SEO News

Where do they start? 

Why, Google of course.

Seven out of 10 participants started their search for home insurance on Google. 

There was a mixture of general searches for home insurance, and the use of Google to find the brand they had in mind. 

• 25% performed a general search query (86% of these used the words ‘home insurance’ in the query string).
• 46% went straight to a comparison site, either typing the site name into a search engine or by direct URL entry.
• 29% went straight to a provider site, either typing the site name into a search engine or by directly entering the URL.

If we look at the content of the searches, we can see that Moneysupermarket, Aviva and Directline were the most popular brands that users searched for. 

These are brands that advertise heavily on TV, so does this explain the fact that searchers had these brands front of mind when they searched? 

In such a competitive market, we can now see why, even though insurance providers and comparison sites invest in building brand awareness, they need to work hard even when customers search for the brand. 

Take a look at this result, for moneysupermarket: 

A brand search such as this suggests the customer intends to visit said brand, and since it is top of the organic results this should be easy.  

However, there are a couple of obstacles in the way, not least of which is Google’s own comparison service. This is positioned above the organic ads but, craftily, doesn’t look too much like an ad itself. 

This, added to the Compare The Market PPC ad, means that moneysupermarket is forced to spend probably more than £1 per click to make sure its brand traffic goes to the right place. 

Organic or PPC? 

The eventual choice of results to click is somewhat surprising, or at least it is if you assume that everyone knows the difference between paid and organic results.

These were user tests, and it was observed that 56% of people chose organic results, and 44% chose PPC.  

We’ve published the results of research into this before, with one study finding that 36% of people didn’t know PPC ads were ads. 

Dan Barker and myself followed this up with a user survey last year, which found that around 10% of people weren’t aware that Google even carried ads. 

Of course, there are pros and cons with each research methods, but the key takeaway is that at least 10% of users are clicking results they don’t know are ads.  

Is this any surprise when ads are looking less and less like ads? 

They used to be shaded, which provided a clear distinction between the top ads and organic results (apart from Google’s comparison results). 

Now, we have the yellow ‘ad’ label, but otherwise the ads look identical to organic results. 

Yes, you might think the ad label would provide a clue but, as eye tracking studies will tell you, subtle changes can make a big difference to user behaviour, and sometimes seemingly obvious elements can be overlooked. 

10% of users in the study expressed or demonstrated a preference for organic search results and chose the even if the company also had a PPC ad listed.

However, this still leaves a lot of people who click the PPC ad when the brand is top of the organic listings anyway. 

As the table below from Google’s Keywords Planner shows, this means some of these brands are paying a lot for clicks even when they have climbed the organic listings for such a competitive term. 

Indeed, the moneysupermarket SEO team should be congratulated for reaching the top for ‘home insurance’ (with bonus points for use of markup) though the effect is perhaps diluted by the paid results. 

In summary

This study suggests that, even after companies have worked hard to get their brands at the front of searchers’ minds, they still have a lot of work to do to get them from Google’s search results to their website.

Also, we can see how Google profits from being the go-between here. 

In the next post, I’ll look at what home insurance brands need to do on-site to make the most of this traffic. 

Posted by MorganChessman

Building marketing strategies for small businesses is one of my favorite things. In my first marketing role, I worked in the marketing department for a small company before moving on to Distilled, where I’ve been lucky enough to continue working with small businesses that have enormous potential. Despite the various industries, locales, and personalities, one of the prevailing similarities between them is that small businesses often don’t position their company or use the web as effectively as they could. While this is partially due to the time and resource crunch small business owners feel, it’s also because, beyond building a website, they don’t know where to begin. 

It doesn’t have to be so overwhelming though. I’ll walk you through the preliminary steps I take my small business clients through.

1. Define the brand

A number of the small companies I’ve worked with didn’t have a brand. That’s not to say that they didn’t have a name, a website, and a logo. It’s that they didn’t stand for something. 

For example, what comes to mind when you think of Apple? Innovative and well-designed products? Exactly. So many small businesses are built from an individual wanting to work for themselves or because they see an opportunity to improve on an existing product. They figure, build the website and they will come. 

But it’s not that way. You need a brand. As we’ve seen throughout history, the companies that have staying power have a brand, something that differentiates them from their competitors, something that people connect with and, coupled with good products and customer service, something that keeps people coming back.

1. Think about your origin story

2. Talk to your customers

3. Do competitor research

4. Compile all information and develop a brand

2. Review the website content and language

Although most small businesses have websites, it’s necessary for owners to take a step back and review the website through the eyes of a consumer. Too often people assume that website visitors have a certain level of company knowledge, or that they speak the same jargon. That’s not always the case. For example, the aforementioned tech company originally wrote so vaguely about their services using insider jargon that neither target audience understood the company’s mission. Once the text was rewritten with specific consumers in mind, people started coming to the owner and saying “Now that you’ve redone your website, I finally understand what your company is about.” In order to not find yourself in that position, ask yourself:

1. Does the website have the information my target audience needs?

2. Am I using the language my target audience would use?

3. Develop overarching marketing strategy

Content strategy

In the online marketing world, content is king. Google wants you to deliver value to your site visitors and unique content is one way of going about this. Building a content strategy isn’t easy though. You don’t want to write the same thing that everyone else in your industry is writing about. There’s no unique value in that, and because your site likely isn’t strong from a domain authority perspective (yet!), you’ll usually find it difficult to rank against the big sites who are writing the same content. 

Instead, you’ll need to take stances on issues or solve your clients’ unique problems, giving them a reason to keep coming back to your site. If you can do this, great, but don’t just write content for the sake of it. If you’re a small ice cream shop for example, it’s going to be difficult to write content that’s on-brand and relevant to your audience. In this case, focus on other marketing strategies.

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