How much would you, an Agent, pay for this service?

[Brad S.]

I've been doing web design and internet marketing for almost 10 years now, its a hobby, its a job, its something I like to do and something I'm really good at. After seeing how much friends of mine were making in the insurance industry, I wanted to learn more about it, so I built a directory for insurance companies in my state. This way I can make great contacts and learn a few things from talking to them.

Well, this directory is on track to get 10,000 page views this month, mostly pure organic search engine traffic from google, msn, yahoo, etc.. Right now, there's only about 50 providers listed in my directory. A friend suggested I start charging a monthly fee, because 10,000 views per month with only a handful of providers in each category would be very beneficial.

My question is, how much would you be willing to pay, per month, to get listed in a directory that gets 10,000 views per month(growing at about 10% per month), and is targeted to your state only. I know insurance leads are valuable, I just dont know to what extent.

 

[LGilmore]

link the directory so we can see. without seeing your work it's value to agents currently is zero. sorry

 

[djs]

This could be a good thing, could be a useless thing. I'm listed in the online yellowpages, which gets a lot more than 10000 page views per month, but, I get 0 calls from it. Somewhat useless. I'll give and say you are a bit more targeted, which could help.

Organic Search engine traffic is down the right path, but it still depends on how they are finding it. If they are searching for 'castle' and end up on your page because someone is called Castle Insurance, it doesn't do any good. On the other hand, if they search for 'best insurance agent in california' and they end up on my webpage, that is absolutely great (and accurate).

Page views by themselves are somewhat meaningless, though definitely the right direction. Page depth, broadness of audience, etc, play a big role in this. Also, does your count remove all spiders?

Dan

 

[Brad S.]

I would post the URL, but I'm too paranoid about other web marketers stealing my ideas and designs. I've gotten private messages from 3 users so far who have websites looking for tips/info/partnerships, so I know someone on here could take over the area I'm targeting.

My hits are very targeted, I check my keyword logs daily and MAYBE 1 out of 100 terms will be for something irrelevent. Also, yes I did remove hits from spiders from that 10k/mo count (good question!). Without removing it'd easily be 15k+ - that inktomi slurp just cant stay off my site, I wish they'd reimburse me for bandwidth when they hit my sites.

Also, I shouldve mentioned the pricing beforehand. I was thinking $7/mo for a basic listing, $25/mo for a category sponsorship (their listing appears on top of basic listing, max 4 per category), and $100/mo to be listed on the header of the webpage (max 4 people, one agent shown at a time on a rotating basis)

 

[moonlightandmargaritas]

I would be willing to pay zero. You can get a much better return from other types of marketing.

 

[sman]

I would post the URL, but I'm too paranoid about other web marketers stealing my ideas and designs. I've gotten private messages from 3 users so far who have websites looking for tips/info/partnerships, so I know someone on here could take over the area I'm targeting.

My hits are very targeted, I check my keyword logs daily and MAYBE 1 out of 100 terms will be for something irrelevent. Also, yes I did remove hits from spiders from that 10k/mo count (good question!). Without removing it'd easily be 15k+ - that inktomi slurp just cant stay off my site, I wish they'd reimburse me for bandwidth when they hit my sites.

Also, I shouldve mentioned the pricing beforehand. I was thinking $7/mo for a basic listing, $25/mo for a category sponsorship (their listing appears on top of basic listing, max 4 per category), and $100/mo to be listed on the header of the webpage (max 4 people, one agent shown at a time on a rotating basis)

Out of those 10,000 hits per month, how many can you categorize by state? Meaning, if 10,000 people in California see my name, it means nothing to me since I'm in Georgia and only do business in Georgia.

 

[djs]

I would post the URL, but I'm too paranoid about other web marketers stealing my ideas and designs.

Hmmm, I'm a bit paranoid about someone who claims 10000 page views a month, but is paranoid about someone seeing the site.

Based on the claims (i.e., its listed in the search engines), it has to be one of:
Insurance Directory
Homeowners Insurance
Health Directory, Mental Health, Health Insurance
Insurance directory services on the web

I'm assuming its not the yahoo / google / dmoz directories.

or any of the rest of approximately 3,000,000 websites out there that are insurance directories.

It's hard to have value conversations when the concept of what you are asking about is a secret.....

How much would you pay for a $1M idea?

Dan

 

[Dave020]

...if 10,000 people in California see my name, it means nothing to me since I'm in Georgia and only do business in Georgia.

And I say we keep it that way, Sman

 

[The New Guy]

10,000 hits is only 200 per state. Not to mention you need to back out foreign countries that visit.

Argentina, Slovak Republic, Italy, Norway, Seychelles, Hungary, Singapore, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Portugal, Israel, Australia, These are just some of the foreign visiters my site has had in the last 30days.

Not much value there, unless your selling Visas.

My guess is that your idea has already been copied once or twice.

I do see some potential, but perhaps with a different revenue model.

 

[RayGroupInsurance]

Your idea is not that original. I am constantly looking for directories to link my insurance blog to and I come across new insurance directories every week. I'm not saying it's not a good idea I'm just saying it's not original, you shouldn't be worried about people stealing it, and you have lots of examples on the web to look at. Most of them charge anywhere from $50-300/year. Good Luck.