How well is your website optimized for engaging customers and generating leads?
If you’re not getting as many inquiries for quotes as you think you should through your online presence, you probably need to review the latest search engine optimization (SEO) tactics to help increase your website viewership. SEO is the bread and butter for all of the sites you see when you type in a search term. There is both an art to getting to the top spot on some search terms and also a necessity for deep pockets in some cases but there are ways to nudge your way into a better position based on your area, the service you offer, and of course how well your site is optimized for some of the more common search engines.
Like a well-oiled machine, a well optimized website should work as if it’s on autopilot – smooth and efficiently. That’s not to say you can just set it up and forget about it but with some initial investment you can be sure it’s working in your favor. Here are three simple tactics you – the insurance agency owner – can use to improve your chances of securing business when marketing to insurance prospects online.
- Add plenty of relevant content to your website.The content appearing on your website is the foundation on which you will build the rest of your SEO strategy. Without a solid base of content, the efforts you make in order to build up traffic will fall short.
If you don’t already have a solid collection of articles on your website, a good place to start will be to either hire or contract with someone to write a series of informational articles for you. These articles will help showcase your expertise in the industry and position you and your business as experts in the field. Be sure to look at your current arsenal of content as well. Many times by simply refreshing some previous thoughts, posts, or material you can gain a better foothold without starting from scratch.
If you specialize in auto insurance, your articles should focus on things prospects and customers need to know, like the difference between collision and comprehensive insurance and uninsured versus under insured coverage.
Writing articles isn’t the only way to build up content that is rich in industry keywords. You can also create infographics or blog about the area of insurance your company specializes in. If you decide to start up a blog, be sure to spread the duties of writing it amongst a number of staffers, so no one person will get overwhelmed by the amount of work required to keep the blog up-to-date.
Another idea would be to write case studies or whitepapers about the benefits offered by certain types of policies, using real-life examples of how having insurance saved the day for your customers. - Use tags to generate more relevant search engine traffic.There are several places on your website where you can place specific on-page elements such as title tags, image ALT tags, and meta descriptions. Do it right and over time you’ll build up a good collection of hits from search engine algorithms looking for relevant keywords from the millions of websites out there.
It’s no accident that when you do a Google search for auto or home insurance, the first company to come up is Progressive. Farmer’s Insurance, meantime, is the first company to come up when you do a Google search for business insurance. These companies have employed many SEO tactics including quality content and tags. As we mentioned above, these companies also spend massive amounts of money to drive traffic and rank higher on search engine pages but without some basic SEO tactics, they would be fighting an uphill battle against their competitors who are courting the search engines with quality, optimized content and a much better website infrastructure. - Engage in social media to help build traffic and links.The more places online your company name appears the better, so schedule time every week to participate in conversations happening online about insurance. On Yahoo.com, for example, people can pose questions about insurance and other things, and you can join the conversation and answer them.
Linked-in is also a good place to get insurance leads. Once you set up a personal profile there, you can connect with other professionals in the industry, and also join groups like Global Insurance Professionals and the Risk and Insurance Management Society where members are talking about insurance.
Every time you contribute to a conversation, you can leave behind a calling card – a URL that links back to your website. By contributing to conversations online about insurance regularly, in no time you will have built a reputation as a knowledgeable go-to-guy or gal in the industry. The result is sure to be increased traffic on your website, and hopefully an increase in the number of prospects and customers as well.