If this is the first time you’ve heard about my SEO experiment, below is the kickoff post and the first three weekly wrap-ups:

• How My Experiment in SEO Will Change the Game on Small Business Blogging
• Small Business SEO Experiment – Week 1
• Small Business SEO Experiment – Week 2
• Small Business SEO Experiment – Week 3

But then I did it.

This week I created a Sitemap for The Murray Group and submitted it to Google Webmaster Tools.  Your Blog’s sitemap is the Index for Google Search.  This file gives Google a path to follow when the little Google Robots are searching your site and adding your content to Google’s directory.  You’re giving Google the Road Map to your website.

I know that’s not the most technical (Techies please elaborate below in the comments) description of the process… But even if you don’t completely understand… Sounds important right?

I mean it kinda sounds super important?  Well it is!

I did this with a WordPress plugin called: Google XML Sitemap

But let’s Emirel Lagesse this thing and kick it up a notch…

This week I didn’t just submit my blog Sitemap, I also submitted my Video Sitemap.  So much of the 100 Insurance Questions Answered in 100 Days video series is about video… obviously.  So it only makes sense that you would give Google the Road Map to the videos on your website as well.

Because this is not an original thought of mine, I must give props to the peeps I learned this trick from… SEOMoz.

I did this with a WordPress plugin called: Google XML Sitemap for Videos (duh)

So now that you have these sitemaps where the heck do you put them?  Google Webmaster Tools.

Here is a quick snapshot of Google Webmaster Tools:

The screenshot above shows my Google Webmaster Tools dashboard.  This is the Google Tool that you will use to submit your blog and video sitemap.

Once Google has indexed your site you will begin to see the stats above.  This screen lists the search queries and keyword relevance for which your site is coming up in Google Search.  This is only after a couple days of having The Murray Group site indexed so I’m not going to get worried about having keyword relevance for the word “iframes” just yet.

The Google Webmaster Tools dashboard is important because it gives you a look into how Google sees your website.  You might think that you have all the keywords relevant to your business covered.  But as you can see, Google might not share that opinion (we’re going to get into this more in future articles).

From what I know about search and SEO I’m feeling pretty good about the improvements I’ve made to the campaign this week.

Week 4 Traffic Stats

Keeping with the Consistency and Patience theme of last week, let’s take a look at Week #4′s numbers:

Look at that… More traffic than last week.  Growth is good.

I mean look in that red box and tell me content doesn’t drive traffic to your website.  I know the numbers are still small now but it’s only been a month and we’re writing about Insurance.  This isn’t sexy stuff.

Basically what I’m getting at is though I’m not content, I am pleased with the progress thus far.

Here’s the CREAM though:

This is the CREAM (Or the cool part for you non-Wu-Tang fans)!

What have I said since the very beginning?

This SEO experiment is all about search traffic.

Leveraging content and time to make dollars…

I want people to find my insurance agency’s website while I’m sleeping, build a relationship with me through my videos and then call me in the morning dying to do business with me and all I did was finish my first cup of coffee…  That is CREAM.

Last week I was a little bummed when I wrote this wrap-up post.  Today I feel like a Stone-Cold-SEO-Gangster just growing search traffic and livin’ large.  Hahaha… I can’t type that with a straight face.  Let’ s just say it’s nice to see positive results.

Other counting stats:

Facebook Likes

• Baseline – 107
• Week #1 – 124
• Week #2 – 127
• Week #3 – 127
• Week #4 – 133
• Percentage increase = 4% ↑

No new reviews… I need to focus on this more.

The Stats That Actually Matter

We received two new leads this week from our website.  One was a Home and Auto and the other a Life Insurance.

The Home and Auto will close next week (We’ll count the revenue once the ink dries) and we’re still efforting on the Life account.

So that’s pretty cool.  For the SEO Experiment we’ve received 4 personal lines, 1 commercial and 1 life insurance lead into our agency directly from our website.

Not setting the world on fire but still not bad for 4 weeks of work.

Thank you.

written by: Ryan Hanley

Download my Free eBook Today => 10 Social Tools to Business Blogging Success

Subscribe to my Free Newsletter and learn every I know about creating a successful business blog!

I’m not going to get into all the nuts and bolts because, well, I honestly don’t think you come to this site for nuts and bolts.  We’re users trying to make a difference.

If you really need the nuts and bolts of Pinterest read this Guide to Pinterest.  That will give you an overview of the newest and hottest social network on the Inter-web.

However, by now I’m sure most of you know that I’m not a fad chaser when it comes to social media.  I could attract a lot traffic to this site if all I published were articles with the hottest new social media buzz words smattered all over them regurgitated with the same tired content you could find on a hundred other blogs.

For better or worse that’s not my shtick and I get the impression it’s not your’s either.  So let’s get to it.

Pinterest is a visual social network.  What the hell does that mean? When I say visual, I mean everything is based on pictures and short explanations of those pictures.  It’s a place to store your favorite images on the Internet and share them with your friends.

But the cool thing about Pinterest or at least what has attracted me is that the pictures can be easily grouped and shared and all of them link back to the website that they were “Pinned” from.

Social Media Repository

See for a while now I’ve been looking for a place that I could store my favorite articles on blogging, content marketing, social media, writing, SEO, social tracking and the other robust topics that will allow me to be a better online marketer of my businesses (Insurance and Professional Speaking).

I’ve tried Digg and StumbleUpon and Delicious but none of those satisfied me.  They didn’t make it easy for me to group the content nor was it easily package-able to share with you…

The whole deal here is these articles are a resource me and what I do there is no reason that they shouldn’t be a resource for you as well.

The Content Creation Curation

After reviewing Pinterest and playing around a bit I think the service will be a good fit.

Because…

What I’ve been waiting to create is a completely free service called the Content Creation Curation - A visual representation of the week that was in social media blog articles.

Basically I read a lot of articles that pertain to Online Marketing.  A lot…

And there is no reason that I shouldn’t be able to pull out the articles that I think you’ll find useful and share them with you.  I do this to a certain extent with Twitter and Facebook but I’m sure it gets annoying to have myself and others stuffing your feed with articles.  The mass of articles becomes cumbersome to sift through.

I want there to be a place where you can go at your leisure to review the most interesting and most useful blog articles from the week past… I want that place to be  The Content Creation Curation (or C^3 as I’ve coined it).

Here is the link to Week 2 of C^3

I think this type of social network, a network with such a visual component, can have powerful business purposes.

Your Thoughts: What do you think of Pinterest?  Are you using it now and if so what for? Personal? Business?  How do you see Pinterest integrating with your business?

Thank you.

written by: Ryan Hanley

Download my Free eBook Today => 10 Social Tools to Business Blogging Success

You can also Subscribe to my Free Newsletter => Strategies in Content Creation

But Alex wasn’t the only one who wanted to know why I chose to move my newsletter business from Mailchimp, a provider I had used for almost three years, to Aweber, so I decided to write about it.

In full disclosure, I’ve been using the free version of Mailchimp all this time.  Aweber is not free.  And in double full disclosure the aweber links are affiliate links in case you want to subscribe to the service.

From Free to Not Free

So for all you business minded types out there you have to say to yourself, “Why would someone give up a Free solution for a paid solution that performs the same function?”

I’m willing to give up a free service and pay for another because saying Mailchimp performs the same function as Aweber is like saying your Ford Escort performs the save function as my Maserati… 

Yes both cars get you from home to work, but the ride there is a little different.

Yes both email services will send an email newsletter to your subscriber list, but the experience for both you the information distributor and your subscribers as the information consumers is drastically different.

But again this comes back to a common theme I try pull through this blog.  

Are we just trying to get by or Kick-Ass at this blogging thing?

Say it together with me people (if you’re in an office you can loud whisper) “KICK-ASS!”

Together, you and me, we’re trying to find the best process… the best procedure… the theory… the best workflow… and the best tools and resources to help our businesses thrive online.

Aweber is one of those resources…

And Here is Why

For a long time I’ve had a huge beef with MailChimp’s Sign-Up form.  It’s hard to customize and it looks like a 5th grader designed it in 1995 HTML code.  That doesn’t make it classic it makes it crappy.

I actually have gone so far as to use Wufoo Forms for my Newsletter Subscriber Sign-up on the website to make it look a little more professional.  Which means I’m managing two different platforms to perform one function.

But this was bearable… I mean I’m just signing people up for my Newsletter… WAIT!!!

Just signing people up for my Newsletter?  Haven’t we discussed on this blog that subscribers (of any form really RSS Feed, Social Media, etc) to your Newsletter are more valuable than Gold Coins?

People, listen to me, the way our blog looks means a lot.  Your societal beliefs aside, whether you like it or not everyone judges you based on your outward appearance and no more so than the first impression.

If your email newsletter sign-up form looks like crap no one is going to stick their email address in there and click submit.  So why then would I use a free service with crappy looking forms?

Free isn’t free if it’s not getting the job done…

In addition, with Aweber I can create multiple sign-up forms each with a unique design built to fit a specific need on my blog and have each point to the same List if I want.  Aweber will track how many subscriptions I get from each form so that I know what’s working and what isn’t.

Check it out:

Homepage Aweber Form

Blog Post Aweber Form

Landing Page Aweber Form

I’m honestly not trying to crush on Mailchimp as I did use Mailchimp for three years and for a Free service it is a good product.

If you choose to use MailChimp that is fine.  I’m not hating, I’m just saying the product has limitations and if you’re aware of those limitations and can navigate around them then it’s all good.

The Rub

The forms, the tracking, and the auto-responder (I’ll get into Auto-responders in a future post) are the three main reasons I’ve made the switch to Aweber.  Your newsletter subscribers are so valuable.  These people have let you into their world by giving you permission to fill their inbox.  I respect that relationship and I want to utilize the best tools on the market to deliver the value I have promised.

That is why I chose Aweber and if you think Aweber is the product for Your Newsletter Click Here.

If you have questions or thoughts or experiences with other products let everyone know in the comments below.

Thank you.

written by: Ryan Hanley

Download my Free eBook Today => 10 Social Tools to Business Blogging Success

 You can also Subscribe to my Free Newsletter => Strategies in Content Creation

Internet, Cable, Phone including HD and DVR and some premium channels for $90 a month for 12 months.

We have Time Warner Cable.  We have Internet and Cable only (no hardline) with HD and DVR but no premium channels.  When she told me the price of the promotion I immediately recognized that we were paying significantly MORE for LESS service.

So I looked at our monthly cable bill.  We’re paying close to $160 a month.

WTF!  Roared through my mind like I was standing under a jet engine…

We’re not talking about chump change, that’s $70 a month or $840 a year.  That’s three Home and Auto Insurance packages.  That’s 800 clicks on Google Adsense ads… That’s flat out a significant amount of coconut.

But Price is not the FAIL…

So this morning my wife calls Time Warner Cable to find what the deal is.  She had two questions for customer service representative that picked up the phone:

1. Why are we paying so much for less service when they can obviously offer the same services we have (which we are fine with) at a lower price?
2. What can we do to take advantage of the lower price point?

Full disclosure: The phone was on Speaker and she was doing the talking so I’m not going to direct quote everything that was said as I don’t have it all exact in my mind.

After about ten minutes of back and forth with my wife explaining the situation and the reasons she is upset about paying so much for services she can clearly see are available at a cheaper rate she gets the response that I’m sure the Time Warner Rep thought she wanted to hear: We’ll give you your same service for $120…

That infuriated my wife (Which is one of many reasons I love her).  Her response was straight Gangster, as I’m sure most people would have been content and just hung up.

“Why didn’t you inform me you were over charging me $30 a month for my service?”

I think this caught the guy off guard because his response was:

“Ma’am this is a business.  You must not understand how business is done…”

BOOM… There it is.  An honest response to a customer question.

This is big business telling small customer we don’t give a shit about you.  You’re just an account number that we have to deal with today so piss off and stop asking us questions that we don’t want to answer.

In his mind he had reduced our monthly charge and we should be grateful that the big cable company would make such an accommodation for us.

My wife is half Irish and half Italian so I’m not going to direct quote the conversation further but let’s just say that she explained in not so many terms that we work for a small business and would never  knowingly allow our customers to so grossly overpay for service.

We Got What We Wanted, Why Not Shut Up and Be Happy?

True we got a reduction in the price of our cable service.  I am happy about that.  In that regard Time Warner Cable did the right thing.  Be we had to complain and be annoying to get it.  I don’t like complaining about things, it’s not in my nature.

But it was the attitude of their representative and my realization as to what customer service means that made me write this article.  We had to call and complain and be aggressive to get the discount that took the guy a click-of-a-button to apply.

My wife, the customer, had to take time out her day, stress yourself out and be pushy in order to receive a benefit from Time Warner that they really didn’t seem to have any problem giving.

However… They were perfectly willing to OVERCHARGE us for as long as we stayed ignorant or remained lazy.

To me that is Customer Service FAIL…

A simple mass email to every customer that was overpaying explaining that a quick phone call can save you $30 a month MAKES ME A CUSTOMER FOR LIFE!

I get that email and I know Time Warner has my back.  I get that email and all the Satellite service mailers I get go right in the garage.  I’m not asking my friends about their Satellite experience.  I’m not writing this blog post.

That email hits my inbox and I’m writing about how Big Business can look out for little guy and Satellite sucks.

The Rub

I’m all for Capitalism.  I know that businesses has to make money.  But there is a way of doing business that has been lost in the Large Corporate world.  Some might call it a loss of humanity, others will call it greed, I just think it’s a lack of vision.

The Internet has given power back to the consumer.  Companies that don’t see that, companies that think they roll over the consumer without regard will continue to have Blog posts like this one written about them.

In what is a complete generalization, but one I find to be mostly true… Small Business still looks out for the consumer.  Small business still understands that the customer experience is most important.

Small business understands that happy customers equal profits and not the other way around. 

This is why small business needs to harness the Internet.  To tell their story, speak to their customers, let people know that there is another way of doing business.  READ THE ARTICLE BELOW:

“How Small Business Can Leverage Social Media to Fight Back Against Their Big Business Competitors”

Then Act!

And if you want some GREAT reading on the customer experience read my Review Guy Kawasaki’s Enchantment.

Thank you.

written by: Ryan Hanley

Download my Free eBook Today => 10 Social Tools to Business Blogging Success

To get the business end of this post out of the way,  in order to win this contest I need YOU to vote for me and I want to win.

To be completely honest and up-front, I want to win bad!  I’m new to the Marketing Blog game and feel this is opportunity to plant my flag in the ground.

But that can only happen if you enjoy my material and want to help me.  So this is what I need you to do.

Follow the link below.  Read my entry because I think you’ll find it fun and informative and then SHARE the post everywhere you can… Twitter, Facebook, Google+, StumbleUpon… And then leave a comment.  Take the extra couple seconds to let me know what you think of the post.

Here is my entry post:

Pulp-fiction Style Get Found Online Adrenaline Shot to the Heart of Your Small Business

For everyone that went over to my entry and voted… Thank you!  For everyone that didn’t SCREW Yo… kidding… I still love you.  But I would love you more if…

You can always share this post too…

Why Relationships Have More Value Than Traffic

So far this post as been all self-promotion and too a small extent I am sorry about that but I do really want to win this contest so if you feel like going back and voting for me some more I’m not against that.

Here is the deal.  When I got involved in this blog contest my original motivation was Traffic.

Firepole Marketing is a well respected website by Internet Marketers and I knew that by participating I would get an increase in traffic to my blog.  Which would in turn bring subscribers, which hopefully some day I could turn into customers in some shape form or fashion.

I think most bloggers get involved in blog contests for this exact reason.  Bloggers, by nature, want more traffic to their blog.  More traffic, if wielded properly can mean more authority, possibly more revenue and ultimately allows the blogger to work on larger projects like say a book or e-course or speaking events.

More traffic was my initial motivation.

As I’ve mentioned before, my post released today (click here to vote), but the contest has been going on for two weeks now.  Over the course of those two weeks I’ve been visiting the Firepole Marketing website every day to read the entries of my fellow contestants.  And like any good blogger I comment on what they write either by asking questions, because these people know their shit or adding my own experiences to the discussion.

From this I have created some relationships, in just two short weeks, that I am already very thankful for.  People that I would most likely not ever made the same level of connection with.

I consider these valuable relationships.  These bloggers/business people are going to help me become a better Marketer of my business and hopefully I will be able to help them as well.

The increase in traffic I get from the Firepole Marketing blog contest will be great but ultimately fleeting… The value I will take from this experience are the relationships I’ve formed and the resources I now have at my disposal to bounce ideas and questions off of.

The Rub

So I will leave you with this… Whether you are an experienced hardcore blogger or a newbie trying to get your business blog off the ground I encourage to participate in some blog contests.  The competitive nature of contests will force you to really step your game up and the relationships you make with your fellow contestants will help you become a better online business person.

And remember to visit my guest post at the Firepole Marketing Blog Contest.

Thank you and Good Luck!

written by: Ryan Hanley

Download my Free eBook Today => 10 Social Tools to Business Blogging Success

» Consistency

» Patience

In order to build an search engine optimized small business blog you need consistency and patience.  The Murray Group‘s SEO campaign came out of the gate guns blazing (see the result from my week 1 post below).  There have been significantly less fireworks the last two weeks as far as new leads.

If this is the first time you’ve heard about my SEO experiment below is the kickoff post and the first two weekly wrap-ups:

• How My Experiment in SEO Will Change the Game on Small Business Blogging
• Small Business SEO Experiment – Week 1
• Small Business SEO Experiment – Week 2

I don’t want anyone to get confused about the small business SEO experiment… What I’m doing on The Murray Group website is about getting my insurance business found online and converting those visitors into business leads.

Traffic is great but revenue is better… I hope you agree.

In all honesty Competitive Ryan is a little angry this morning.  Going two full weeks without an inbound lead from our blog feels like an eternity.  It takes time every day to produce these videos and that is time I could spend doing something else… But then Rational Ryan shoots Competitive Ryan an email and asks him if he wants to go for walk to the coffee shop and discuss the small business SEO experiment.

On that walk Rational Ryan explains to Competitive Ryan that success doesn’t happen overnight.  It takes time… effort… energy… consistency… and patience.  Rational Ryan explains that Competitive Ryan that we’ve only been at this 21 days which means there are 79 more days before to go before there is anything to worry about…  Competitive Ryan decides not to jump in front of that bus.

See it’s not like the Traffic numbers are bad…

The trend line is still pointed up.  The total traffic number is  higher than after week 1 and I considered week 1 a success.  It’s crazy of me to think that after only 21 days The Murray Group blog would have traffic through the roof.

Patience…

Consistency…

See the number I’m most interested in, the SEO number, search traffic was actually very positive.

Looking at the search traffic number definitely calms Competitive Ryan down a bit.  You have to give Google a chance to index your posts Ryan… Albany wasn’t built in a Day.

See the deal here people is that I want to have the BEST Independent Insurance Agency blog in the entire country.  That’s what I want.  That’s my goal… The Belle of the Ball… The’s Cat’s Meow… A Kick-Ass Revenue Producing Machine…

And that is the same thing you should want for you small business or your independent insurance agency or your online business.  But again success doesn’t happen overnight.

Consistency… 

Patience…

This blogging thing is not easy.  What I want you to learn from this post (because it’s what I’ve learned this week) and from my experience with The Murray Group blog over the last three weeks is YOU CAN’T GIVE UP!

The stats aren’t always going to be what you want them to be.  You’re going to get frustrated, you’re going to get annoyed, you’re going to wonder what the hell you are spending all this time writing for.

But then it’s going to happen.  Google indexes the right long-tail SEO phrase and all the sudden new leads start pouring in.  It might take you three weeks… It might take 3 months… It might take 3 years… But it’s going to happen if you have consistency and patience.

I believe that my strategy will work.  I believe it as strongly as I believe in anything (Other than God, My Wife, My Family and the Buffalo Bills winning a Super Bowl in my lifetime).  I believe my strategy can work for you and your small business as well.

But we have to keep our foot on the gas.  That moment of hesitation… of indecision… of doubt.  That is the moment we make excuses.  That is the moment we give up.  That is moment we fall back into old habits.  That is the moment we fail.

Words I want you take with you this week:

“Every week can’t be the best online week of you life… But next week can.”

Achieve Now…

Thank you.

written by: Ryan Hanley

Download my Free eBook Today => 10 Social Tools to Business Blogging Success

I am seriously just consider for a second all the things you need to know about to be successful on the Internet:

• There’s Blogging
• and Social Media
• and Mobile Apps
• and Digital Video
• and Twitter
• and Social Capital
• and e-Newsletters…

You went to a presentation at the local chamber of commerce and a 30-year old kid was telling you the “Old Way” of doing business is a myth and you asked yourself, “When did the way I’ve always done business become the Old Way?”

Well, I’m that 30-year old and I’m here to answer your question.

The way you’ve always done business became the Old Way of doing business when you forgot (some would say conveniently forgot) to integrate the Internet into your business plan.  You, small business owner, don’t need to be an expert in concepts listed above to successfully harness the power of an Online presence.

You just need a little bit of vision and to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.

So what I’m saying here is all hope is not lost.  Watch this video and then I’ll explain.

I told you that all hope wasn’t lost for your Old Way of doing business.  Because it’s not.  You built your business on relationships and you know what my friend… The Internet is all about relationships!

Unfortunately this means that you are going to have to embrace the Internet.  That is going to be uncomfortable.  But like I said, get comfortable with being uncomfortable.  I don’t want you to think about the Internet like some scary monster that is going to overwhelm you.

See most of the successful concepts utilized on the Internet are the same successful business concepts you’ve used throughout your entire business life.

Concepts like:

• Deliver Value First
• Honest communication
• Compassion for customer needs
• Educating customers
• Quality, prompt service

We could go on and on, but the point is the Internet isn’t a different way of doing business, it’s a different way of communicating.

The Rub

In all honesty… and as you can see I’m not selling you anything here… It is my opinion that if you stick to the “Old Way” of communicating (i.e. making customers communicate on your terms not theirs) your business will decline over time and eventually fail.

That is a reality you will have to deal with.  Doing business in 2012 is not about what YOU want as a small business owner, it’s about what your CUSTOMERS want from your small business.

Marinate on that concept for a while and let me know how it tastes…

Thank you.

written by: Ryan Hanley

Download my Free eBook Today => 10 Social Tools to Business Blogging Success

But deep down you know that you should be blogging… so you make excuses.

So what the Internet has revolutionized the way small business communicates with their customers.  You have an excuse… Actually you now have 33 excuses why you don’t blog about your business.

1. The Internet is for people that don’t want to work hard
2. You’re not funny
3. You have no idea how to tell a story
4. You don’t have the time to post consistently
5. You have to run every post by a compliance officer (allegedly)
6. You don’t have patience
7. You don’t have a huge marketing budget
8. You have no idea what the difference is between an adverb and a pro-noun
9. You think your business is boring
10. Everyone thinks your business is boring
11. You live in a small town
12. Most of your customers still don’t have an email, let alone use the Internet
13. You think the Internet is a fad just like cell phones
14. Your customers like to do business face-to-face
15. No one buys your product online
16. You’re not “tech” savvy
17. You’ve never tapped into you’re inner awesome before
18. You have no idea where to get blog topics from
19. You don’t have the money for a website
20. Most blogs fail after just one month
21. All the good web addresses in your industry are taken
22. There are already too many blogs in your industry
23. You tried Twitter but no followed you
24. You get easily overwhelmed
25. The thought of doing video terrifies you
26. You consider yourself to be “Old-School”
27. You failed high school English class
28. You have dial-up Internet
29. You think blogging is a waste of time
30. Your golf buddy told you blogging is for kids
31. You only like to perform “Revenue Generating” activities
32. You think SEO is the monogram on your attorney’s dress shirt
33. You’re currently asking yourself “What the hell is a blog?”

Now… I hope I haven’t give you a false sense of acceptance.  Because not one of the excuses listed above are valid.  No one likes excuses… Rule #2.

I Don’t Care about Excuses…

“Excuses? I don’t need no stinkin’ excuses!”

What…?

You don’t care that it’s going to take time and effort and frustration and creativity?

You don’t care that people are going to judge you based on what you write and how you write it whether you’re a trained writer or not?

You don’t care there is a reasonable chance that blogging won’t make you a millionaire?

GOOD FOR YOU!

I’m proud of you… You’ve taken the first step to being a kick-ass content creating, reader subscribing, subscriber converting small business Internet marketer.

Now take the following four actions to put yourself on the path to a successful blog:

1. Download my free ebook on business blogging success
2. Read this article by Ana Hoffman on Creating a Popular Blog
3. Read this article on SEOMoz on Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic
4. Connect with me on Google+

Thank you.

written by: Ryan Hanley

Download my Free eBook Today => 10 Social Tools to Business Blogging Success

1. Posting valuable content every day is hard
2. Posting valuable content every day drives traffic to your website

Basically I took on this challenge and I knew it would be difficult and it is… But the results I’m seeing in just two weeks are well worth the effort.

If this is the first time you’ve heard about my SEO experiment below is the kickoff post and week #1:

• How My Experiment in SEO Will Change the Game on Small Business Blogging
• Small Business SEO Experiment – Week 1

We’re now 14 videos into the 100 video series.  As of writing this post I have 18 videos recorded and scheduled which means that in order to finish week 3 I have to produce three more videos.

I made two structural changes to the videos last week.

The first change came on the recommendation of on of my fellow insurance professionals and that was changing up my “outfits” in the videos.  I produce the videos in batches of three or four at a time and in the first week you could tell I was wearing the same thing in every video.  I now chop up the batches so all the videos I do in one sitting aren’t in order.  Small change but significant I think.

The second change was you add a sentence at the bottom of the post asking people to review The Murray Group on either Yelp, Google, or Facebook.

Counting Results

Total Traffic

• Baseline = 77 visitors
• Week #1 = 140 visitors
• Week #2 = 225 visitors
• Percent change = 61% ↑

I also started thinking about how I’m tracking stats and what stats I’m tracking.  This SEO Experiment is not just about getting more traffic in general it’s about getting more SEARCH traffic.  Search traffic means people typing something into Google or Bing or Yahoo and clicking on The Murray Group website.

As I said when I kicked off this SEO experiment, I’m all about social media, but the majority of consumers that are going to visit The Murray Group website and contact us are going to have an immediate need.  These people are going to have a need and are going to look to Google to find a solution for them and I want The Murray Group to be that solution.  So from now on search traffic is going to be a big focus for me.

As you can see search traffic has increased significantly each of the first two weeks.  Boom…

Results That Matter

Whether you admit it or not, you love to watching your counting stats grow, unfortunately count stats don’t pay bills (as much as I will they did).

So in week #2 we received 1 inbound personal lead.  No commercial leads this week.

For the campaign we received 3 personal lines leads and 1 commercial lines lead.

But here’s where I yell, “Yahtzee!” and you say, “Damn son, you’re killin’ it…”

The commercial lines lead from week #1 closed at $1,800 in revenue and we got a referral from the personal lines lead we wrote in week #1 that closed in week #2 for $200 in revenue.

So in two weeks of our “100 Insurance Questions Answered in 100 Days” video series we’ve booked $2,170 in revenue to the Agency…

Those are results that matter.

Last week I produced 9 more videos at 15 minutes total production time per video for a total of two hours and fifteen minutes of work time spent on the SEO experiment.  This brings my total work hours spent on the video series as a whole to 7 hours and fifteen minutes or less than one standard work day.

What I’ve Learned So Far

The formatting of our posts on The Murray Group website leaves a bit to be desired.  It is my personal opinion that the WordPress Theme we use needs to updated to premium theme like the Genesis Framework (affiliate link) which is what I use here on RyanHanleyDotCom.  If you don’t use a premium WordPress theme I highly recommend doing so.  Genesis is optimized for SEO and constantly updated so your blog is always utilizing fresh code.

I will hopefully be updating The Murray Group website to a Genesis theme soon to give blog posts a little nicer feel.

The reason I want the posts to have a nicer feel is I’d like amplify our call-to-action, especially for the reviews.  I’m not happy that we haven’t received any new reviews in two weeks.  I think review sites like Yelp and Google are going to large sources of business down the road.  Getting more reviews is going to be a heavy focus moving forward.

Week #2 words to remember:

“If you want the business you have ASK… even online.”

Thank you.

written by: Ryan Hanley

Download my Free eBook Today => 10 Social Tools to Business Blogging Success

But they’re nervous… Maybe nervous isn’t the right word… These small town businesses are uneasy or better put they lack confidence the time spent online will yield the results they seek (I know there are some small town businesses killing it online but this statement is true in more cases than not).

Here is the comment by my new friend:

“Ryan:  I’m a new, young producer in Midwest Ohio.  I’ve been following some of your stuff for about 6 months now.  This post is scratching my itch to FINALLY get something (namely, a blog) going with the whole social media thing.  My only questions is this.  You’re an NY guy; I’m in small town Ohio.  Do you think that there’s just as much of a need for blogging-type activity in small businesses set in rural America?  In other words, if I set sail on the S.S. Social Media, would it amount to a small-town agent pretending he was a urban agent?”

So question has been thrown out:

Is there a need for blogging and social media in small town America?

My opinion is that small town businesses have a GREATER NEED for blogging and social media than urban businesses and here is why:

1) Your competitors are certainly NOT blogging

Can you say Competitive Advantage?  This is probably the only reason you should need to start blogging.  I don’t care how rural your town is consumers of your product or service are going online to find solutions to their problem.

The question you must ask yourself is do you want to be the one supplying that solution or would you prefer your competitor down the street?  There is a decent chance that if you start blogging about your business today, you will be the only business in your industry in your town producing content that your potential customers want to read.

There is a lot of value to being an early adopter.

2) Google loves local

I mentioned this in my SEO experiment, “Google Search is about providing solutions to problems.”

If someone in small town Midwest Ohio types “Should I drop collision coverage?” into Google Search, Google prefers the results to be as relevant as possible to that person.  So what does relevant mean?

Google would prefer (notice I use the word prefer) the top result is a webpage with the specific answer to the question from a business in the same geographic locale as the searcher.  Now I know this extremely simplified but the premise is solid.

Google wants to connect your business with consumers in your geographic area.

3) Your online presence does not have to cost $10,000 to be powerful

 Gone are the days that you needed a second mortgage to pay for a new website.  My insurance agency’s website (The Murray Group) runs on WordPress.  We had a little bit of design and coding work done but in round numbers the entire cost to go from zero to completely functional was less than $2,000.

You don’t need professionally done movies and flash video and don’t need some expensive content management system for your blog posts.  If you wanted to have a blog tomorrow it would cost you ~$120 (which is hosting).  

The potential customers of your product or service want solutions… They want personality… They want to know that you are going to get them exactly what they need and look out for their best interest.  They could give a rats ass about a $10,000 HTML website with flash video and god knows what else.

The expense, time and effort barriers to creating an online presence no longer exist.

BONUS REASON – Online presence is the fastest way to expand market footprint

You’ve always been a small town business, but that doesn’t mean you always HAVE to be a small town business.  Before the Internet, expanding your geographic footprint meant adding new salespeople, purchasing property in adjacent towns and increasing your marketing budget to gain traction in new locations.

Today, all you need is a blog and desire.  Because Google loves local you can easily expand your business presence by creating content that provides solutions to the people in whatever town you want to do business in.

Expansion is no longer hindered by the physical restrictions of creating a new location.

The Rub

My new friend put it perfectly in his follow-up comment, “I suppose it could be argued that successful online networking may be the surest way to “localize” much of the business that seems so far out of reach.”

Read that statement a couple times and let it marinate… Let the power of what he said sink in.

The solution to online success in small town America is no different than the big city, deliver value first… Use the power of personality… and ASK for the business.

What suggestions would you give to small town businesses trying to succeed online?

Thank you.

written by: Ryan Hanley

Download my Free eBook Today => 10 Social Tools to Business Blogging Success