Patrick Beeson

Note: This entry is much delayed and now dated from sitting in my cue for two months. But I wanted to publish it anyway. Enjoy!

Finding a good insurance company can be difficult, especially if you need special coverage for things like a rafting business, ATV rental, or shooting range. That's where Google usually helps out.

John Bailey Company insurance agency in Knoxville offers insurance products for specialized outdoor businesses. But so do many other agencies nationally.

By using search engine optimization techniques rooted in providing both a good user experience and content, I was able to boost their site ranking dramatically.

A Google search for "outdoor insurance" returns John Bailey Company's outdoor insurance product page. This, after I optimized their site for both content, structure and links.

Organizing content for SEO

John Bailey Company launched their current Web site with URLs like this: http://www.johnbaileyco.com/outdoor.html. This is the hallmark of a bunch of HTML pages simply dropped in the root directory.

And it's not good for either the user experience or SEO because the URL doesn't tell the user anything about the content or where they are on the site. It misses a similar opportunity with Google to provide keywords about the content that users might be using for search.

I completely reorganized the site to provide a better experience for users and Google. This included the following:

• Redirected all traffic to the non-www domain to provide one route instead of two
• Change directory structure for human-readable URLs like this: http://johnbaileyco.com/services/specialty-insurance/outdoor-insurance/
• Broke the personal insurance page into pieces to gain more pages for content and keyword-targeting opportunities
• Put in 301 redirects for all changes
• Provided an updated site map with links to all pages

Keywords for SEO

One of the largest opportunities to optimize any site is by providing good, relevant content using keywords.

Keywords are any term visitors will use in Google to bring up results for the content they're looking for. A good question to ask any time you publish content on your site is "What keywords would I use in Google to find this content?" If your page title, URL, headings and body copy don't contain those keywords, then it will likely be invisible to Google (and visitors).

For John Bailey Company, I asked for a list of keywords they would like to return for in search results. I compared this with a list of their products being offered, such as outdoor insurance, to come up with a list of keywords to inject into their pages.

Each page of the site was altered for the inclusion of keywords. The following areas were deemed most valuable:

• Page URL .../outdoor-insurance/
• Page title <title>Outdoor insurance for Knoxville, TN from John Bailey Company Insurance Agency | johnbaileyco.com</title>
• Text within heading tags <h2>Outdoor Insurance Services</h2>
• Body copy on the page

By doing so, John Bailey Company is now on the front page of Google for a search using the keywords "outdoor insurance." (Notice I didn't even need to use the word "Knoxville"!)

Use of links

A link to a page on your site is akin to a vote for that content on Google, especially if those links are coming from highly visited sites that users have deemed valuable.

Static sites such as John Bailey Company can be difficult to tune since you aren't adding new content on a regular basis. But having a blog, or use of social media sites such as Twitter or Facebook, can help.

The goal with these tools is to create new content that attracts new readers with links back to core content. An example for John Bailey Company would be a top 10 list of reasons you need outdoor insurance (with several links back to their outdoor insurance page). Twittering and Facebooking the blog entry will spread the word beyond the blog audience.

By attracting hordes of readers to their blog, John Bailey Company can use that influence to point traffic and prominence to their product pages.

Further tweaking

What's good for users is good for Google. By continuing to publish quality, helpful content on their blog and other social sites with links back to their well-structured product pages John Bailey Company will continue to build influence with search engines. Users will appreciate the information and Google will notice.

If you're interested in boosting the SEO of your Web site through quality content and structural optimization let me know in the comments or by using my contact form.