Sound Insurance is ranked #1 for Seattle Auto Insurance AND Wa Auto Insurance

No April Fools joke here, Google "Seattle Auto Insurance" for yourself!

Everyone is buzzing around the office as another Bonsai Client is now top ranked in the map for their industries most competitive terms. Sound Insurance is now ranked #1 for Seattle Auto Insurance AND Wa Auto Insurance. The two most competitive terms in the Seattle and Washington markets.

So what does that all mean? According to an industry study the #1 Ranked site receives 42% of the clicks for a given keyword. The image below is a screenshot from Google Keyword Tool:

As you can see there are 5400 people searching "wa auto insurance" and 3600 searching for "seattle auto insurance" for a total of 10,000 searches (Note: Google normalizes there data so it's not exact but gives us a good idea of how many people are searchging for each term).That means Sound Insurance can expect to see 4200 additional visitors to their site from just those two keywords.

Also, notice people are paying $37.89 on average per click for seattle auto insurance. That means if Sound Insurance had to pay for the "organic" traffic they're recieving they would have to pay $57,289.68! Just for one month! If they also had to pay for the wa auto insurance traffic they'd pay an additional $53,479.44. That means they're saving $110,769.12 every month by employing Bonsai Media Group to manage the Search Engine Optimization. We're here to serve our clients. Do you want to enjoy these kind of rankings? Do you want to drive new business? Seriously, do you? Call us! We're dedicated to results. We're inexpensive. Now is the time to do it, before the ship sales, it's more competitive and we're more expensive :)

To all you working warriors, my hats off. I'm signing out. And getting back to acheiving rankings.

Pay Per Click Advertising is touted as a great way to reach your target market. Nobody know this better than Google, Yahoo and Bing. Well, "if I were Microsoft" I would set up strategic Pay Per Click advertising campaigns on Google and Yahoo. You want to talk about reaching your target audiance. As an avid Googler I will say there are some things that bing does do better, you can't be all things to all people, although Google will certainly try. So, if Bing advertised on Google for the things they think are better and drove traffic to their search engine they will have a great opportunity to change the minds of a highly captive engaged customer, whose lifetime value could be in the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Microsoft spent $80 million advertising Bing. Imagine they spent 1/80th of that budget on PPC. Let's just say they spent an average of $5 per click, they'd get 200,000 users to go to their search engine and try their search engine out!

What about the number of impressions? Let's say on average the Click Through Rate for each ad was 2.5% which through some forums seems to be a conservative average. That would mean they would get 8,000,000 impressions! How much would Bing have to spend to get the same number of impressions on a TV advertising campaign ??? (also consider production costs). How long would it take to produce the commercials and spread the content and get 8,000,000  

    As an Interactive Media Designer I often get the question "So Interactive Media…. what exactly do you do?" Up until about 2 years ago I would direct people to various examples of my work on the internet or try in varying degrees of success to tell them what it is I do. Then I did what all tech savvy, geeked out, people in the design field did. I bought an iPhone. The iPhone has revolutionized the way I share my work with people away from a computer. From storing my T-shirt designs in my Photo Library to keeping iPhone compatible versions of my motion graphics projects in my iPod feature, I try to utilize every aspect of the iPhone to turn it into my own mobile portfolio. The biggest upside? It's with me all the time. Even at the bar where I just ran into a business owner who is unhappy with her website's design and functionality and is looking to make a switch.

    I've never met another designer that has taken the time to set up their iPhone to make it work for them. In fact, if you're in graphic design, web design or motion graphics and you have an iPhone and you aren't using it as a personal portfolio and sales piece you are out of your mind. Personal devices like the iPhone that allow you to keep examples of your work at the touch of a finger are going to set you apart from the designer with only a business card that likely gets logged away in a wallet.
    I personally keep my phone branded and positioned to sell my services as a designer, screen printer, and motion graphics animator. I usually have between 3 and 4 wallpaper images that I optimize for display on the iPhone. I can cycle through these images depending on where I'll be and to whom I'll be talking to. That sets the stage. Then I keep a log of all the shirts I have designed, (whether they get printed or not), logo's, website comps, and flyers in my Photo Library. This way if I meet someone who is interested in having a run of hoodies or T-shirts done I have a visual example of what Gryphen Graphics is capable of. I also keep my pricing guide on mobile.me as a .pdf so I can quickly and accurately give them a quote. Next I make sure to have all apps related to the services that Bonsai Media Group offers. Facebook mobile, TweetDeck, YouTube, and Safari usually suffice. This way When I run into the owner of the new bar down the street and get to talking about how he can use SEO, Social Media Marketing, and effective Web Design to drive local business to his bar, I have access to these apps and can demonstrate to him how it's done. Finally when I meet the business man who simply isn't impressed with static images of t-shirts and logo design I open the iPod feature of the iPhone to Videos and show him one of my motion graphics pieces which showcases the versatility and capability of Bonsai Media Group.
    When I bought the iPhone the first week it came out, I knew that it would primarily deal with software upgrades not hardware. In fact it hasn't changed much from what I call the "OG" (1st generation iPhone) to the 3G and 3GS except for the metal casing, which I favor over the latter. The nice thing about the iPhone is when the next one comes out you are not going to have to re-size, re-export or re-encode your files. Once you've got your mobile portfolio library built and optimized it's simply a matter of updating and adding new work.

    These are just 3 examples of ways that you can take casual conversation about your career and transition into the networking side of business just by being prepared to show somebody what exactly it is you do. I would strongly suggest putting in the time to design yourself a great looking business card and please, spend the money to have them done right. Even more impressive after a brief portfolio tour of your work is a business card that they can take with them that they will remember. It's all about separating yourself from the pack, finding your zag and I believe this can be a great compliment to any conversation a designer will have concerning the work they produce.

please feel free to ask questions, there are many ideas behind this strategy that I haven't thought of and for the better of the graphic design community we should hurl our thoughts, ideas and questions into the design-o-sphere.

Branding is not a name, it's not a logo, it's not a brochure, it's not a web site, and it’s not what you say it is. Branding is what your customer says you are. If you don't believe me I highly recommend you read Zag. If you do believe me, you must be smart, good looking and very successful. Debating regarding what Branding is aside, under the assumption that branding is what your customers and potential customers say you are, What are they saying about you? What do they call your industry? You call your industry thermo graphing they call it thermo imaging. Now where could you get this kind of information??? You could comb through the millions of blogs out there until you find someone who is an "expert" who gives you some feedback on your industry if you're lucky. You could check out yelp, and the hundreds of other review sites... But wouldn't it be nice if there were one place you could go to find this kind of information out... wait, there is. It's SEO. In Search Engine Optimization we look to see what people are typing in to find your services or your company. Think about it, all the millions and millions of people using Google. They're all typing in searches for services and products. It's interesting, the way our clients describe their services and the way their customers are searching for them can be quite different. Who wins? The customer is always right, right? In this case, absolutely and for SEO what's the point in optimizing for terms you think are relevant, save your time, search for the terms you customers are searching for. Back to branding, your customers are telling you what they think of your industry by the way they're searching for it. Keep your ears to your SEO and you'll have a pulse on your industry. If you seem new terms growing in popularity, you'll see a shift in customer perception and values.

I've been talking branding at a industry level it also works for some larger brands as well, where there is enough search info. You can also check your analytics for the keywords people are using to reach your web site.

5 steps to choosing highly profitable keywords for your SEO or PPC campaigns

This is guide for choosing the RIGHT keywords for your SEO or PPC campaigns. People always ask me how do you know what my customers are searching for. My response, it's a combination of brainstorming and then using the tools that are available.  It is important that you first brainstorm keywords and then use keyword suggestion tools to expand your list and look for new opportunities... BUT today I'm not here to tell you how to create a list of keywords a mile long, I'm here to teach you the secrets I've learned about choosing keywords that are highly profitable.

1. Write down your USP or Unique Selling Proposition. What differentitates you from your competition? Now brainstorm keywords that align themselves with your USP. If your USP is that you're the only company that offers bilingual services then brainstorm keywords related to your service and your bilingual capabilities.
2. Write down the pain point or problem your product solves... At what point do your customers realize they need your product.
3. The Customer Buying Cycle - The buying cycle gives you a progression of how a customer goes from not even knowing your product existed to purchasing and using it. Write down each stage of the buying cycle and brainstorm keywords for each stage.
   1. Awareness - The moment when your customer first realizes they need "something" to fix their problem. Keywords associated with this stage often include "how do I." This is where the customer first starts thinking about what keywords would bring them the best search. What impacts their their keyword clarification? It's different for every factors. They start thinking about what they know about a potential solution, or what they'd want. They may think they want a solution that isn't what you do, if you optimize for it, you can make them aware about your industry. Being that they found that valuable information from you, if they're going to purchase from anyone wihtin your industry they will most likely purchase from you. This is a huge opportunity.
   2. Information search - What keywords are associated with customers educating themselves about your industry? Write them down. Think about this, what if you could educate your customer on your industry? YOU CAN!
   3. Alternative evaluation - What are the alternatives within your own industry as well as others that will solve the customers needs? Write them down. What are the keywords associated with this stage? Write them down.  Think comparison charts. Compare the different types of solutions, I'm sure your solution will be the best ; )
   4. Purchase decision - These are the most competitive keywords. They're the keywords searchers use right before they make the purchase. These are generally very specific keywords, albeit very expensive to acheive top rankings. When your customers make a purchase what keywords are they using?  
   5. Post purchase behavior - This is a really interesting one to me and a fun one to target. Here you can target words that help your customers find the infomation they need to use your product... Or consider this, consider that they went with a competitor and are trying to figure out how to do xyz, they do a google search and your web site comes up on how it is possible to do xyz with your product. Also how many times do you make a purchasing decision and realize it was the wrong one...
4. ASK YOUR CUSTOMERS if you're not asking how your customers found you, start doing that immediately. If you are and they tell you they did a google search, ask them what keywords they used to find you. I'd also ask just about everyone you know, you'd be surprised how diffferent people search.
5. Now you've got a pretty comprehensive list of keywords time to see how often they get search and at the same time see what googles keyword suggestion tool says. In this step I'd place all your keywords in one column of a spreadsheet with another column to the right titled demand. Use the Google Keyword Tool to figure out the demand.  On the Google keyword tool selec the, Choose columns to display: Show estimated average cpc, this will give you an idea of how competitive the keyword is.

Remeber you want to find and target the keywords that are the most profitable for your company. Often times when you try to get the hole pie you end up getting none of it. Target the peice that makes the most sense for your business. I hope you've found this useful, I'll be doing more blogs on selecting good keywords.