Understanding the Importance of SEO For Insurance Agents
As an insurance agent, your job is to connect people with
the coverage they need to live their lives. Whether you’re selling auto
insurance, homeowner’s insurance, liability insurance, or life insurance, you
play a vital role in your community, letting people have peace of mind, with
the knowledge that they won’t be rendered bankrupt by a sudden catastrophe. But
it’s not as simple as that. While people may be inclined to seek an agent out
when they need insurance, they don’t always go for the best one. That’s why
being a sharp and effective agent, with great customer service and ethical
business practices, isn’t enough to make your agency excel. You need SEO. Read
on to learn what that means and why it’s important.
What SEO Means
SEO stands for search engine optimization. It’s a term to describe a broad and varied field, one that has come to encompass a wide range of different practices. SEO operatives and experts use a number of different techniques to help their own company or, for independent SEO specialists, the companies of their clients, optimize their sites to appear on SERPs, or search engine results pages. When you hear people talking about “good” or “bad” SEO, they’re talking about the degree to which sites pop up on SERPs. Sites that rank more highly for keywords related to their content have good SEO; sites that get buried at the bottom of SERPs have bad SEO. But why is this important?
Search First, Ask Questions Later
In the Internet age, people do a Google search before they decide where to go for lunch. It makes sense, then, that they would use the Internet before making an important decision about something like insurance. You might be thinking, “Good thing I spent the money to buy a professionally designed website!” Not so fast. Even if your site is impeccable and your credentials are all in order, if you appear toward the bottom of SERPs when people search for local insurance, no one will be visiting your site—or your agency. This is why SEO is of the utmost importance: many, if not most people let Google make their buying decisions for them, so ranking high on Google for keywords relevant to their needs is the only way to secure their business.
How SEO Can Help You
If you’ve read to this point, you’re probably wondering what you can do to improve your site’s SEO. Even if this is the first time you’ve heard of such a thing, all is not lost. The first step is to assess where you’re at as it stands. Try Googling “insurance” followed by the city or area you operated in, and make a note of where you land on the SERP. If you’re in the top few results, you’re in good shape! If you’re near the bottom of the page (or not on it at all) your SEO needs work. Next, try Googling the specific type of insurance you specialize in. Your business should rank higher for this than for the broader term “insurance,” but if it doesn’t, that can provide some action steps for your SEO strategy. You need to make sure your website accurately describes what your agency sells and does. An SEO firm can help you optimize your website to attract more visitors, which will, in turn, attract more clients. They can help you get into the “three-pack,” Google’s at-a-glance summary of the top 3 businesses in any given sector. And they can help you establish backlinks to demonstrate your site’s authority.
While just about every business can benefit from SEO, insurance agencies stand to gain a lot, since outbound marketing is largely ineffective in the industry. Optimizing your site for searches is one of the best ways to attract new customers.
