I wanted to give a quick shout out to our Quality Assurance technician, Skip LaCroix, Happy Spooky birthday buddy. Also, I wanted to welcome back my boss Ghen , the VP of media. He has been travelling Europe in a Stolen M3 … Just kidding!!! Jason, our Benefits manager, got an awesome new car IN Germany, and got a chance to drive it for a bit before they ship it out to the US.

Now that they are back, it’s back to work … crunching and deadlines for a bunch of new products! Our lead artist here in the web department, Ian Hench – Graphic Artist, is working on some sick new designs for the iCan Media website. We can’t wait to show off what he is thinking up for iCan Media!!!

Also, I have been slowly training the office to use their new blogs. Ray Brookstein can now post his thoughts whenever he feels the need. Dr Morgan is rolling along with her blog, and its turning into a great Health Information center! All in all we have made some great progress this week, launching the HCCUA Back Office – Our members love it, and getting ready for the agent template systems and the Agent back office next! On an SEO front I have watched as week by week iCanBenefit.com gain positions in all my major med initiative terms, as well as our group and affordable health insurance campaigns… Still maintaining that Low CPL on our paid campaigns , and getting ready for the pet sites launch and our first piece of Ecommerce Business!

Now although I have gotten some great rankings , some incredible opportunities and interviews with a couple of hard hitting traditional marketers throughout my many years in the industry, NOTHING compares to working in a market like Health Insurance. From the Hundreds of Excellent competitive websites, to each and every one of the “giants” in health insurance having their own team of web marketers, I have had my work cut out for me. On that note, I wanted to give a small nod to the competition, and give you some pointers for beating the big guys!

1. Never Let the really big guys scare you:

   When I took this position, I knew that health insurance was a mighty large term to tackle, full of both big reputable and well known brands, and Joe the local health insurance salesman, all trying to take those top spots. Not to mention the Gov, and ORG sites dedicated to making my job all that much more difficult J After doing some serious Research into my competitor base, I found that all the top names have huge page indexes on all 3 engines, some serious link back from hundreds of affiliates, ISOs and the like. So let’s just call them all 800 LB Gorillas.

   Each of these gorillas has tens of thousands of indexed pages, link backs and plenty of authority, whereas most industries have SEO holes which are easy to find a “fit” with your current site… they have little if any at all ! But what is it that a big lumbering giant does not have? Speed and flexibility! So with some fleet footing and a handle on my patience (and the patience of my company) we started the task of creating a mountain out of our fresh new little molehill.

2. Make sure you have at least 3 original things that the rest don’t!

   For instance, some large organizations in this industry have no need for social or content based communities and networks. They never got involved in the social scene, and most likely will not start (unless they get to read my blog!) because they feel secure in their placement.

3. Never stop optimizing.

   Don’t expect to get anywhere by the “set it and forget it” mentality. There is always a fluctuation in keyword strength; there will always be another 20 new ways to say what you need to say online, another 50 pages of useful and original content that should be placed to show you know your niche. Remember with each day your optimizing, your 800 lb gorilla is watching their own position and hoping that one of the mid size competitors wont “get smart” and become visible!

In short, always stay on your toes, and don’t let a slow climb to the top discourage you. After all, even the big guys started at the back of the index at some point