Insurance agents with an online presence can implement SEO techniques to improve their website traffic and get more leads.
Considering the highly competitive environment that characterizes the insurance industry online, SEO can help you stay ahead of your competitors while attracting and retaining more customers.
According to Google’s clickstream research, about 70% of consumers (including insurance consumers) who purchased online performed at least one relevant search during the observation period.
Interestingly, the same source affirms that a fair percentage of consumers start with generic searches (searches like “insurance agency near me” or “auto insurance in [name of a city]”), which means they didn’t have any company in mind when they started out on their online insurance purchase.
Also, the Google clickstream study clearly states that the reach of such generic keywords will usually be much greater than any individual brand’s search terms.
What does this mean for independent insurance agencies that are looking for new clients to expand their reach?
You’ve guessed it right!
A strong insurance SEO strategy for your insurance website to benefit from potential consumers’ online search behavior. In addition, to increase your visibility as a brand.
In this blog, we share with you some of the top SEO tips for your insurance website—covering all aspects of SEO, including technical, on-site and off-site, and mobile SEO—that can help your website consistently rank on top of the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs), and as a result, get more traffic and leads for your new independent insurance agency.
What Is SEO and Why Insurance Agents Need It?
SEO, or “Search Engine Optimization,” in simplest terms, is the process of optimizing a website for ranking on top of the SERPs for relevant search terms, so as to increase the quantity and quality of organic traffic to that website.
SEO is a critical component of digital marketing, even more so for insurance companies. Effective utilization of SEO tools and techniques ensures greater online visibility of your insurance agency’s brand, ultimately helping in consistently generating new leads.
Research has shown that only around 21% of insurance agents are spending the minimum required budget on website creation and maintenance, and just 9% on content services. As an increasing number of consumers are starting their insurance purchase journey with an online search, there is a huge opportunity for independent insurance agents or brokers to leverage from insurance SEO services.
Insurance SEO Tips to Get More Quality Traffic and Generate Consistent Leads
All SEO activities can be categorized under either of the four types: On-site (or on-page), Off-site, Technical, and Mobile SEO. Given below are the four types of SEO and the related SEO tips for your insurance agency website that will help you get more quality traffic and generate more new insurance leads on a consistent basis.
On-Page SEO Tips
This technique relates to the content and the HTML source code of your web page. It involves a range of different activities related to optimizing content with target keywords, creating the right URL structure, adding meta tags, working on internal linking, optimizing the images, and so on—all of which aim to optimize individual pages of the website to achieve better ranking and drive more relevant traffic to your website.
1. Follow the header tags hierarchy
Placing tags correctly will help Google's crawlers understand your content when it crawls it. Even better, using H2, H3 tags can help you rank successfully by organizing your content in a way that helps search engine bots understand your content. The other benefit of organized header tags is that web browsers, plugins, and assistive technologies will be able to use them to provide in-page navigation.
2. Optimize your content for SEO
Begin with keyword research. Understand your audience and their needs before targeting the keywords and related phrases they are most likely to search. This way, you can create and provide content that they are actually looking for.
3. Avoid keyword stuffing
Ensure optimum keyword density (1 to 3% of the total word count) without affecting the content flow. Do not excessively use keywords or force referenced keywords from another page into your content.
4. Optimize your visual content
Image optimization is essential to ensure maximum findability and speed. Make sure your images are compressed to the right size, are in the proper format (JPEG, PNG, or WebP), and are unique enough to stand out!
5. Use external (outbound) links
Outbound links to related pages enhance the relevance of your content. Obtain quality backlinks to authority sites other than your competitors' site/page. Backlinks shouldn't be used excessively. Use them to validate information, provide comprehensive information, or support the information on your site.
6. Encourage more comments
More comments on your blog could significantly improve your ranking. When people come as far as commenting on your blog, it means they find your content interesting. You can also have them comment on your blogs without subscribing to your content.
7. Scan and fix duplicate content issues
You certainly don't want your content to be full of duplicate information. The algorithm ranks your page lower when it lacks uniqueness, as it implies that you have copied another person's content. The search engines are looking to rank quality pages and not pages that duplicate other people's content. You can use tools like SemRush to fix and scan duplicate content issues.
8. Ensure NAP consistency throughout your site
NAP (Name, Address, and Phone Number) is an important ranking factor contributing to both on-page signals and citation signals. However, inconsistent NAP listings are enough to frustrate your prospective customers and lead them to your competitors. Be vigilant about your NAP listings and make sure they are accurate and consistent at all times for greater visibility and trust among your customers.
Off-Page SEO Tips
Off-site SEO refers to the actions you take outside of your own website to impact your ranking within the SERPs. It involves link-related activities, like strategic guest postings, blog commenting, and creating and distributing link magnets such as infographics. The non-link related activities include building NAP citations, getting brand mentions, maintaining Google My Business profile, obtaining online reviews, and leveraging social media.
9. Build quality links
It's great to use backlinks, but can you get other people to backlink to your website. If you can, you're on your way to rank better. Nevertheless, link building is a game of quality, not quantity. Get the most reputable brands to backlink to your site.
The following are a few factors that affect the quality of your backlinks:
- Relevance - Using relevant sources for building backlinks lets Google know that you haven’t employed any unethical means to obtain them.
- Position - The position of your backlink in relation to your overall content will affect how Google values it. For instance, backlinks placed at the top of your content are considered more valuable than those placed elsewhere.
- Ease of acquisition - Backlinks that are difficult to acquire are generally considered to be of higher value than those that are more affordable.
10. Harness the power of social media
Don't underplay having large followers, and comments across social media platforms. Intensify your marketing efforts by addressing customers' needs, delivering quality products and so on, to improve your brand's visibility. Many insurance agents get to rank faster because google already recognizes their large following. Have you ever done a search that doesn't pop up much more information than social media pages related to your search? That's how important your social media presence is! Check the social signals to watch for ranking on search engines.
11. Make use of videos and images
Images, videos, and most importantly infographic is a great boost for your off-page SEO. When people use your infographics, they backlink or reference you, which can be a significant SEO boost.
12. Be in the public eye
Being in the public eye for all the good reasons would be a boost in your SEO. For example, giving a speech at an event that news agencies would broadcast on the internet would make your name pop up by default when searched on google.
13. Use Google My Business for local listings
A Google My Business account allows you to manage your online presence while attracting prospective clients who are looking for your business via Google searches. By optimizing your GMB account for SEO, you can rank higher for local searches.
Technical SEO Tips
Technical SEO covers your site's backend structure. It weighs in factors such as your site's speed, security, crawlability, mobile-friendliness and responsiveness, etc., all of which help improve the quality and readability of your site.
14. Optimize your site speed
Your site's speed is indispensable to your ranking. The faster your site loads and provides information, the better your user experience.
15. Increase your page speed
Increasing your page's speed is an important part of your SEO. Statistics show that the longer your site takes to load or bring up information for your customers, the more they are displeased with your service. You can use tools offered by GTmetrix, Pingdom, Google PageSpeed Insights to increase your page's speed.
16. Install SSL certificate
You need an SSL certificate to guarantee security and improve the trustworthiness of your site. It makes your page come off as quality and trustworthy. Search engines wouldn't tag your page as unsafe when you install an SSL certificate.
17. Use the broken link checker
The broken link checker is useful to find and fix broken links on your site. Broken links reduce the quality of your page. Even worse, they could make vital information unavailable to your customers.
18. Create XML sitemaps
XML sitemaps help Google crawl your content more effectively. Crawling is how Google reads through your content and non-text content. Thereafter, it decides whether your page should be displayed for a range of search results.
Mobile SEO Tips
With most of the world's internet users using mobile phones to access the internet, there is a need to employ mobile SEO tools like responsive web designs, dynamic serving, separate URLs, and so on to ensure an enhanced user experience.
19. Make your site mobile-friendly
When contents are hidden and inaccessible on mobile phones, you end up losing potential customers. Sites that are not mobile-friendly make it difficult for users to navigate them. Make sure that your web pages are well optimized to be viewed on a mobile device.
20. Optimize speed for mobile devices
Keep your site lightning fast with an ideal page speed of less than 2 seconds. Always check the speed of your site on mobile phones, and optimize it!
21. Input local information
Optimize your website for local searches by adding your business' name, address, and other relevant information. Your location can be a keyword that helps you rank better on Google.
22. Use canonical tags
Use canonical tags on your website's mobile version to avoid content duplicity. Content duplicacy waters down the quality of your content. The algorithm would work against you when it spots content that’s been duplicated.
23. Optimize video content
If you use videos on your site, optimize them in such a way that they don't reduce user experience. They should never make your site lag or make it difficult for users to discuss their concerns on your page. The same goes for excessive use of ads on your site.
There's no doubt about the power of SEO in marketing, even more so for insurance agents. Statistics say it all, and the practicality of these tips confirm the immense potential of SEO tools and techniques. Are you looking for assistance with your insurance online marketing needs? If so, then contact the experts at Stratosphere Insurance Marketing Agency on (818) 456-1648. We are here to help your insurance agency stand out even in these testing times.
