Every link that you add to your website is one more chance to lose a site visitor. Is it worth loosing a site visitor to this link?

When linking to sites it is always good to type out a sentence or two explaining where the link goes. FAQs are an excellent resource for external links.

Example of a valuable FAQ with a link to an external site:

Question: How do I find out about state insurance laws?

Answer: Washington State has valuable resources located at: http://www.insurance.wa.gov/

Replace Washington State with a state that you write business in and you are set.

The following screenshot (located here) illustrates how you can have a page that is specific to an external site. In this example we are linking to the Trusted Choice website; but instead of just putting a link we created a page with the Trusted Choice^® Pledge of Performance.

Why is Linking to external websites this way so Effective?

We are explaining to the user what the site is and why we are members of the site.

The page is content rich providing us a great SEO page.

We are able to link to the website, include a logo, and still keep the visitor on our website.

Their Video:
SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday – How to Get Awesome Links from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.

He knows his stuff and put out a video earlier this year with some pretty good insight into website spam, SEO and Google.

Video Notes:

It is important not to fall into traps with companies who promise you top search listings. Let’s face it; if there was some secret way to guarantee your website top listings wouldn’t everyone be doing it?

SEO companies can play an important role in website development and marketing. They can also cost a pretty penny and leave you no better off than you were to begin with.

In November 2008 Washington State filed a lawsuit against a SEO company claiming they ripped off a handful of customers with unfulfilled promises.

What SEO companies should do:
Give you a complete analysis of your website, including broken links, top words used throughout your website, landing pages, Meta keywords, local search trends, determine how your website ranks among all major search engine, provide examples of ways to increase page rank,  etc.

Landing Pages:
Lately, “Landing pages” have been thrown around as the latest hip word to use in the SEO arena. A landing page is simply a page specific to one subject designed for search engines. For instance, if you sell crop insurance. On your website you should have a link for: example.com/crop-insurance this link would take you to a page specific for crop insurance.

Note for Confluency customers: Each of your product pages act as a landing page. Ex:
http://demo.cfluent.com/products/6/Boat

Cost Benefit Analysis:
The low end of SEO packages are usually around $30 to $60 per month. The average is probably about $200 a month. The high end could be upwards of $2,000 a month. (These numbers are solely taken from conversations I have had)

I’m not going to take into account the high end range; that is just crazy…

In my example I’m going to use $100 per month for a SEO package.

Annual fee: $1,200 – Benefit: (Unknown) Additional page hits: (Unknown)

What else can you do with $1,200 that will help your agency website?

Option 1: Pay me

Option 2: Pay-per-click advertisements: For $1,200 you can have a pretty steady marketing program that is guaranteed to increase the clicks to your website. (You will only have to pay when a click happens)

Using keywords that are not mainstream (Mainstream keywords or expensive keywords such as “Auto Insurance” or “Home Insurance”) you will spend about $0.20 to about $5.00 per click.

That’s 240 to 6,000 clicks to your website.

My conclusion:
Make sure you have gone through this blog especially the category “Search Engine Registration“

Pay for Yahoo or Google advertisements.

If you choose to entertain a SEO company, make sure you do the following:

• Ask for references, including phone/email addresses.
• Find out their “guarantee”
• Determine beforehand exactly what you are trying to achieve. Is it better page rank? More page hits

Doing a Google search for the key words: “insurance, Jacksonville” I am able to see a handful of insurance agencies listed next to a map above the normal search area. This is prime real estate for your insurance agency website.

How do you get your agency listed on the top?

Well that question is really only known by Google, but there are some things that you can do to help get noticed.

Own your business

Well, you may already own it, but let Google know that you do.

http://www.google.com/local/add/lookup?hl=en-US&gl=US

The above link allows you to enter information about your business. To make it even better, Google goes an extra step and will either call you or send you a postcard in the mail to verify that you are who you say you are. Once you have verified your business; Google allows you to enter hours of business, photos and more detailed information.

On a scale of 1 to 10 for importance, I would rate this as an 11. A must for every insurance agency.

See also:

Local Search – MSN (Live.com)
Yahoo Local Search

Next week: Yahoo local search