So much so I just wanted to quickly see what sort of impact this had had on our general search patterns over the last few months. Remember the Royal Wedding? The biggest media event of all time, well there was an expected large peak on the day, but the searches quickly went back down. Pippa Middleton was also the first name on every journalists’ lips. Then we had the Ryan Giggs saga and the Cheryl Cole X-Factor “axing”. 

However, if Google Insights is to be fully believed, all these huge stories combined, were still searched for less than “Insurance” in the last 90 days. We just can’t get enough of Confused, Go Compare, Churchill, More Than and all the others.

Insurance SEO

With this sort of traffic, it’s no wonder Insurance SEO is getting so desperate to be number 1, the riches there can be the difference between a good year and a fantastic year.

We did some tests on the sector around Christmas time to see the impact of algorithmic changes within insurance. In the second half of last year the search positions of Car Insurance took an almighty shake up in Google for all the major players.

Previously well positioned pages for trophy terms started dropping out of Google’s index around 18 August for a period of 4 months. This could in all likelihood be a testing phase for an algorithm update and penalty for certain types of linking. Here is a segment of our research, which we will put together in full, with the latest updates in due course.

It is an interesting debate. It started when one of the rules of good brand building (to build ownership of language by creating a unique way for brands to describe products, services and solutions) came in to direct conflict with the SEO principle that the opportunity lies within the searchers language.

This is great for the existing established brand and is a good measure of brand equity. For example vastly more people search “eBay” than “online auction” and more people search “Skype” than “VoIP”. But for brands that are emerging and even for the development of new brand concepts the thought of building a brand “through the line” and not putting a target’s search language at the core is missing a huge opportunity.

However, in the traditions of good advertising if you spend enough on media and that your idea sparks imagination and engagement with your customers, then the market will adopt your language and this will lead to strong SEO benefits.

There are undoubtedly many good examples, but here is one.

Brands in The Insurance Market

In the insurance market comparison sites can offer brands good referring traffic but at the same time they compete in search engines for the acquisition of the searcher and positions.

Chart 1 – Here we can see a range of comparison sites, brand sites and product sites positions in Google over a 4 month period on the search term “Home Insurance” in 2009. There are some good performers but on the whole the category is very volatile and competitive. We see Halifax drop from a page one position to page 5 in just one day, a massive drop, and we see Aviva emerge successfully to take over where Norwich Union left off (good redirecting work).

Chart 2 – Here we see an interesting tussle between www.confused.com and www.comparethemarket.com over a 9 month period with both site getting to page one.

So while the dog fights continued with each site competing for position on the core category terms www.comparethemarket.com is working on a creative idea that has nothing to do with Insurance language. “Compare the Meerkat”.

Chart 2 – This Google Insights chart illustrates how during the “compare the Meerkat” advertising campaign search popularity on the term “compare the meerkat” was equal to that of “home insurance”.

While the market is competing for the share of 10 page-one positions on “home insurance”. www.comparethemarket.com enjoy 100% real estate on page one for an equally competitive term.

In this case the old brand principles have resulted in a definable, unique and all encompassing SEO performance. – Simples.