Add Local Search to Your SEO Arsenal

About the Local Search Video...

To do this video, we purposely used a digital camera to capture screen shots. We normally use a program called Captivate to produce Flash video of screen shots, but that is an extra expense (and a learning curve) for most agents. We did the recording via camera to show how easy it is to produce a video this way, and so you could get a feel for the quality of screen shots captured using camera video.

Captivate, and other screen capture programs, let you annotate screens with text captions and certain highlights. For this video we used the annotation features in YouTube. There are limited annotation options, but we think you will agree that the limitations are not significant for the most common purposes.

We used Google Docs, in a separate tab, for the introduction. Alternatively, we could have used Powerpoint...

As an insurance agent, you could used simple screen shots to break down a policy coverages for customers, or highlight services available through your website.

Eyejot Version - Newsletter Introduction, June 2008

Aging and Your Insurance Agency

"As the estimated 80 million people nationwide born between 1981 and 20001 enter the work force and become active consumers, technology will play a critical role for insurance firms recruiting those in the so-called “millennial generation” as potential employees and customers...

...techonology appears to be a recruitment driver for the insurance industry, which faces a shortage of new workers; 60 percent of its current employees are older than age 45. In fact, 91 percent of millennials stated that being able to work with "newer, innovative technologies" in the workplace would make them more likely to consider a potential job opportunity.

While the insurance industry faces a challange recruiting millennials to replace retirees, a bigger issue might be recruiting them as customers."

Survey Results reported by Insurity and Microsoft Corp. at the ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems Forum 2008, May 13, 2008.

YouTube vs. Eyejot and Blog Pages - Videos for Your Agency Website

You can easily add videos as a regular feature of your insurance agency website by using free (or nearly free) services such as YouTube, Eyejot, and a camcorder, web cam, or your digital camera. You can paste the videos right into your website, or set up a separate blog page for videos. There are a myriad of uses for videos: Introducing agency services, providing updates, introducing account management and service staff. Because there is no cost to producing and posting videos, you can update them regularly, and the use to which you put them is limited only by your imagination. Feel free to share ideas or questions you may have...and start the cameras rolling.

YouTube vs. Eyejot

There are a few differences between YouTube and Eyejot that you might want to consider before selecting one or the other for your video storage and playback on your insurance agency (or other business) website.

YouTube videos are publicly accessible via the YouTube site. This can be a good thing or not, depending on what you want to accomplish. Video information can include links back to your business so the fact that your videos may be found on YouTube may help with web traffic. Inasmuch as YouTube is available via m.google.com offerings, videos you may upload to the service and your videos can be viewed on a mobile browser.

YouTube also allows you to permit or deny others the ability to copy and embed your video in another website. You can also add annotations (like your agency web address), and allow or disable comments from others via the YouTube site. YouTube also provides a number of options that are worth checking out like RSS feeds, statistical tracking that can all help draw people to your videos on YouTube, and to your insurance agency website.

Eyejot videos are accessible to you through an in-box that Eyejot provides. The only way to gain access is if you use Eyejot to send a video email, or if you add the video and player by pasting the embed code onto a web page.

Set Up a Blog for Videos

Pasting embed code onto a web page should be very routine maintenance item that your web master, or hosting provider should turn around quickly. If you aren't able to get quick updates from your provider, or control them yourself, you should really think about changing providers. As an alternative, you can create a website for content you want to change with some frequency, like videos, by using a free blog service like Blogger or WordPress.

Even if you get satisfactory service from your web hosting provider, setting up separate blog pages may be something to consider. You can use these forums as an interactive testimonial page, and you can include information, and resource links that are more tangential to your agency business. You will need your provider to link to your blog page, but that is a one time service request. After that, you can easily control content and changes via the blog administration.*

Eyejot Video Email

As noted in the Act cFluent newsletter article, Eyejot is primarily a video email service The idea is simple, fire up your web cam, do a video, enter an email address and hit send, and the recipient gets an email with a video player embedded in it.

Recipients of your video email will also be able to copy html embed code that the recipient can use to paste into another website.

You could use video emails to extend a personal invitation for an account review, to remotely - yet personally, introduce key staff to customers who might not otherwise get the chance to meet the people that work on their account. Any other ideas?

*Blogs are part of the 'Web 2.0' landscape. One hallmark of Web 2.0 is the ability for the non-technical to use internet based communications by controlling functionality that previously could only be set up and altered by those with technical skills. If you can type a document in Microsoft Word, you can set up and administer a blog site. It's that easy.