olympics
• Soccer World Cup

Calendar courtesy of distilled.net

The Right Words in the Right Place

2theTop Web Design

You should pay special attention to certain elements on your website. Strategic wording should be used for areas such as:

• Meta Description
• Page File Name
• Page Title
• Page Headline
• Inside Body Content
• Bold & Italicized Text
• Image File Names
• Image Alt Text / Attribute
• Video File Name

When people fail to implement these features correctly, their rankings suffer and in turn traffic drops.

Whether it's insurance website design or on or offsite SEO, our SEO team at Insurance Website Builder is here to guide you.

Au Naturale...

search en·gine op·ti·mi·za·tion
"SEO: the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the natural, un-paid, or organic search results"

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Back to the Basics

SEO combines the methods of how search engines work, what people search for, the actual terms or keywords entered into search engines, and which search engines are preferred by target audiences.

Optimizing a website for SEO involves editing the content, promoting that site around the web, and removing any barriers possible so that search engines can index the site.


No Cheaters Allowed

Don't cheat yourself out of something rewarding to get something easy. SEO can be thought of similarly to a relationship. Your site should be accessible, have goals set for the future, always know the right things to say, know the likes and dislikes of search engines, never come off as fake, automated, or a copy-cat, and never ever bore them. Never.


The Truth of the Matter

If you would prefer to find love by going on reality television, getting engaged after 1 week, and becoming married after 1 month, then I can already guess how long that marriage will last...

But if you prefer the tried and true way of meeting someone at your local coffee shop, getting to know that person over a few dates, then embarking on a lifelong journey of happiness, you're already one step closer to understanding SEO!


Making it Make Sense

They say love is fleeting. And search engines can be just as tricky. So if you haven't figured it out by now, you have the power to choose that regrettable rush of a drive-thru wedding in Vegas or holding on to the lasting satisfaction of a relationship sustained through the ups and downs. This is similar to Paid SEO tactics and Natural SEO tactics. You can pay to feel that instant, however short-lived rush, or you can grow naturally. The results will speak for themselves.

In dating and in SEO.

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.