I'm a little hesitant to post this, but I would like to get some feedback. I have been a member of this forum for a while, as a producer, and I still have my license. I sold mainly MAPD, FE, and Med Supps while I was here.
I don't do that anymore; I have a regular job, but I've gotten into some ancillary things when I created my iPhone and Droid apps and then released my e-book.
The thing that applies here is that in talking to people I know about what I'm doing, a LOT of local business owners are not maximizing the internet. Many have a static website that was set up for them, or are paying a pretty high fee for a non-optimized website.
In Feb/March 2011, Google has made some changes, and often the local searches and rankings through Google Places carries more value than the organic SEO, in trying to rank for keywords and move to the first page of Google.
Setting up Google Places and optimizing your website with a blog and other things isn't really that tough, but it goes beyond what a lot of local business owners are comfortable with (like the question about changing the server name to NS1.WORDPRESS.COM question, for example).
I'm really thinking about setting up shop as a Local Search Marketing consultant, and mainly working with people in my area, like attorneys, CPAs, and some other businesses, and would probably charge from $500 - $1,000 a month to keep this service going. The price probably wouldn't be that high for insurance agents.
I thought about doing some things for a friend of mine in insurance, and did some checking locally. The insurance agents on the first 7 for Google Places local searches, for the most part, could pretty easily be passed up. It may take a few weeks or months, but it is definitely do-able.
So, if something like that was offered do you, at a price that was within your budget, how would you feel about outsourcing your local search marketing?
Oh, if you want to see where you rank or what I'm talking about, just open Google and type in "final expense insurance", "final expense insurance agent" or "medicare insurance", and chances are that nothing interesting will pop up. Do that and type in "insurance agent", and the local results are the ones with the balloon and th letters A - G beside them. Some will have thumbnail pics, most will not. Some will have a local address and phone number, and one or two may have a video.
By the way, you DO NOT need to put in "insurance agent Austin, TX" (if you live in Austin, TX) to get LOCAL results; Google is intuitive in doing these local Google Places results.
I don't do that anymore; I have a regular job, but I've gotten into some ancillary things when I created my iPhone and Droid apps and then released my e-book.
The thing that applies here is that in talking to people I know about what I'm doing, a LOT of local business owners are not maximizing the internet. Many have a static website that was set up for them, or are paying a pretty high fee for a non-optimized website.
In Feb/March 2011, Google has made some changes, and often the local searches and rankings through Google Places carries more value than the organic SEO, in trying to rank for keywords and move to the first page of Google.
Setting up Google Places and optimizing your website with a blog and other things isn't really that tough, but it goes beyond what a lot of local business owners are comfortable with (like the question about changing the server name to NS1.WORDPRESS.COM question, for example).
I'm really thinking about setting up shop as a Local Search Marketing consultant, and mainly working with people in my area, like attorneys, CPAs, and some other businesses, and would probably charge from $500 - $1,000 a month to keep this service going. The price probably wouldn't be that high for insurance agents.
I thought about doing some things for a friend of mine in insurance, and did some checking locally. The insurance agents on the first 7 for Google Places local searches, for the most part, could pretty easily be passed up. It may take a few weeks or months, but it is definitely do-able.
So, if something like that was offered do you, at a price that was within your budget, how would you feel about outsourcing your local search marketing?
Oh, if you want to see where you rank or what I'm talking about, just open Google and type in "final expense insurance", "final expense insurance agent" or "medicare insurance", and chances are that nothing interesting will pop up. Do that and type in "insurance agent", and the local results are the ones with the balloon and th letters A - G beside them. Some will have thumbnail pics, most will not. Some will have a local address and phone number, and one or two may have a video.
By the way, you DO NOT need to put in "insurance agent Austin, TX" (if you live in Austin, TX) to get LOCAL results; Google is intuitive in doing these local Google Places results.
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