Starting Out: SEO VS PPC

[Josh]

If its worth it, I'll figure out the how to part . Im really asking for a numbers breakdown not your secret formula. I just can't make sense of the math let's say at $20 / click 25% conversion and 25% close (1 in 16 visitors buys which is reasonable) that's a cost of $320 / policy. I don't think its profitable for the small guys which is why I hardly see Anyone besides state farm, Allstate, progressive, eaurance, and GEICO on the top spots. Are my numbers way off or are you keeping your ppc clients for 3-5 years to cover cost?

You don't have to spend $20 a click, there's your first misconception. You're a bright enough guy, just spend some time looking at how it works and play with it a bit.

 

[JackThomas]

PPC is like anything else, it works really well for some folks.

How many of those same agents got *any* action on organic search engine traffic?
How much time did they invest in learning to do PPC right?

An example is not the same as the formula Josh. You're claiming that it works but not providing an example. As I mentioned in the previous comment I have never invested in pay per click because I didn't really see the need to.
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No thanks. Just keep perpetuating the myth that it doesn't work for agents and that should help keep the bidding low.

No Thanks because you don't have an example? Again I'm not asking for the formula. I would probably never spend money on pay per click because we do phenomenally well with organic Lead generation.

So do you have true examples like that?

If so enlighten us, maybe someone here wants to hire you for your expertise Josh. For instance, insurance agents hire me to develop organic Lead generation strategies because I have a powerful method to do so.

For instance in one Particular niche we have written this year alone $100,000 in premiums In my agency for a particular search term, The cost for us to set up a similar strategy would be around $4600 for a agent in an area where we do not sell insurance. That's an example Josh.

Share an example without going into details or specifics just like I did... If you have developed a secret formula much like I did for organic lead generation I appreciate that you would not want to spill the beans, because I will not myself, but I can share true examples.

Again if you have a real example and you figured a way to make money using pay per click offer your service to agents in areas that you don't sell insurance. (Naturally I'm assuming that you do sell insurance since this is an insurance forum.)

 

[Guest]

An example is not the same as the formula Josh. You're claiming that it works but not providing an example. As I mentioned in the previous comment I have never invested in pay per click because I didn't really see the need to.
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No Thanks because you don't have an example? Again I'm not asking for the formula. I would probably never spend money on pay per click because we do phenomenally well with organic Lead generation.

So do you have true examples like that?

If so enlighten us, maybe someone here wants to hire you for your expertise Josh. For instance, insurance agents hire me to develop organic Lead generation strategies because I have a powerful method to do so.

For instance in one Particular niche we have written this year alone $100,000 in premiums In my agency for a particular search term, The cost for us to set up a similar strategy would be around $4600 for a agent in an area where we do not sell insurance. That's an example Josh.

Share an example without going into details or specifics just like I did... If you have developed a secret formula much like I did for organic lead generation I appreciate that you would not want to spill the beans, because I will not myself, but I can share true examples.

Again if you have a real example and you figured a way to make money using pay per click offer your service to agents in areas that you don't sell insurance. (Naturally I'm assuming that you do sell insurance since this is an insurance forum.)

I'm always more skeptical of the people who are eager to prove themselves more than those that may have something to hide. Honestly you talk pretty big for someone with a website that's only a PR 2 and doesn't even rank on page 1 for his bragging keyword "auto insurance Cincinnati".

And common just because you don't invest in ppc doesn't mean it doesn't work. Why do national companies with billions of dollars and a more authoritative site than anyone here use ppc? Is your strategy better than theirs?

Btw I'm also skeptical on you making ~ $12k comission off only 1 keyword since you don't hold any #1 spots for the keywords you're bragging about (yet alone a page 1 spot). Also all of your bragging keywords have low search volume and have a low seomoz difficulty score making them moderately difficult to rank for at best. im also going to go as far as assuming you're assuming they stay in the book all year and are paid advanced commission and you get 0 cancelations and no charge backs. Which even if so, is not that impressive anyway. 12k commission Now your internet hood rich. Ballin.

I'm pretty sure all this discrediting of people with nothing to prove is a low key attempt to eventually market an SEO service "for a agent in an area where we do not sell insurance"

 

[Josh]

An example is not the same as the formula Josh.

Look sweetheart, I never said they were. You just said you just wanted to know if anyone was successful with it so I told you that I knew an agent that did very well with it. It wouldn't really be my place to go ahead and make his formula public, now would it? I have nothing to prove and it would be in poor form for me to get into the details of what he works here, so go ahead and keep shooting off your "mouth" by attacking folks here, clearly it's going over well for you.

So do you have true examples like that?

Asked and answered.

If so enlighten us, maybe someone here wants to hire you for your expertise Josh.

Hostile much?

For instance, insurance agents hire me to develop organic Lead generation strategies because I have a powerful method to do so.

You've already had some direct questions asked of you here about the service you're specifically looking to offer here and you don't seem to have responded to why you have backlinks to your site from pandora.com or the accusation that your site is only a pr2 and doesn't rank for "Cincinnati auto insurance".

For instance in one Particular niche we have written this year alone $100,000 in premiums In my agency for a particular search term, The cost for us to set up a similar strategy would be around $4600 for a agent in an area where we do not sell insurance. That's an example Josh.

That's an interesting claim. One thing I've never really understood about folks that do SEO is why they don't just build sites for their own purposes, same thing with insurance lead generation companies for the most part. For example, I offered telemarketed lead generation services to agents for a little while because I figured it'd be a simple way to get some extra marketing cash to fuel my own marketing efforts. I quickly realized it was more work for much less money and a lot more headaches, so I stopped offering it.

I'm not an SEO genius, but I have been able to get some traction for some keywords that get high volume and that works out fairly well for me. If you google my largest competitor, "sales genie" or "salesgenie", I'm page one position 2. Generally the only page ahead of me is salesgenie.com and I don't think I'll be able to displace them anytime soon. If you search for "sales genie prices", I actually show up ahead of their site depending on the day. I'm not saying this because I'm interested in getting clients for SEO, but I end up making a good deal more off of doing SEO work to offers that I own instead of trying to help make someone else rich.

Share an example without going into details or specifics just like I did

Just how many ways do you have to ask the same question?

If you have developed a secret formula much like I did for organic lead generation I appreciate that you would not want to spill the beans, because I will not myself, but I can share true examples.

Since you asked this question repeatedly, I'll go ahead and drill the point in. It's absolutely not my place to share this other agents marketing strategy. It was nice of him to share it and I find it interesting, but beyond pointing out that it can me a viable marketing method for an independent agent, it doesn't make any sense for me to dig in on this and share how he does it. That said, if you want to share some examples of what you've done, go for it.

Again if you have a real example and you figured a way to make money using pay per click offer your service to agents in areas that you don't sell insurance. (Naturally I'm assuming that you do sell insurance since this is an insurance forum.)

Jacky, let me in on a little secret here. I started off on this forum a number of years ago and participated just because I thought it was interesting. Starting about two years ago I started offering these lists and the dialer service as of about a month ago. I've had much better results by being polite with folks. You're coming off like a complete jerk and if you want to offer your services here, that's not helping you any. If, on the other hand, you just don't care what people think OR if they give you money, then I think you should keep going along the way you are. Obviously you're bright and obviously you know some things about SEO. The truth is that unlike with many things, you don't need to know all the ins and outs of SEO to get results. Sure it helps, but you don't have to be a grand master SEO genius to get sites to rank. Rather than trying to pick fights and be so overtly hostile, you may want to dial it down and show some respect. There are tons of agents that come on here every month looking for an SEO company and if you get up to 100 posts you can put that in the offers section.

To take some of the above further, I have folks on here that will refer me to other agents for lists, even if they haven't bought from me. They do this because I take the time to provide quality content on the forum and offer a great service at a fair price. If you take the time to be a helpful member of this community, it can go a long way. This forum gets thousands of visitors a day and has a very active community. As far as advertising goes, if you take the time to invest in the community correctly, it can pay great dividends. If you want to spend a few days/weeks on here picking fights with folks, you likely won't have as productive results.

 

[pahealthquotes]

IMO,

a combination of SEO and PPC is the ticket. Understand what the comsumer is looking for and it will lead you to the promised land. I have pages that rank very high organically but without the PPC added they wont generate the results I'm looking for.

Best Wishes

 

[Insurancetechhead]

I agree, I always like to test an insurance ad idea with ppc, I use facebook, its cheap and super targeted. Then get into local seo if your a local agent. I can never find good PPC guides but here is one for local seo http://design.wpchefs.com/localseo/

 

[Guest]

I agree, I always like to test an insurance ad idea with ppc, I use facebook, its cheap and super targeted. Then get into local seo if your a local agent. I can never find good PPC guides but here is one for local seo How to Increase Awareness And Generate Leads With Local SEO

I knew it. You're a Wordpress "design" company. I'm assuming since you've linked to this brand new website twice already.

I'm gonna just call myself right because the website you link to

Wordpress Website Design Experts | Professional designers

is an $899 wp set up or $1500 if you want a quote form. If you are giving away 5 of them, thats like a $7500 value omg!!! what a good deal .

I love wordpress marketers. And i was just thinking the board was dying down with no more al3 and jack not posting as frequently.

 

[Insurancetechhead]

Actually we design in concrete5 (or let the user design in concrete5 depending on their preference.

Wordpress is not very useful for insurance sales for a number of reasons, but I am not here to discuss that.

I am here to do 2 things:

1.Help new agents who went through the same terrible first year I went through

2. The current providers of webdesign for insurance are not helping agents. ( I am still holding my judgment on agentmethods) It is clear that very little UX thought has been put into the sites they are designing. So I am doing in depth research on what new and old warhorse agents need, want and dont have time for.

I guess in the end I just really don't put as much stock in opinions as I do in quantifiable research. That's how I run any business I'm in. Lol in the end though even that is just an opinion

 

[Guest]

Wordpress is not very useful for insurance for a number of reasons

I completely agree with you. A wordpress website does not belong anywhere near an ESTABLISHED agency trying to convert a serious amount of leads. A starter agency credibility builder, seo test site, or an AdSense pool are way more appropriate uses for WordPress. To me an agency using WordPress to primarily market their agency is like using a [email protected] email address. For new agents, this may make the most financial sense and there is nothing wrong with that until someone tells you to spend $500-$1500 for them to set it up. If you're a new agent, trust me you have 1 weekend to learn and set it up. Or get a tech savy friend to do it in exchange for lunch.

There may be plently of people that disagree with me but I guarantee they either sell WP design or have been sold WP design.

I am NOT saying WP sucks or that it's not useful. I have a few and I know a lot of others on here have successful WP sites. My main point is don't pay top dollar for a custom layout and design for gmail. Its still gmail people....

 

[Insurancetechhead]

too many lazy designers in the world. Webdesign is one of the few industries where people feel they should buy a product just because they should. No insight for forthought, and designers that charge less then $4,000 or work in more then one industry will not have the time or expertise to create something that will work for you, which is just as well since they didn't take the time to figure out what you were looking for which doesn't matter since a new agent has no idea what that is to begin with.

Which is why I am here. to learn what that is and export it to new agents in a quantifiable and systematic way