How a national insurance company is building its brand, and improving its bottom line, through an integrated, content strategy and user experience driven, SEO program designed to delight its visitors: Hear from senior level Farmers Insurance marketing executives about their journey, significantly lifting web and local traffic, while improving engagement and conversion, through an integrated digital marketing approach to search centered in strong audience understanding, content strategy and user experience, guiding execution of organic and local search, social and content marketing. Learn how a mix of internal teams and agency partnerships help the Insurance firm innovate to maximize brand awareness and grow the customer base. Attendees of the session will take way the following: Why program integration is a must, from the user and search engine point of view What true integrated program looks like, satisfying user and search engine needs. A methodology for aligning staff and partners How to measure the impact, and the potential program improvements that can be achieved

1. Modern SEO
May 22, 2014

2. All Rights Reserved © ethology, Inc.
Consumers. The big idea. ethology
Modern SEO: Aligning Search, Social, Content and Local Into a
Customer Focused "Program”
A Case Study with Farmers Insurance
How a national insurance company is building its brand, and improving
its bottom line, through integrated, bottom up, program design and
management
Hear from senior level Farmers Insurance marketing executives about
their journey, significantly lifting web and local office traffic, while
improving engagement and conversion, through an integrated digital
marketing approach centered in strong audience understanding and
content strategy guiding execution of organic and local search, social
and content marketing. Learn how a mix of internal teams and agency
partnerships help the Insurance firm innovate to maximize brand
awareness and grow the customer base.
#ModernSEO

3. All Rights Reserved © ethology, Inc.
Consumers. The big idea. ethology
Takeaways
Attendees of the session will take way the
following:
1. Why program integration is a must, from the user and
search engine point of view
2. What true integrated program looks like, satisfying user
and search engine needs
3. A methodology for aligning staff and partners
4. How to measure the impact, and the potential program
improvements that can be achieved
#ModernSEO

4. All Rights Reserved © ethology, Inc.
Consumers. The big idea. ethology
Presenter and Moderator
Mike Corak, Executive Vice President, Strategy | ethology
As Executive Vice President of Strategy, Mike Corak leads the strategic planning and agency
services teams. An agency veteran, Mike has developed and implemented winning digital and
integrated strategies for hundreds of companies; including Coca-Cola, ConAgra Foods,
ConocoPhillips, FedEx, Fujitsu, Nike, Office Depot, and Walt Disney. Prior to ethology, Mike
led the interactive services, strategy and client management at Off Madison Ave, serving a
variety of Fortune 500 companies. Previously, he served as a senior strategic planner at
iCrossing, working with most of the agency’s largest clients. Mike’s peers have recognized
him for his results-oriented work. His awards include “Email Campaign of the Year” from the
Email Experience Council (EEC) a division of the DMA, and “Best Consumer Products Website
of the Year” by the American Business Association (ABA). Mike serves as a SEMPO (Search
Engine Marketing Professional Organization) board member, helping drive the search and
social industry’s trade group initiatives in research and education.
@MikeCorak

5. All Rights Reserved © ethology, Inc.
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Today’s Speakers
Sarah Karpinski, SEO Specialist, Digital Marketing | Farmers Insurance Group
Sarah Karpinski manages Search Engine Optimization for Farmers Insurance, a national
insurance group which provides auto, home, life, small business, financial services and other
products to approximately 10 million U.S. households. Sarah began her SEO career at top
digital agencies, including Razorfish Healthware, before transitioning to a client-side SEO role
at Farmers in 2013. There, she is accountable for all SEO efforts, and works cross-functionally
to execute integrated digital strategy. Sarah received her B.A. in Political Science and
Economics from Temple University.
Brian Borkowski, Director, Digital Marketing | Farmers Insurance Group
For over 10 years, Brian Borkowski has been on the forefront of an ever-changing digital
marketing industry and taking advantage of opportunities that many others struggle to find
success in. Currently, Brian is the Director of Digital Marketing at Farmers Insurance, a
leading multi-line insurance company with over 12,000 exclusive agents across the
country. Prior to joining Farmers, Brian successfully launched his own digital marketing
company and helped a startup search engine achieve record growth.

6. All Rights Reserved © ethology, Inc.
Consumers. The big idea. ethology
About Our Participants
About ethology
Ethology is a full-service digital marketing agency that helps Fortune 1000 and challenger
brands connect with their customers through the integration of research, strategy, and
execution at all points of brand engagement.
For more information about ethology, go to www.ethology.com
About Farmers Insurance
Farmers Insurance Group of Companies is a leading U.S. insurer group of automobiles,
homes and small businesses and also provides a wide range of other insurance and
financial services products. Farmers Insurance is proud to serve more than 10 million
households with more than 20 million individual policies across all 50 states through the
efforts of over 50,000 exclusive and independent agents and nearly 22,000 employees.
Visits Website at www.farmers.com or at www.Facebook.com/FarmersInsurance.

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Search In Its Simplest Form
Research
Tactical
Execution
Measuring
Performance
7#ModernSEO
@MikeCorak

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Search Was…
Keyword Research Keyword Usage
Page elements:
Titles, headings, meta,
body copy, links including
anchor
Keyword Rankings
*Keyword data via analytics
8
Research
Tactical
Execution
Measuring
Performance
#ModernSEO
@MikeCorak

9. All Rights Reserved © ethology, Inc.
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Search Is…
Keyword Research Keyword Usage –
Page elements:
Titles, headings, body
copy, links including anchor
Keyword Rankings
*Keyword data via analytics
• Biz objectives
• Social listening
• User personas
• Analytic insights
• Keyword research by
THEME
• All of which feeds
content strategy
• Search
• Content planning
• Site hierarchy
• Social posting
• Display messaging
• Email messaging
• Local messaging
• PPC AdGroups
• Content focused
media (Native)
• Standard KPIs
(real world)
• Theme performance
(segmentation, attribution)
9
Research
Tactical
Execution
Measuring
Performance
#ModernSEO
@MikeCorak

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The Plan: Content Strategy Guided Search
10
3. Gap
Analysis
Categories &
Topics
4. Plan
Creation
Tactics &
Prioritization
2. Content &
SEO Audits
Technical,
Quantitative &
Qualitative
5. Plan
Execution
Implement,
Test & Revise
1. Audience
Intelligence
Vernacular &
Demand
#ModernSEO
@MikeCorak

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Content Strategy: Quantitative & Qualitative
11
Content Inventory
• Content Types & Metadata
• Website Analytics
Quality Review
• Accessible
• Findable
• Consistent
• Useful
Structurally
Sound
Relevant &
Effective
Usable &
Shareable
Supports
Brand &
Users
• Flexible
• Brand-appropriate
• Accurate
• Balanced
#ModernSEO

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FARMERS
USERSROBOTS
Supports business
objectives
Findable by search
engines
Fulfills audience
needs
12All Rights Reserved © ethology, Inc.
The Output: Purposeful Content
#ModernSEO
@MikeCorak

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The Future of SEO
13
Ingredients:
• 1 Part technical consultation
• 1 Part content strategy and
planning
• An overpowering part of
integration and coordinated
execution across channels
#ModernSEO
@MikeCorak

14. Case Study

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Integrated Program Overview
1
Understand
Discover
Prioritize
Plan
Optimize
Monitor
Understand
• Business Objectives
• Target Audience
• Internal governance
Discover
• Identify Technical Issues
• Competitive Landscape
• Build Content Inventory & Identify Goals
• Identify Content Purpose & User Needs
Prioritize
• Efforts by Business Objective Value
• Coverage Gaps by Product Line
• Content Gaps by User Intent
Plan
• Map Specific optimization efforts to product lines
based on (prioritized) business objectives
• Match user intent to content goals
Optimize
• Page-level optimization
• Technical remediation
• Content refinement
• Content development/deployment & promotion
Monitor
• Review of implemented technical solutions
• Monitor server & indexing issues
• Analyze content performance
• Measure efficacy of efforts & re-prioritize
Phase I
Phase II
Phase III
#ModernSEO
@MikeCorak

16. All Rights Reserved © ethology, Inc.
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Custom Program Team
Organic
Search
Content
Strategy
&
Creation
Analytics
Farmers
&
Partners
Media (PPC)Exec Mgmt
Creative
Dev
Social
UX
#ModernSEO
@MikeCorak

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Understand & Discover
17
Content & User Needs
1. Strengthen existing content
2. Broaden topical coverage
3. Deepen supporting content
4. Informed by audience segments
5. Content distribution (< 50% HTML; 63% non-product driven)
6. Content find-ability
7. Improve social sharing
#ModernSEO
@MikeCorak

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Top Technical Search Priorities
18
ANALYSIS SCORE EFFECT EFFORT OWNER
Extraneous Crawl Depth ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ Farmers
URL Structure ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ Farmers
URL Canonicalization ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ Farmers
Orphaned page authority: 302 & 404 Errors ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ Farmers
Inaccessible Navigation on Subpages ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ Farmers
Duplicated Title Tags ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ethology
Duplicated Heading Tags ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ethology
Duplicated Meta Descriptions ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ethology
#ModernSEO
@MikeCorak

19. All Rights Reserved © ethology, Inc.
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Topical Coverage Themes
824,320
318,896
244,827
193,094
101,482
100,207
74,557
32,265
25,191
24,176
10,568
7,530
5,374
2,037
25
182
206
211
130
211
191
78
101
143
42
30
49
18
general
car
autolife
insurancerenters/condo
hom
eow
ner
hom
e
m
otorcycle
flood
business
property
um
brella
bundle
earthquake
relevant categories by keywords & search demand
based on 1600+ terms relevant and prioritized for Farmers
total search demand # of keywords
19#ModernSEO
@MikeCorak

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Prioritization & Plan
20#ModernSEO
@MikeCorak

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Results
21
Organic Traffic: +25%
Program ROI: +384%
Note: corresponding increases achieved in site engagement
and conversion through content quality improvements
#ModernSEO
@MikeCorak

22. 22
Farmers Q&A

23. All Rights Reserved © ethology, Inc.
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Program Q&A
23
What were the biggest barriers to
selling this approach internally? The
end solution didn’t obviously match the
RFP.Brian Borkowski
#ModernSEO

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Program Q&A
24
What recommendations would you
make to others looking to develop a
similar program?
What do you think the future search
RFP contains?
Brian Borkowski
#ModernSEO

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Program Q&A
25
What programs do you feel are the
most important for integration?
Sarah Karpinski
Search Engine Optimization
Content
Strategy
& UX/UI
PPC
(Media)
Social Dev Creative Analytics
#ModernSEO

26. All Rights Reserved © ethology, Inc.
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Integrated Local Search
26
Local Search
Organic Search Paid Search Social
Content Demand
INCLUSION ACCURACY ENRICHMENT
#ModernSEO
@MikeCorak

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Program Q&A
27
Describe your partner and internal team
ecosystem. Why do you keep certain
tactics in-house v. working with
partners?Brian Borkowski
#ModernSEO

28. All Rights Reserved © ethology, Inc.
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Program Q&A
28
What metrics are now most important
when thinking about an integrated SEO
program?
Sarah Karpinski
#ModernSEO

29. All Rights Reserved © ethology, Inc.
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Program Q&A
29
How do you see the program evolving
over time? Tactical expansion,
integration, and operational staffing
Sarah Karpinski
#ModernSEO

30. 30
Questions

31. Mike Corak
@MikeCorak
EVP, Strategy
Mike.Corak@ethology.com
m: 602.570.6601
Thank
You