Technology Never Sleeps, Even for Insurance Agency Websites
Act cFluent Newsletter, July, 2010 - Subscribe today Subscriber benefits include early evaluation of new products and discounts.
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Take Aways from the Google 2010 I/O Conference
Confluency sent two of our top developers to Google's recent I/O Conference in San Francisco back in May. We realize that the type of technical information shared at developer conferences isn't what excites most insurance agents. If it did, many of us at Confluency might otherwise be employed in the food services or industry. Having made note of a certain tendency to head for the exits at the mention of XML site maps, there are some tidbits of information from I/O that we really think we should share.
HTML5
There is a well publicized war of words taking place now between Apple - launched by CEO Steve Jobs - and Adobe, the makers and owners of Flash. Apple has refused to enable Flash on their iPod and iPad devices, citing the battery draining demands of Flash applications, security issues, and instability. Many websites require a Flash plug in so that your browser (i.e. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc.) can play Flash video and animations.
HTML5 code will allow animations, and certain desktop-like functions, to work inside your browser without any third party plug-ins - that is, natively. Google is already using HTML5 for You Tube videos and HTML5 is fully supported by the Chrome, Firefox, and Safari browsers. Microsoft has announced HTML5 support for the upcoming release of IE9. What this means to you as an insurance agent is that your website will be able to support those interactive features that keep visitors on your website without the trade off of driving away those visitors that won't wait around for all those third party services to load up.
Microsites
The quest for search engine optimization leads SEO service providers to use different techniques to gain website traffic. Google, Yahoo, and Bing change their search ranking formulas constantly, elevating some ranking factors while devaluing or even penalizing for other factors. A SEO technique still in vogue with some SEO consultancies is to build separate microsites. A microsites is, as the name suggests, a small website. They have been used in the quest for search ranking as a means to deliver external links back to a larger websites or to focus keyword optimization on a narrow range of keywords. At I/O, Matt Cutts, Google's SEO guru, suggested that, in many cases, the use of micro sites is counter-productive. His advice: work on your main website unless you have a really good reason for a microsite (besides tricking Google).
WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla Security Vulnerabilities
Speaking of microsites...for those of you with a microsite, blog, or other site built on an open source content management system (CMS), you may have some security vulnerabilities. (For instance, having 'This site may harm your computer' inserted under your website title in Google search results.) At one of the conference break out sessions, attendees were asked to raise their hands if they kept up a website or blog using WordPress. Most of the audience, including several Google developers, slowly slid their hands skyward. Google's presenter went on record to say how much he loved WordPress, almost as much as hackers do. Open source CMS like Drupal and WordPress are in wide use and therefore good candidates for hackers who want to exploit security openings. The best thing you can do to avoid being victimized? Make sure you stay up to date by installing the latest version of your CMS and any plug-ins. (Note: While Confluency Solutions uses open source code, our content management functions are proprietary and agency websites are secured for you by our team.)
Google Fonts
It's hard for most of us to get really excited about a new font directory, but if you have ever spent money on print collateral like brochures, business cards, letter head, or mailings, then this might be a big deal for you. Web developers have long had much less choice than print designers when it comes to fonts for web pages. The work-around, when trying to match web design with offline branding collateral, has usually been to use an image of the print font, instead of actual text, on a web page. The problem with that is that search engine crawlers cannot 'see' the text image, whereas search bots can see actual text. Often important pieces of information like agency names and addresses weren't being indexed by the search engines, severely damaging search performance. No more. Google's Font Directory and Font API mean that most any web page can now be made to look like a print piece without resorting to using an image that is all but invisible to the search engines.
Using Web Analytics to Measure Advertising Effectiveness
Suppose you run an ad for your agency in the local newspaper and want an idea about how effective that ad was. Or maybe you have run a pay-per-click (PPC) web campaign and are wondering if the immediately resulting sales and sign ups are the only indicators of your PPC campaign's success.
Consumers, both business and personal, don't always act on an ad right away. Even those people clicking through on your PPC ad may return later for a purchase. In the web world, these slow conversions are sometimes called latent clicks. And they can be fairly easy to track. Traditional and PPC ads will include your agency name and an increase in website traffic as a result of searches on your agency name (or variations thereof) are good indications that your advertising in other channels is getting through. These kind of searches are often called branded searches; that is, searches performed using your agency name or a product name. A quick look at the top 10 or 20 search terms in your web analytics report will tell you what you want to know. Compare the post advertising period with a prior period. If you see a spike in traffic driven by branded searches you can be reasonably assured that you have achieved some advertising success. If you don't see a change, it may signal the need for a critical evaluation of your traditional media advertising campaign.
Under the Hood
Confluency continuously updates security features and website components that improve search performance and the end-user experience. And several times each year we introduce entirely new feature to our library of website components. A lot of the ongoing benefits delivered by our web developers and engineers go unnoticed, and in some respects, that's as it should be; who needs to know all the gory technical details? But often it is important to understand what's going on under the hood of your website, even if you don't expect to do any 'engine' work yourself. Besides, nobody likes to labor in complete obscurity and we would like to show off the technical accomplishments of our tech staff from time-to-time. So in that spirit, we're introducing a regular features to our newsletters: Under the Hood.
Server Clusters
We like to stay out in front of search ranking algorithms as much as possible. Recently, Google announced that they likely would be factoring page load speed into their page rank formula. You probably didn't notice it, but over the last several months Confluency has started using different server configurations to serve up bandwidth-intensive data like video, audio, and certain graphics. During our test period we saw much shorter page load times, even though agency web pages were already loading very quickly. We're now pleased to announce all Confluency hosted websites are benefiting from this technical change.
HTML5
As noted in the Google I/O debrief, HTML5 will allow websites to deliver animation, video, audio, and other functions without requiring the use of plug-ins like the Adobe Flash Player. All modern browsers now recognize HTML5 and Microsoft will add support for Internet Explorer later this year. But we think the improvement in page load speed, stability, and multi-device support* make it worthwhile to begin using HTML5 on Confluency sites now. Take a look at the Dominate Local Search web page on Confluency Solutions' website . You'll notice no delay in the page loading, and you will probably also notice that the video, despite being over a minute in length, buffers within just a few seconds. That's because HTML5 was used to serve up the video. But Internet Explorer isn't supporting HTML5 yet. Not to worry. If you are using Internet Explorer as your browser, the page will recognize that and substitute a Flash audio player. It will probably be six months to a year before all your agency website video has this technology behind it, but the migration has begun.
*The iPhone and iPad do not support Flash, so website visitors using these devices will not see video and animations requiring the Flash plug-in.
In the Insurance Agency Profit Resource Center
Introduced back in March, the Resource Center is a treasure trove of video tutorials, guides, and templates all designed for easy use and to maximize ROI through your website and related digital marketing programs.
If you are already logged into your Insurance Zone, the hot links below will take you directly to the updates noted here. If you aren't logged in, just follow the navigation path to the updates.
Added
Social Media Tactics Webinar Recording (Video, approximately 45 minutes) - This recording covers some social media essentials and a few tactics that any insurance agency can begin using right away to improve brand awareness and capture sales through Facebook and LinkedIn.
NAVIGATION PATH (after logging in to your Insurance Zone) Insurance Agency Profit --> Branding --> Branding Through Social Media --> Branding Through Social Media Recording (on page)
The Local Search Imperative Webinar Recording (Video, approximately 45 minutes) - This recording of a live webinar originally conducted in April, 2010, covers all the basics needed to start leveraging a free tactic that is critical to every insurance agency's online marketing success.
NAVIGATION PATH (after logging in to your Insurance Zone) Insurance Agency Profit --> Acquiring New Customers --> Local Search --> Local Search Imperative Recording (on page)
Updated
The Local Search Primer (PDF Guide) - Significantly expanded over the March, 2010 version, this update includes changes to Google Places that took effect April, 2010.
NAVIGATION PATH (after logging in to your Insurance Zone) Insurance Agency Profit --> Acquiring New Customers --> Local Search --> The Local Search Primer (on page) --> Click to download PDF
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Act cFluent
Information for independent agents about issues at the confluence of technology, consumerism, marketing and agency practices.
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About Confluency Solutions
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Confluency Solutions specializes in solutions that generate growth through high customer satisfaction. Easy to implement technology combined with traditional independent agency strengths
vault your agency into the ranks of the top performers. Confluency Solutions provides complete business solutions, not just technology. We free you up to compete at an advantage, with
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