SEO for Insurance Websites

[InfinityLeads]

You are referring to folks like eMedicare (or whatever they call themselves), carriers, national agencies, etc. Means nothing to those deep pocket folks to pay for clicks without regard to ROI.

Joe Agent won't be paying that kind of $$. The Joe Agent's of the insurance world will pi$$ away hundreds or thousands of dollars before they walk away. The agencies that SELL the idea of earning a fortune off PPC will continue to churn new fish with dreams of earning a fortune on PPC.

Same kind of shyster's that peddle SEO and promise page 1 results.

Plenty of suckers out there willing to fork over money until they learn they have been had.

Looks like you guys are interested in folks who are willing to pony up $2k - $5k per month for your services. Seems to me you are fishing in the wrong pond. Don't believe you will catch many here.
Infinity Leads | Newark, California | Client Reviews

I agree with you, plenty of people waste a lot of money with Adwords!
I've seen all sizes waste huge amounts, but there's also plenty that make a killing
Hence why they continue to do it.

You can have a profitable Adwords account at $500/mo... not to mention $5,000. But once again, like you said, in SEM/SEO and digital marketing there are plenty of shysters.

Adwords is self-service, so with the proper technical know-how, you can compete with $500/mo. Around the end of the year, we'll be releasing a DIY e-book for said Joe Agent.

 

[Jalery]

Once again...companies/agencies wouldn't be willing to pay $100 a click for something people aren't clicking on!

If it were me, I wouldn't agree.

 

[Justin Bilyj]

You are referring to folks like eMedicare (or whatever they call themselves), carriers, national agencies, etc. Means nothing to those deep pocket folks to pay for clicks without regard to ROI.

Joe Agent won't be paying that kind of $$. The Joe Agent's of the insurance world will pi$$ away hundreds or thousands of dollars before they walk away. The agencies that SELL the idea of earning a fortune off PPC will continue to churn new fish with dreams of earning a fortune on PPC.

Same kind of shyster's that peddle SEO and promise page 1 results.

Plenty of suckers out there willing to fork over money until they learn they have been had.

Looks like you guys are interested in folks who are willing to pony up $2k - $5k per month for your services. Seems to me you are fishing in the wrong pond. Don't believe you will catch many here.
Infinity Leads | Newark, California | Client Reviews

Leaving organic results as a better alternative. I'd also try to show up in the 0 search result by using scheme markup to answer top questions for a related topic. But that won't get you above ppc ads (unless you bid on a keyword that doesnt have ads on it - informational or hyper local keywords).

Now if you have a site that's optimized towards conversions, and you have content that addresses all parts of the marketing funnel - I think PPC is a viable market. But you're right, it's not something that you just try, you have to be equipped and prepared for it...

 

[somarco]

I think PPC is a viable market. But you're right, it's not something that you just try, you have to be equipped and prepared for it...

True, most folks who try the PPC format have no idea what they are doing. Hit or miss. You could get lucky or you can blow through a lot of scratch.

So who do you turn to if you want to hire someone to run your campaign? Everyone claims they can deliver the goods. Some charge thousands of dollars to run your campaign (and you pay for the clicks on top of their fee). Others say they can do the same for less than $200 plus clicks.

Which one is right for you? How do you separate the sheep from the wolves?

 

[scagnt83]

I'll elaborate.

How does a company generate 80% of its revenue from ads that don't work (people are afraid to use/distrust)?

Neither Ray or myself are disagreeing with you. But you are still missing the point of what he was asking you.

 

[scagnt83]

This should give more context: Google Advertising: Think Nobody Clicks on Google Ads? Think Again! | WordStream. It's old, but to my point, Adwords has vastly improved since then.
There's an infographic too but the point of the article is:

"Now, to be clear here, organic searches still get more clicks overall than paid search – but not all keyword searches are created equal. Keyword searches with high commercial intent – meaning, keywords where a searcher is looking to buy a product or service (for example: "buy stainless steel dishwasher") – are worth far more to businesses than your basic informational keyword searches (for example: "who is Thomas Edison"). Our research found that for valuable, high commercial intent keywords, paid search advertising listings gave the "free" organic search listings a resounding beat-down. "

This, is what he was asking for. Other sources of info to back up your assertion.

 

[Justin Bilyj]

True, most folks who try the PPC format have no idea what they are doing. Hit or miss. You could get lucky or you can blow through a lot of scratch.

So who do you turn to if you want to hire someone to run your campaign? Everyone claims they can deliver the goods. Some charge thousands of dollars to run your campaign (and you pay for the clicks on top of their fee). Others say they can do the same for less than $200 plus clicks.

Which one is right for you? How do you separate the sheep from the wolves?

I will say there are 2 components to the pricing, the account maintenance fee and the set-up fee.

The account maintenance fee is typically 20% of adspend - you could get lucky and find a foreigner or beginner willing to do it for less. Typically there's a minimum fee up to a certain amount e.g. $1,000 per month in maintenance fees up to $5,000 in adspend and then it's 20% after that.

The set-up fee can range from $500-$2,500 depending on who you hire. This will encompass an ad audit, a landing page audit and sometimes the creation of a landing page in addition to 10 ads that target up to 10 keywords. More keywords = more ads + possibly more landing pages created = larger set-up fee.

Now do you need to go with someone that only does or knows the insurance niche - not necessarily, anyone can audit a keywords competitors by using SEMRUSH and seeing their PPC ads, or go to the existing organic results to see what's working for conversions.

I will say this, if they have insurance (niche) industry experience - it will help in that the ads and/or landing page's copywriting will hopefully be more spot-on and able to convert better because they understand the audience's they're marketing to.

I would also suggest finding someone that's passed the Google advertising exams and has been a partner before Google Partners - Certified Marketing Consultants & Ad Agencies.

Also, something to note is, is your prospective ppc guy mentioning or insisting on remarketing ads during your campaign? My wife's firm won't even pick up a client for PPC unless they're doing remarketing as well, whether it's on facebook or google display - and that's because PPC can be a tough game with less than 5% of search volume clicks on your ad.

What use is it to pay all this money for traffic, if you're not going to build a list of prospects? Some if not most people aren't ready to buy when they click on your ad (check keyword intent to determine how ready), and that's because they're in a different part of the sales funnel, so the best thing to do is offer a lead-magnet or extra content to get them into opting in to your sales funnel (coming back to your website) where you can usher them through it by drip marketing to them over time. A white-paper or case-study is perfect for insurance.

Lastly, what kind of split-testing are they doing? It can be hard to split-test a landing page without using a heatmap, so don't expect to see this on the list of services a PPC expert will offer unless they're top shelf. You may, however, see a PPC expert split test your ads, and they should be! If they're aren't tweaking something, or targeting extra keywords or expanding into other platforms like Bing, there's no reason to keep a contract - unless you abhor learning and doing this yourself, which by the way ranges from month to month to 6 months, to 12 months. It seems the top guys won't even touch someone unless they have a 6 to 12 month committment. It can take upto a month to start seeing leads (depending on landing page, messaging and keyword volume), and a couple more to tweaking it to start seeing consistent results - why would someone put their reputation at risk for impatient clients who don't understand what goes behind the scenes. So EXPECT a contract or be cautious.

Gotta go to work....

 

[InfinityLeads]

True, most folks who try the PPC format have no idea what they are doing. Hit or miss. You could get lucky or you can blow through a lot of scratch.

So who do you turn to if you want to hire someone to run your campaign? Everyone claims they can deliver the goods. Some charge thousands of dollars to run your campaign (and you pay for the clicks on top of their fee). Others say they can do the same for less than $200 plus clicks.

Which one is right for you? How do you separate the sheep from the wolves?

While there is no silver bullet, a good proxy is is that agency willing to align SEM strategy with your particular marketing objectives.

 

[InfinityLeads]

I will say there are 2 components to the pricing, the account maintenance fee and the set-up fee.

The account maintenance fee is typically 20% of adspend - you could get lucky and find a foreigner or beginner willing to do it for less. Typically there's a minimum fee up to a certain amount e.g. $1,000 per month in maintenance fees up to $5,000 in adspend and then it's 20% after that.

The set-up fee can range from $500-$2,500 depending on who you hire. This will encompass an ad audit, a landing page audit and sometimes the creation of a landing page in addition to 10 ads that target up to 10 keywords. More keywords = more ads + possibly more landing pages created = larger set-up fee.

Now do you need to go with someone that only does or knows the insurance niche - not necessarily, anyone can audit a keywords competitors by using SEMRUSH and seeing their PPC ads, or go to the existing organic results to see what's working for conversions.

I will say this, if they have insurance (niche) industry experience - it will help in that the ads and/or landing page's copywriting will hopefully be more spot-on and able to convert better because they understand the audience's they're marketing to.

I would also suggest finding someone that's passed the Google advertising exams and has been a partner before Google Partners - Certified Marketing Consultants & Ad Agencies.

Also, something to note is, is your prospective ppc guy mentioning or insisting on remarketing ads during your campaign? My wife's firm won't even pick up a client for PPC unless they're doing remarketing as well, whether it's on facebook or google display - and that's because PPC can be a tough game with less than 5% of search volume clicks on your ad.

What use is it to pay all this money for traffic, if you're not going to build a list of prospects? Some if not most people aren't ready to buy when they click on your ad (check keyword intent to determine how ready), and that's because they're in a different part of the sales funnel, so the best thing to do is offer a lead-magnet or extra content to get them into opting in to your sales funnel (coming back to your website) where you can usher them through it by drip marketing to them over time. A white-paper or case-study is perfect for insurance.

Lastly, what kind of split-testing are they doing? It can be hard to split-test a landing page without using a heatmap, so don't expect to see this on the list of services a PPC expert will offer unless they're top shelf. You may, however, see a PPC expert split test your ads, and they should be! If they're aren't tweaking something, or targeting extra keywords or expanding into other platforms like Bing, there's no reason to keep a contract - unless you abhor learning and doing this yourself, which by the way ranges from month to month to 6 months, to 12 months. It seems the top guys won't even touch someone unless they have a 6 to 12 month committment. It can take upto a month to start seeing leads (depending on landing page, messaging and keyword volume), and a couple more to tweaking it to start seeing consistent results - why would someone put their reputation at risk for impatient clients who don't understand what goes behind the scenes. So EXPECT a contract or be cautious.

Gotta go to work....

Everything he said is spot on.

 

[somarco]

While there is no silver bullet, a good proxy is is that agency willing to align SEM strategy with your particular marketing objectives.

If that was an answer to my question about "how do you find a good SEM firm when they all say they are the best" then either I need to restate my question or you need to work on your response.

Everything he said is spot on.

I agree.

But Justin isn't taking on clients.