Apr
16
Our posts on the gocompare ban and subsequent reinclusion have generated some interest. As we soon realised, GoCompare supplemented their SEO loss with a direct increase in PPC traffic. Hitwise have kindly provided us with proof - the butterfly effect:
Here’s how they ranked over time for [car insurance]:
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52 Comments so far
Recently Written
- dot insurance - go.compare, money.supermarket, conf.used
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- SEO Link Buyers - are you naughty?
- GoCompare are back in Google for Car Insurance
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Many thanks to Robin Goad for providing the information
You could put dots in the middle of those and call it the “tit effect”
Ahhh!! So that’s where that £30 million went
Can anyone estimate how much it cost them then? Was it worth it?
@Tech blog, I think we should call it the PPC Bra. It keeps you supported when your SEO starts drooping.
@George - get out more
Sorry for posting on this thread (I did look to see how to start my own but failed?!)
I am after a little advice from you SEO guys who specialise in Insurance and Finance SEO!
I have just about secured some investment for my site and I was wondering if anyone can recommend a company who can get a fledgling company up near the top for the competitive insurance terms!?
I know this won’t be cheap but I want to hire the best and get results!
Any advice or pointers on who to approach would be very much appreciated!
Thanks
To really compete you need to invest a lot of money into SEO and the structure of your site. I’d first of all hire a company to maybe analyse how well your design is going to convert customers (i.e. what percentage of customers will actually click on areas you want).
This way you can maximise your return on your SEO investment. Then, find a good SEO company - the big boys use companies such as Latitude and Tamar (although Latitude have made some mistakes recently).
The alternative would be to buy a subscription to WebMasterWorld and do it yourself.
If you’re going to do it yourself, first buy a few links from TextLinkAds to raise awareness with Google but phase this out as soon as your organic SEO techniques kick in.
From there you can either:
A) Abuse DigitalPoint
B) Approach webmasters directly to get links
C) Organic SEO
D) Pay some SEO company to do the legwork
The difference between doing it yourself and going through an SEO agency is that it would probably cost between £5k to £10k per month initially to get you to a good ranking - going with an agency will typically cost you 10x that.
Another tip that you will hear from the people here is that typical terms such as “car insurance” and “life insurance” are over saturated and therefore very very difficult to compete against. So you may want to try long tail search phrases such as “car insurance for young women”.
I would also (personally) recommend having a highly visible USP on your site… ie: why compare with you and not with MoneySupermarket?
@Matt, I would get some differnt opinions on this and not just focus on what David B has suggested. (No offence David B but sometimes it’s good to hear both sides of the story(!)).
Both sides?
I think by “both sides” George is referring to the various options Matt has in front of him - buying links, not buying links …and all that jazz.
Matt could follow one person’s advice but if he hasn’t heard the other side of things, he’ll be scratching his head if he’s unlucky enough to be penalised or not rank as quick as he wanted.
I’m not saying he should take one route or another, but knowing all routes, he can plan for the downsides of each (whether that’s playing the long term game, contingency budgets for PPC during penalty periods etc).
Best of luck Matt - just prepare yourself for a heap of agencies claiming they can do the job better than each of the others. Always ask them what results they can show you and specifically how they do it. You won’t get a straight answer but it’ll be interesting!
@Matt
It would be interesting to know what your strategy is, you seem to have a mixture of company affiliate links at the moment with a main affiliate link to Quotezone… that will have bearing on peoples advice.
Thanks for the advice so far, it really does seem that this market is very competitive but there are, it appears a number of sites similar to my own that are doing well?!
Strategy-wise I would like to utilise the quotezone facility in the short to medium term, until the time comes where my site is generating enough traffic and quotes to contemplate having my own quote engine built. At the moment a user can compare and get quotes for car, home, van and bike. I have tried searching for companies that could provide the same facility for travel and other insurance sectors in the same way where it appears within my site, no luck so far!
The other links are placed in an attempt to gain some traffic on insurers own names and car makes etc… The site maybe too broad but this is my second attempt at a website so its a steep learning curve!
I may have an investor interested in funding some SEO but to what level I am unsure of at this time. I guess what I really want is for an SEO guru to come in and take a good % of the business in return for their expertise and increase in traffic / revenue…
What I am appreciating at the moment that juggling my own full time job and this project in the evenings / weekends is proving hard when it comes to family time! Nicola and Amy are not complaining too much… Yet!
I notice there are a number of link building companies in India, that are affordable to me without investors but I am dubious about going down that route without proven success / happy independent references!
@Matt
Respect for the honesty with which you post.
I really don’t want to come across as trying to put your idea down, but my personal opinion is that your strategy is about 6 years out of date.
Thanks Clive, I understand and daresay you are right! BUT its all my knowledge at this point allows, this is only the second site I have ever built and I understand only the basics of SEO - I guess I am fighting a losing battle but I’ll keep plugging away, it keeps me busy and I will always have a faint hope that one day it may get somewhere?!
I am out of my depth big time amongst you guys, I imagine the bulk of you are full time SEO pro’s!!
I’m here to read, learn and listen to any advice and try to act on it to the best of my ability but If I am honest I’m also here in the faint hope that one of you may want to get involved! Like I said I’m out of my depth!
@ DavidB
>>If you’re going to do it yourself, first buy a few links from TextLinkAds to raise awareness with Google but phase this out as soon as your organic SEO techniques kick in.
@ DavidB
“If you’re going to do it yourself, first buy a few links from TextLinkAds to raise awareness with Google but phase this out as soon as your organic SEO techniques kick in.”
Just checked out TextLinkAds! Looks a minefield! Any advice on what PR / Price I should look to pay, obviously I should only be looking at insurance related links and home page links?
Thanks in advance!
@Matt,
In the words of the lone ranger …”wo-wo-wo-wo-wo-wo-boy”.
At the moment, you’ve got a tool to give the traffic something to do. But before you head out into the world of buying links and taking advice from people in blogs (myself included), do two things:
1. get your own site in order
2. do your research
Regardless of what approach you take to SEO, you want to make sure you’ve got your own site in order before you start paying money for traffic that won’t convert. Clear call-to-actions, meaningful and fresh content all help [check out the copy on your Barclays Car Insurance page].
Without wanting to stampon your parade, your site needs a lot of design important and meaningful structure for the traffic hitting it to perform well. This is a lesson which even the big guys have learnt over the last couple of years - look at old version of MoneySupermarket and how much clearer they’ve made their landing pages and interfaces.
On the second point, do not simply wade in and buy links without doing your research. Even then, do so with caution. I’m not stamping on the link buyers parade here because they achieve results (dominate the top listings in fact). But make sure you know what you’re doing before you (for want of a better word) dirty your domain.
Buying links is an option open to you but I would just say this - do you have the budget to compete with MoneySupermarket, Confused and the like? Didn’t think so. Perhaps then as a small, moonlighting start up project you should look at ways to build yourself up without competing on a like-for-like basis? Hit to blogs, forums and social bookmarking sites. Create content which people want to link to - not just content which is design to grab the long tail (although that will give you some good ROI in the early days).
I’m not preaching over David B, just know what you’re doing before you follow advice (I’ll say it again - that includes my opinions too).
Thanks Ernest
I am aware the site needs work, I hurried it to get it online, I got impatient! Thanks for the tip about the barclays page - that is an error and will be fixed tonight!
I guess I should focus on completing the site…
I will look into the blogging, forums and bookmarking etc. It certainly makes sense given I haven’t either the manpower or money to compete!
@Matt - the benefit of starting out that way is that you’re still open to David B’s angle of buying links if you want to in the future. Whereas if you buy links now, you a) won’t know whether it’s the links or on-site work which is producing results/correct indexing/popularity etc, and b) you’ll have a ‘dirty’ domain (if that makes a difference to Google in the future - open to debate of course).
As this is a small, evening project to start with, you don’t have shareholders and executives breathing down your neck to make immediate returns. Therefore you can afford to take this long game approach. Larger commercial domains don’t have that luxury and so they have to hurry the results (such as GoCompare and others - to varying degrees or success).
I’m sure David B will comment a little later with the flip side of this argument but that’s my tu’pennies worth.
@Matt, don’t forget at this early stage, get some analytics on the site so you’ve got a good benchmark (Google should be fine for your requirements (and it’s free)).
Then, TIMITI Try It, Measure It, Tweak It. Rinse and Repeat. You may also want to read a few articles regarding landing pages e.g.:
http://www.copyblogger.com/landing-pages/
@Matt, George and Ernest offer some very very sound advice.
I know my initial advice may not be to everyone’s liking but it’s the “getting your hands” dirty approach. I’ve had the chance to work with many business owners and martketing execs who don’t really know about SEO and what they want to see is results - so I tend to just get stuck in for the sake of getting results. Which is what a lot of SEO companies will do.
The only downside of “getting stuck in” is that the business owner doesn’t appreciate or understand the processes involved - i.e. there’s been no discipline involved to attain the goal and therefore you’re just standing on the shoulders of other peoples knowledge for which you’ll continuously being paying out for. So YES definately do your research if you want low overheads and good returns in the long-run.
As for giving away a percentage of your business for SEO advice - in my honest opinion I’d have to advise not to do this. There are a whole array of reasons why not but in short I know the old proverb “a partnership, is a sinking ship” applies. Not only that but the SEO partner would probably end up trying to shaft you because you may become too dependent on them.
As for landing-page coversion optimisation - it is important - but the fact is that your site is already up and a percentage of traffic will ALWAYS convert - no matter even if the site looks like it’s been made by a four year old. So I’d recommend working on getting some SEO strategy started before investing your time into optimisation. The reason for this is that Google has a sandbox period of roughly upto 3 months for links added via the classic white-hat model of SEO - so if you add links now you’ll have a whole three months to optimise the site.
The whole approach of being the proverbial dark-horse and taking the long game approach that Ernest discusses has worked well for many companies - for example: Q4.com - who ranked poorly for a long time and then a few months ago shot up to first page for “car insurance”.
Not only that, but look at GoCompare? When was the last time anyone noticed an update on their site? Even with 30 million in their back pockets?
So in short, take Ernies advice, research it - but don’t sit on your hands or wait for an SEO guru to help you - help yourself
good luck
That’s what we like to see, a fairly comprehensive and balanced view on your options. Good work guys!
…now if he makes it to the top, how do we get our reward
David, Ernie etc
Good sound advice for sure, I have already submitted a press release about the new site to as many places as I could find. This was my first effort… I guess I need to do one every week or so?!
I’m feeling a little self-defeatist at the moment, not sure how or even if I will ever be in a position to compete and possibly generate just a little organic traffic! Its more deflating that I live over the road from MoneySup.com and the size of their resources and power is reminded to me daily as I leave for work!
I didn’t build this site with the dream of making loads - £25k income a year was / is my goal so I can work from home full time and grow from there… Its looking like a very, very long way off!
It’s clear I need to spend some time reading and researching - do you guys have any advice on a step by step guide that I can purchase online, I know there are plenty around but wonder if there is a ‘bible’ so to speak?!
Thanks
Matt
Hmm, I know it’s not a book but I’d have to recommend WebMasterWorld - it’s where I first got started and in my opinion it’s better than a book because you can ask it questions
I remember seeing an e-journal which covered the basics while back - as I get asked this quite a lot. Can’t remember the name but I’ll try to dig something out.
Alternatively, have a trawl through the Google webmaster pages for guidelines and aims. Reality is another matter but you’ll get an idea about what Google is after.
Thanks - I have google anylitics set up and webtools, yet to use them properly as the new site isn’t fully spidered yet, its showing what I am ranking for eg:
1 17% getquotes 5
2 11% compare creditcard 8
3 9% “smooth credit” 2
4 6% gocompare bike insurance 9
5 4% smooth credit 2
No clicks showing as yet though which is strange because I have clicked a couple to test the links….
Will have a study of what google advise tonight!
Thanks
Matt
lol! Why does everyone use a mini for car insurance?
No Idea David! I did want to use a new beetle but couldn’t find a good image bank shot!!
Been wondering why my Anylitics (sp) are not working too well…. I have the google code on every page except my piggin home page!!! Going to fix before I go to work!
I see there are several sites that still think paid blog posts are a good idea - knowyourmoney and powerseeker seem to be doing quite a lot - see http://cityofdacula.net/ & http://nextgreatcity.net/ & http://experientialism.net/
Powerseeker also seem to be targeting branded phrases via paid blog posts, as was pointed out a few weeks ago on this blog.
What’s also interesting is that on some of these crappy blogs, Tamar clients appear to have bought links.
My first post so please be gentle!
Spotted this too:
http://www.juliesjournal.com/
Tesco Compare, Budget, The AA, and TPF all paying for links by the looks of it(look at blogroll on the RHS)…
@Hi Paul - good spot. It even falls underneath a section in the source which says “advertise here”!!
Well, you know what to do:
http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html
Some say it makes a difference. Same say it doesn’t. But it only take a minute to fill in the form.
Congratulations on the Pr 3 on this update. I hope you haven’t been buying any links.
@ Henry
? You don’t mean me (www.GetQuotes.co.uk) do you? I’ve had a PR2 for ages and not bought any links!!!
*Crosses fingers that I have gone up to PR3*
Hi Matt,
don’t worry I didn’t mean you I meant insiders-view.co.uk.
Afternoon all…
Interesting thoughts on reporting or not reporting. Whether tis more noble to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or else take arms against a sea of cheating spammers!
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/report-competitors
Kwik Fit are back on brand terms, and page 3 for ‘Car Insurance’ (which could change within the hour the way things are at the moment!)
Sorry if this is old news.
A little off track here but one company I never see on google and that seems to be dying is insurancewide. However, they still white label insurance quoters on the portals. Why haven’t the portals dropped them for something that may be more lucrative?
@Creased
That’s new news - good catch.
Yes, kwik-fit penalty lifted, about 80 days by my maths, gocompare was 60 ish days - in both cases I reccon automatic liftings, but i guess we’ll never know.
@Creased - as you say a lot of movement at the moment, it’s not just our little world though, lots of talk about global movements on webmasterworld at the moment.
@Creased - good stop that one. They could still be under a +5 (or +whatever ban). Keep an eye out for any sudden changes on that one. They’ll probably target [cheap car insurance] initially.
@Janine - don’t know to be honest with you - doesn’t seem to be much going on there from an seo point of view. Perhaps not their bag.
@All - “thriftyscot” are at it again and it’s got them to the 1st page for [car insurance] and keep an eye out for “autonetinsurance” too (2nd page suddenly).
Didn’t take long - thriftyscot nowhere to be seen on [car insurance] and autonetinsurance.co.uk up into number 2 slot on the 1st page. Chop and change continues as ever.
…and back to page two now for autonetinsurance. Google must be flicking between some pretty inconsistent weekend tv schedules!
Hi fellow SEO’rs
A few big changes on the front page I see…
Thrifty back in the mix, this autonetinsurance site came out of nowhere…like it, enjoying seeing the new faces.
Check out adrianflux.co.uk back on the wannabe 5th page (the area I fight from 2-5!) and their “flux babes” download feature!!
SEO wise, useless but for pure hilarity I LOVE it!!
(not exactly hitting the female car insurance market mind you!!)
Adrian Flux are going for long tail key phrases, I quite admire their campaign for a low-budget angle - they are certainly going for the boy racer market. He’s pretty active on forums etc too. I’d also disagree the Flux babes is useless from an SEO angle - its link-bait innit?
@Ernest
Thanks for getting back to me. I’ve enjoyed reading through the Insider’s View blog - some great insights. I work for an insurance aggregator in Canada and like keeping up on the U.K. Market which has grown and matured much more quickly than the Canadian marketplace. Thanks again.
ping pong
Go Compare are up into the top three - looks like all their bans could have been lifted now.
Evening guys, different subject I know but does anybody know much about http://www.justsearching.co.uk ?
A question for all of you….!
Right as you know from my previous posts I’m at a fairly basic SEO level…
What I want to know is why I am ranking highly on the following search terms…
For example
quick compare insurance and insuring a motorbike
No1 and No2 in google with nearly 1/2m returns, can anyone point out why my site ranks well for these terms?
I know they are phrases that not many people type but why so high on these and not other terms?
@Matt
Those are quite niche terms, uncompetetive. Maybe you have those words within your page content, or someone is linking to you with similiar anchor text. That would be enough to get you ranking for those terms.
Generic terms like ‘car insurance’, ‘cheap car insurance’ or ‘compare car insurance’ are extremely competitive, and you need an aggresive ‘link building’ strategy to compete for those terms.
@Adam
What in particular about them to you mean?
http://www.justsearching.co.uk/about.html give you an overview, are there any specifics you mean?
@Matt
On phrases like that (which you’ve probably noticed in your Google Analytics stats), all it has taken is the text in your first paragraph on the page. Google has little to go on for these sorts of phrases. It’s not uncommon but you definitely won’t get such easy success for the phrases you’ve chosen to target.