You've built a great agency Web site. Is anyone visiting? Unless you actively promote your agency's Web site, it is unlikely that anyone will find it.
The obvious and routine measures of promoting your Web site — printing your URL on business cards, stationery and mailings plus telling telephone customers — are limited. They only cover your existing customers. You do, indeed, want to inform them of your online presence and services, but you also want your Web site to attract new customers from that vast pool of insurance prospects who have yet to discover your agency.
A more effective way to increase your online visibility is to make sure your Web site appears in the list of search results when someone searches for insurance. Popping up on a search engine results list doesn't happen by accident. You can actually improve the likelihood that your Web site will be included. You can do that by registering your Web site with the various search engines - Alta Vista, Excite, Google, InfoSeek, Lycos, and Web-Crawler, and others. But before you register it, you must first prepare your Web site to be more easily found.
How search engines work
The basic purposes of any search engine is to locate, index, and present Web pages in a way that allows users, by entering keywords, to find them. Search engines use various agents or tools (called spiders, crawlers, or indexers) to roam the Web, build lists of words found within Web sites, and then index the found pages into a database. Generally, these search agents index the words in a site and follow all of the site's links, spreading out across the web. Thus, it is possible that your Web site could be found by a search engine without you doing anything to register it — so long as many other Web sites link to yours. Since search engines look at the words within a site, one clue to improving your site's visibility is to include the right words.
All search engines have a "front-end" that allows the user to search for keywords and phrases. When, for example, you type the words "insurance agent" into a search form, your computer queries the search engine's database, not the entire Web. All the pages within the database that contain those keywords and phrases are then presented on a search results page along with a title, description, and a link to the various Web sites that have been listed. Typically, results are returned in order of relevance to the words or phrases you entered. Some search engines even list the percent of likelihood that each return matches your search criteria. Some search results are alphabetized so site titles starting with "A" or a number would appear near the top of the list.
A "directory" site, such as Yahoo (and several others), presents Web sites in categories. Because real live human beings actually review sites before adding them to the registry (a manual process), it may take a while before your site shows up. Before you register with a directory site, you need to determine which category(s) your site fits in. For example, Yahoo lists "Insurance" under Business and Economy > Finance and Investment > Insurance. By the way, I personally didn't find that particularly intuitive. In fact, I had to search Yahoo! to find out where insurance fits into its category scheme. Nevertheless, that's the way Yahoo! does it.
Where to register
Presently, being registered with search engines is the name of the game. It's virtually the only systematic online method for finding a Web site. As you might expect, there is a growing group of companies that are willing to help you register your site — for a fee. You've heard their pitch, "We'll automatically register your Web site with more than 300 search engines for only $29." Don't be fooled. You do not have to spend money to register your site with most search engines. Some search engines do, however, require submission fees, but there are no guarantees that your site will be listed closer to the top or even at all. You simply cannot buy a guaranteed search engine listing.
Stop for a moment and think about your own Internet browsing experience. How many search engines do you actually use? There are about eight to ten major search engines that are used by 90% of the millions of people who search the Web. If you're selling insurance in Wisconsin, why would you want to be listed on an Australian search engine? Thus, it's much more practical to concentrate your initial efforts on those top eight to ten search engines and think about how much you might want to budget for a submission to the sites that do charge a fee (e.g., Yahoo!).
But don't overlook getting your site mentioned and linked on other sites - your community's Web site, Chamber of Commerce, or insurance agent lists. Contact the Webmasters of those sites and offer a reciprocal link from your site. Most times, they'll be happy to list yours.
Which pages to register
Virtually all spiders will start at your home page and crawl through your entire site, so it is only necessary to register your home page. Do not, by the way, register splash pages or Flash introduction pages — search engines cannot index these, so your site simply won't be indexed. Frames pages are also problematic for search engines because of multiple URLs. Some businesses which promise to get you a higher listing on search engine results do so by building "invisible" (sometimes called "doorway") pages that are not actually part of your site. This approach will not work in most cases, so avoid it!
Prepare to be spidered
Before you rush out to register your site with search engines, make sure your site is ready. Why? How many times have you done a search and gotten a listing of sites that say "Untitled"? Not very useful, is it? "Untitled" means that the Web developer didn't give the page a title. In the <TITLE> tag in the HTML code behind your page, make sure that you have a descriptive title, such as "AB Jones Personal & Business Insurance - Colorado." While "A.B. Jones Insurance" is better than "Untitled," you can more quickly target your potential customers by adding more information. Titles should be a maximum of 50 characters. Every page on your site should have a title.
Example of an HTML tag: <TITLE>AB Jones Personal & Business Insurance / Colorado</TITLE>
META information
META information or META tags contain information the search engine may use for indexing your pages. The information is provided by you, the Web site builder. META tags consist of a name and content. Not all search engines, however, use META tags when indexing.
Description: After the title in the search engine results listing, there is a description of the page. Here is your opportunity to "sell" your site by providing a meaningful description. Spend some time (or get some help from a marketing professional) crafting a description that will give potential customers the information they need to determine whether they want to take the time to visit your site. For example, if you serve only the Denver, Colorado metro area, state that. Then you won't waste the time of a customer from outside your service area.
To get ideas for good description tags, go to a few search engines and search for sites of agencies similar to yours. Read the descriptions and decide if they apply to you. Think about what you would most like to know about each Web site that is listed. Keep this information in mind as you write your own description, and you will attract visitors who are predisposed to visit your site because it has what they are looking for. In short, those descriptions worked for other agencies and they can work for you, too.
Although you are allowed a total of 200 characters (approximately 25 words) in your Description tag, keep the most important information at the beginning because some search engines won't display the full 200 words.
Example of the HTML coding: <META name="description" content="A description of your page here">
Keywords: Your keywords and phrases are also vitally important. The Keywords tag holds a list of words and phrases that search engines use to cross reference your site with user searches. You should include your organization name, products, location, common misspellings, variations with and without capital letters, and plurals. Use individual words as well as phrases. For an insurance agency, you would include the name of your agency, location, the types of insurance you sell, and anything else you think Web users might type in on a search for your content like yours. You are allowed up to 1,000 characters (approximately 150 words) of information.
Unlike the necessarily short description tag, use as many keywords as possible, including everythingyou can think of that a searcher might use. Be careful about repeating keywords though. Simply repeating a word 10 or 20 times will not get you a higher ranking. In fact, it will usually get your site banned from the search engine. Repeating words is a common tactic of spam and pornography sites, so most search engines will refuse to index a site containing them. There is, however, an appropriate way to get a certain amount of repetition. At the "AB Jones" site the keyword tag might include "Jones Insurance", "auto insurance" and "car insurance." When writing your keywords, separate each word or phrase with a comma.
Example of the HTML coding: <META name="keywords" content="AB Jones Insurance, auto insurance, car insurance>
By the way, title, description, and keyword tags all go in the <HEAD> section of your Web page.
Note that the title, description, and keywords collected by the search engine are in addition to the information it gleans from the Web page itself. Therefore, if your home page consists only of graphics, very little information can be gathered and your site may not make it into the database, even if you have a great description and lots of keywords. Make sure that your home page contains textual information that can be indexed.
In addition to your title, description, and key words, make sure that your site is working perfectly. Check for dead or broken links and fix them. And, absolutely no pages should be "under construction." Search engines won't index sites that are not working.
Do-it-yourself search engine registration
As mentioned earlier, there are services that will submit your site to multiple search engines for a fee, but you can do your own submission to most search engines for free. Go to the home page of the search engine with which you want to register. Click on a link (usually at the bottom of the page) that says something like "register URL," "submit your site" or "list your site." Read the instructions and information carefully and fill in the required information (usually just your home page URL and e-mail address).
When using the free (or even the fee) submission process, keep in mind that it may take several weeks for your listing to appear on any given search engine. Most sites also offer "premium" registration that will get you considered more quickly — for a fee. Note the word "considered." I haven't found any search engine that guarantees your site will be listed — even after you pay a fee to be considered!
No magic formula
At first glance, knowing things about keywords and phrases, descriptions, search engines, META tags, etc. seems tedious and laborious. Nevertheless, searching is the primary way people find things on the Web. When you built your Web site, you expected people to find it. That doesn't happen on its own. Knowing the ins and outs of search engine registration is vital to your Web site's accessibility and success. Tedious perhaps, but don't overlook this important aspect of developing your total Web presence.
How to Register with Some Popular Search Engines
Google: Google might find your site on its periodic crawl through the Internet by finding links to your site from another site. For a fee, Google's AdWord service can display an ad for your Web site on the first page of a search for your keywords. Read the information about AdWord carefully as it can get pretty expensive! To submit your site to Google, go to www.google.com/ addurl.html.
Lycos: Read all of the information. Lycos says its spider will go down one level on your site. Therefore, if you have subsections of your site with more levels, you might also want to register additional "section intro" pages. Register at home.lycos.com/addasite.html.
Excite: Although you can pay $299 for Express Submit or $149 for Basic Submit (remember, no guarantees), use this URL to submit your site to Excite at no charge: www.excite.com/info/add_url_form/.
Direct Hit: Direct Hit asks for keywords in addition to your URL and email. Register at www.directhit.com/util/addurl.html.
Web Crawler: Like Excite, you can pay $299 for Express Submit or $149 for Basic Submit (no guarantees here, either). For free submission, go to www.webcrawler.com/info/add_url_form/.
Yahoo: The process for "suggesting a site" to Yahoo is a little tricky. You need to use the "Suggest a Site" link from within the category you think is most appropriate for your site. Do this by clicking on the "Suggest a Site" link at the bottom of that category page.
If you click on "How to Suggest a Site" on the home page, you'll get lots of information about how Yahoo works, but no way to submit your site. If you have a commercial site (promotes a company that sells goods and/or services), you'll need to use the Yahoo Express! Submission and pay $299 which, by the way, does not guarantee you a listing - just that Yahoo will consider your site within 7 days.
To submit a site within the Insurance category, go to dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Finance_
and_Investment/Insurance/. At the bottom of this page, click on the "Suggest
a Site" link.
Free Registration Services
For a more automated method of search engine registration, take a look at the following sites:
Web Site Garage (register-it.netscape.com/
O=register/index.html)
will submit your Web site to 12 search engines/directories for free. You need
to sign in and give them some information about yourself. The process is quick
and easy.
Web Site Garage also offers services that test your Web pages for registration
readiness, load time, dead links, spell check, html check, and more (Websitegarage.netscape.com/O=register/
tuneup_plus/index.html). You might want to try a free test before you
register your site.
101RegisterMe.com (www.101registerme.com/
free_submit.htm) offers free submission to nine search engines. Other
registration services are available for $29 to $199 (more search engines,
more frequent submissions). This site also has lots of useful information
about search engines.
Fee-based Registration Services
www.engineregistration.com/search-engine-registration.htm - $99 to $599 for 3 levels of service.
www.hmregister.com/ - $39 for registration with 50 search engines.
www.123-cyber-register.com/searchengine_submission.htm - $29 to $74
www.submitaWeb site.com/Search_Engine_ Registration.htm - Free submission to 900 search engines, if you link to them from your site. By the way, they say they can guarantee you a listing on the first page of five major search engines within 10 days for $299. I'd be suspicious about that claim - I'm only reporting what what they say.
Test Your Keywords and Phrases
Want to find out if your keywords and phrases will be effective? Go to this site: inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/.
Input a search phrase/keyword you are thinking of using. The displayed results of your search include your phrase, how many times it was searched on in the last month (keywords Web users are actually using), plus suggestions for additional phrases.
For example, "insurance agent" was searched for 5,442 times in September; "independent insurance agent" was searched for 1,119 times; and auto insurance agent was searched for 133 times.
The point? Develop phrases that will yield a smaller, more targeted result. Users will be more likely to look among 133 possibilities than 1,119.
Glossary
META Information/Tags - META tags contain information that is hidden when your page is viewed in a browser, but which is available to search engines for indexing purposes. They consist of a name and content. Not all search engines use META tags when indexing.
Portal - A site that contains lots of information categories (usually customizable) on its home page, plus links to news and other services on both their own site as well as the larger Internet. Portals usually have their own search engine. Most users use portal sites as their home page - either their ISP's startup page (if they haven't been very adventurous) or a site like Excite or Yahoo!.
Search Engine - Search engines allow Web publishers to register their pages so they will be added to the list of resources the search engine "knows" about. Search engines also allow Web users to find pages using keywords and phrases that identify the information users want to find.
Directory - Directories are similar to search engines but organize their information into categories that are available as soon as users arrive at their home page. If users have a general idea of the category they are interested in, they can immediately click to that section. They can also search the directory using keyword and phrases. Yahoo! and Looksmart are examples of directory sites.
© Copyright 2001 by Sound Internet Strategy. All rights reserved