Websites, strategies and techniques that get you business.

Insurance Agent Websites

August 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Websites for Insurance Agents must convey 3 specific messages to your potential clients before they will pick up the phone to set an appointment.

Reliability. Most people have horror stories about the never ending construction project. People are seeking assurance your will show up on time and get their job completed. Stories from satisfied past customers is the best way to demonstrate your reliability.

Value. Do you offer a fair price and superior service that works for your clients. Why would anyone hire you instead of a competitor or a internet company? The best way to demonstrate the value of the services you offer is by telling 1 or 2 case studies for clients you’ve helped.

Your expertise. Like most licensed professionals you pride yourself on your skills and professionalism. In today’s market your skills are assumed to be adequate. The best demonstration of your skills is testimonials for your satisfied clients.

We assist insurance agents by setting up websites that get your phone to ring.

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Website Developer’s Choice

March 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment

A few years back there was an infomercial out called “Stop The Insanity” by Susan Powter which was about losing weight and dieting. Today’s business owners who want a website are going insane with all the choices available.

As a business website developer I use WordPress for my projects which I’m often asked to justify to potential clients. Especially the one’s who’ve tried to educate themselves about their options. Here are the top 3 reasons I use WordPress:

  1. Long term ease of use.
  2. A robust development community.
  3. Ability to easily develop and manage “niche websites”.

Part of the development community are the folks over at www.wpmudev.org which is one of the few memberships I maintain. There “upgrade guarantee” is one of the best I’ve seen and they actually do it. Which is especially important for me with how the WordPress Core’s rapid developments.

Here are the www.wpmudev.org offering I use in most every project:

These are the core files I use with every project and the having them upgraded for each new version of WordPress keeps me developing client projects and not spending my time maintaining my client projects.

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Do I need a business blog?

August 10, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Here’s what I’ve found. Yes. Get a blog (recommendation below). But not a blog that is hosted on one of the free services (wordpress.com or blogger) is of little use to a business owner or licensed professional. Your articles benefit the hosting company and not you. Also the features are limited and restrict what you can do.

Blogging platforms/software like wordpress.org are now full blown websites with CMS (Content Management System) capabilities. These capabilities include a blog or blogs, but also allow you to accomplish 3 key business goals:

  1. Build your brand.
  2. Collect leads
  3. Service customers

A well designed site built with a solid SEO foundation will build your business by having people find you on the search engines.

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Web Integration vs Social Media Consultants

July 26, 2010 By 2 Comments

Social Media Consultants are rapidly replacing SEO consultants as the hype du jour. Do you need a consultant to manage your social media activities? I don’t think so and here’s why.

First: Social Media is based on relationships NOT volume of friends, followers or fans/likes. There maybe a relationship between the quantity of Facebook Friends and Page likes, but statistically I’ve not had anyone show me traffic logs where traffic spikes from a Facebook click throughs. You can get traffic to your website using twitter and with the properly designed tweets you back links are generated.

Second: Most of the people who promote social media as a business development strategy make their money selling social media consulting. Why is this important to pay attention to? Simple, if you are joining Facebook, Twitter, et al for more business you want to know how it works the quickest and most efficient method. Who better to show you than a Social Media Consultant? Here is the question that I have not had answered as yet: How much business do your clients get? In other words:

  • How many escrows have you Realtor® clients closed directly trackable to their social media presence?
  • How many new patients have your Chiropractor, Dentist and Cosmetic Surgeon clients received?
  • How many appointments have your Plumbing, Interior Design & Financial Planners clients booked?
  • I recently spoke to a group of business owners and only about 12% of them could directly track business back to Facebook and other social media efforts.

Bottom Line, how much business have you closed /will you close directly from a social media presence? If the answer is little of NONE then is it a good business decision to hire a Social Media Consultant? I personally hate ROIs of Zero!

Third: What do you find interesting, fun and rewarding? When you sign onto your Facebook , Twitter or LinkedIn account do you care about the people with whom you’re connected? I ask because, if you don’t care about reading their updates, will they be interested in reading your updates? Especially when your updates are only promotional and informational in nature and never personal?

Look at how the kids use social media. The share real, stupid and personal updates about themselves and their lives. You ask who cares? The answer is people who know them. Their friends, parents and family that’s who cares.

Forth: When you use the social media sites, you build their website footprint and not your own. There are millions of people who have joined Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn and each one of these sign ups translates into success for that website not your own.

Why is this important? Because you DO NOT OWN OR CONTROL THE CONTENT YOU POST ON SOCIAL MEDIA SITES. Sorry to shout, but this is very important to understand. The social media site owns and directly benefits from your content NOT you! Not your business. This is the difference between Image Advertising and Direct Advertising. Here’s how. When you post to a social media site, google gives that site credit. The most you get is an atta-boy/girl link back to your site and possibly some curiosity seeker traffic to your site.

People DON’T go to Facebook to buy. People DON’T for to twitter to buy. People DON’T go to LinkedIn to buy. That is NOT the intention of those sites. People do go to Amazon, eBay, Half.com to buy. It’s that simple.

So What! Now What? This seems to be the million dollar question doesn’t it? Here’s what I recommend…

Create your own website which you OWN, CONTROL & Directly Benefit From all of your efforts. This builds an online footprint for you and your business which Google and the other search engines index. Then automatically integrate your content with the social media sites where your community and network will know you’ve updated your site. Then spend your time building your own website and presence.

The biggest benefit I see for Social Media Consultants is having your social media accounts setup and configured for you. These credentials are then used to integrate your dynamic website into your social media accounts. But do you really want a consultant making connections for you and your business?

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