Blog

User accounts
The user accounts pages have been updated to make accounts easier to navigate and manage.

Tabs have been added at the top of the user accounts page that let you easily switch between the user groups and user accounts view. Navigation has been enhanced to make it easier to switch between user groups.

The user accounts details page now opens in a popup window for quick access. The selected user group checkboxes have been updated to make them easier to work with. A new link has been added to the user account detail page that lets you send a quick email to the user.

 

Mailing list
The site mailing list pages have been reworked to make the mailing list easier to use.

• Updated mailing list user interface.
• New email templates added (30+ new templates).
• New email templates automatically include social networking links in the template.
• Updated mailing list template user interface. You can now preview a template before selecting it.

New option to set the email "from" display name as well as a tracking code for the email. The tracking code is automatically added to links in your email. This allows you to track the effectiveness of your newsletters.

Form builder
New options at the top of the form builder make it easier to enable the contact DB and mailing list features on the form. The form builder user interface has been updated. There were a lot of options on the page which can make the form builder a bit confusing to configure. Some options have been moved into settings tabs.

Social networking
The social networking sharing icons now include the Google +1 button and LinkedIn buttons. You also now have the option to hide/display both the social widget buttons or the social icons. A new option to send a Tweet from with in the admin has been added to the marketing area. The blog manager has a direct link to send a tweet about a blog post.

Edit tabs [preview/experimental]
This updates includes an experimental new site builder header. We have added an option to try out a new set of tabs at the top of the site builder to get feedback. The new set of tabs provides quick access to the new marketing/reports area as well as direct access to core ecommerce functions for store accounts. It will be easy for customers to switch between the existing tabs and the new tabs.

Website edit header tabs

• admin
• view site
• edit site
• design
• marketing/reports
• help

Ecommerce edit header tabs

• admin
• website
• store setup
• products
• orders
• customers
• marketing/reports
• help

Marketing/Reports
The new marketing/reports sections provides easy access to the most important markting features that are integrated with the site builder as well as quick access to statistics, search engine submission and site guides. The core marketing features, blog, mailing list, social networking settings and twitter are all included.

 

Misc updates

• The view/edit tab drop down menu now includes links to the settings pages.
• Message board no longer requires capcha when you are logged in.
• Displayable user name for message board when user accounts/login required to post messages.
• Updated mobile/browser detection for stats and mobile pages.
• The drop down tab menu for edit site now includes direct links to all of the settings pages.
• Calendar uses timezone offset.
• Site page search now includes blog posts and HTML pages.

Media library page
Use the new media library page to create a sortable media list with embedded media player. Upload your audio/video files. The media library automatically creates a RSS feed/pod cast for the uploaded media.

Text editor
The text editor 2.0 now allows you to easily setup H1, H2, H3 tags via the style drop down. Simple select your text and click the style drop down to apply one of the header styles.

Blog

• The blog user interface has been updated.
• New option to save a blog post as a draft.
• Added support for integrating facebook comment system (enable from blog settings page).
• Blog manager now has direct links to easily send a tweet with link for new blog posts.

Basic traffic stats

• Basic traffic stats are now maintained for up to 3 years (this will only include stats collected after the update is installed)
• New option to reset all your traffic stats
• New option to reset your traffic stats referrers/search engines/keywords
• Stats have been updated to be tracked in the site owners local time based on their time zone setting
• NOTE: stats before this update will not reflect the correct timezone

Tell us what you think!
We are always looking to improve the quality of our services and your feedback is appreciated. If you have any ideas or suggestions let us know.

10 Crucial Elements of a Successful Insurance Web Presence

There is a whole lot more to running an effective insurance agency website than just great looking graphics. In fact, there are ten crucial elements every insurance agency website needs to maximize its presence.

1. "Find-Ability" - Regardless of how your website looks visually, or even if it contains all ten of the crucial elements I've described here - if it can not be found by your target market - it's pretty hard to profit from it!
   
   Way back in the day... insurance agents (amongst other traditional business owners with brand new websites) operated off of the "if I build it, they will come" theory. Some still do. Most however, at least have some semblance of understanding that just having a website DOES NOT mean that it can be found - even by them!
   
   Effective promotion strategies like:
   • Article marketing
   • Link building
   • Blogging
   • E-Zine ads
   • Viral marketing
   • Print advertising and
   • Joint venture promotions
   • Are all website "basics" when it comes to promotion. Just the short list mentioned above could all fill an entire "how to" manual - but a discussion of website design would not be complete without at least a mention of the need for consistent and constant promotion! (Please also see the post "10 Ways to Boost Your Agency's Online "Findability").
     
2. Lead Capture Capability - Whether you choose to implement a simple webform to collect prospect information or an elaborate online CRM system, it is IMPERATIVE that you use something, anything! Setting the stage for follow-up marketing is the key and what you use to achieve that is secondary to the kind of lead capture device that you utilize. Research shows that the average web surfer (prospect) needs to hear from you up to seven times before deciding to take action.
   
   Letting a visitor leave your website without collecting their contact information for a follow-up campaign could be detrimental to your online success. You might offer a monthly newsletter, free reports or the obvious - a free quote in exchange for the prospects contact information.
   
   Insurance Web Designs provides online quote forms, web form capture and e-newsletter features for every website package we offer.
   
3. Pre-Qualification - Your website should answer many of the common questions and overcome the most typical objections posed by your target market. When this is handled correctly your website is able to weed out potentially problematic customers and pull only the best fit clients into your profit funnel. By providing detailed information on your scope of service, and even including a FAQ page on your site, you can begin the pre-sell product and "warm up" your prospects before a personal meeting or phone conversation ever takes place.
   
4. Quality Content - If you're going to set up a website for your insurance agency, it is a real good idea to provide some of the most obvious resources for your clients and prospects alike; ie... an insurance glossary, general (yet informative) insurance articles and information. Typically, you'll find that visitors are coming to your website for a variety of reasons, these being the most popular: they want a free insurance quote, they need to make a premium payment, they don't understand what a "deductible" is and want to see if you have more information about that on your website, they want to make changes to their current policy or find your contact information. If you don't provide your website visitors with these basic capabilities, you are doing yourself and your visitor a disservice.
   
   It's a great idea to present yourself and/or your agency in a personal and warm, inviting manner. Most people want to do business with other PEOPLE and not some nameless website they've found online.
   
5. Ease of Use (aka: Easy Navigation) - Plan the site structure logically. Make every page accessible with a minimum number of clicks - this suggests that no page should usually be more than three layers deep in the site. Provide a sitemap showing every available page - some people prefer to access a site this way. (It also helps search engines spider through your site.) A site-search option which offers a keyword search to all your pages is a valuable addition.
   
6. The 10 Second Rule - Your website must load quickly - period. If you are more concerned with the latest technology than you are with making money then the 10 second rule doesn't really apply to you. For the rest of us, it is extremely important! Not only that, but the most important part of your marketing message must be placed above the fold if you hope to have that visitor stay on your website for longer than 60 seconds!
   
7. Balance - While it is important to have a clean, attractive design - as an "ugly" website is often the kiss of death. It is equally important to use graphics to enhance your message not distract attention from it.
   
   Also, a visitor should not have to deal with side scrolling to view your entire webpage. It's bad enough visitors have to scroll up and down, why would anyone want their visitors to have scroll side to side too?
   
8. Email Address, YES! Email Addresses - Professionalism is important and don't think for a minute that your @gmail, @hotmail, @yahoo or other freebie email account goes unnoticed by your website visitors. Going to all of the trouble of setting up a useful, lead generating insurance website and then leaving your visitors with a freebie email account to contact you with is just plain unprofessional - it goes back to the need of the visitor to trust the website they are visiting. Use an email account that goes with your domain name - ie... if your website address is www.myagency.com - then ideally, you should be using email addresses like, myname@myagency.com.
   
9. Statistics - Website statistics can help you achieve very important goals, one of them being CONVERSIONS. If you know where your website is falling short in terms of losing its visitors, you can find, identify and resolve the issues relatively quickly - or at least be aware of the issues and continue to refine the solution until it does work.
   
   If you are forking over boatloads of cash to the search engines for the term "life insurance quotes" and not getting the results you had really hoped for... and you login to view your website statistics you find out that a majority of your website visitors are using the (less expensive) term "Los Angeles Health Insurance Quotes" to find your website - you've really killed two birds with one stone. You will wind up saving your cash by backing off of the term "life insurance quotes" and putting it into a more productive term like "Los Angeles, CA Health Insurance Quotes" or "Health Insurance Quotes for Los Angeles" but you will also be able to refine your health insurance pages to convert your web visitors into prospects simply by paying more attention to the area that IS generating traffic and interest as opposed to wasting TIME and MONEY on pages that are NOT generating interest.
   
10. Increase Sales Calls/Decrease Customer Service Calls - By providing online insurance quote forms on your website you are setting yourself up to for EXCLUSIVE leads - you do not have to worry that the lead that you just received has also been sent to 10 other insurance agents in your area. Increasing your sales activities is generally considered a good thing in most marketing/sales circles. Decreasing your customer service calls - how do you do that? Simple. Have an online customer service center where policyholders can request routine changes right from your website without having to CALL you to do it! Auto ID card replacements, change of address, etc... these are all great examples of routine calls that you can virtually eliminate just by having an online customer service center!

Make sure your site meets the above, and you will have yourself a great foundation for profitable web marketing.

 Make sure your domain name is meaningful and easy to remember. Short domain names are always better than really long ones. Easy To Remember.

 With years of experience under our belts, there are a few issues that seem to rear their ugly heads over and over again with respect to domain name registrations. In an effort to help save YOU from this headache (although in most cases it actually becomes a real nightmare just a mere headache!)

 Consumers are turning to the internet in droves for shopping, learning, playing, and most importantly (for you anyway) is that they are also looking for insurance. What can you do today to help raise the visibility of your agency's website?

 It is very interesting to hear some of the reasons why an agency doesn't currently have a website or has a website that is outdated and unprofessional looking. Some say it is just not a top priority at the moment, budgetary concerns, a website won't do anything for my business, my customers don't use the internet, and the list goes on.

 There are many theories looming around out there about what makes for a good domain name. The most important, however; are listed here: