Promote Your Insurance Agency Website

Before you start purchasing website advertising, it is important to understand how search engines are laid out. In this post I’m going to talk about Google, Yahoo and MSN Live. In my examples below, I used the search term “Insurance, Portland, OR”

View the search results for each:

Google
Yahoo
MSN Live

The following screenshots (Click on any image to enlarge) detail how each search engine displays their search results and paid search.

Organic Search – This area is reserved for normal searches, your insurance agency website will display here depending on how your site matches up with the search term and how well your site is optimized.

Paid Search – The paid search area is reserved for websites who have signed up for an advertising program. It will cost money to have your site added to these sections. The top “banner” section will cost more than the right “column” section.

Local Search - Local search, all three major search engines display local search information. Interestingly, the local search section is located above the organic search area on each site. This really goes to show how IMPORTANT it is that your insurance agency is listed locally. Information on local search: Google, Yahoo and MSN Live.

Google:

Yahoo:

MSN Live:

One of the most effective and cost efficient ways to increase your insurance agency website page rank is to make sure other sites have links pointing to your website. When search engines crawl websites they take note of which websites the site they are currently crawling is linking to.  The more links pointing to your insurance website the more valuable your site is. Links are also scored by the quality of the sites that are linking to you. For instance, a link to your website from Traveler’s website is better than a link from the local lumberyard. For more information please visit this Wikipedia entry on PageRank.

Find out who is linking to you:

Google has a great tool that helps you find out who is linking to your insurance website.

To find out who is linking to your website:

1. Go to www.google.com
2. In the search box enter: link:<Your domain>
   Example: Your agency website is: www.abcdinsureance.com you would enter: link:http://www.abcdinsurance.com
3. Hit search.
4. The following results show a list of websites that are linking to your website.

How to get more links pointed to your website:

Now that you understand the importance of incoming links pointing to your website you may be asking yourself; how do I get more websites to point to my insurance website…?

Insurance Companies – Your best option to get quality websites linking to your agency site is to talk to every company that you represent. Most insurance companies have some type of agency locator on their site. Go to each company that you represent find their agency locator and make sure there is a link to your website. If not, you will want to talk to your marketing rep.

Press Releases – Press releases are also another good way to get more links to your website. PR websites such as PRWeb.com have very inexpensive options for submitting press releases. These press releases then get picked up by online aggregators and spread throughout the web. In a couple weeks I will talk about press release examples; for now, a press release can be anything from a new product, new company or a self promoting piece.

Local directories – There are many online local directories where you can submit your company information (for free) and have a link to your website. A good example of this is a Seattle based website Lost in Seattle.

Associations, Groups, Churches, Charity Events – Any association, group or community that your agency may be involved with most likely has a website. Talk to the association and find out if you can have a link pointing to your site.

Trade a Link Programs

I have had many inquiries over the years from agents who receive solicitation from companies who want to “trade-a-link”. Basically, they will put a link on their website if you put a link to their website on yours. Seems fair enough right? Before getting involved with such programs you will want to ask yourself a couple questions. Who is this company that I may be linking to? What types of websites are also linking to them? Will adding a link on my website to their website distract from my insurance website? What is the benefit to my users/customers who may stumble upon that link?

Linking to other sites

It is important to be selective about which websites you link to on your insurance site. For instance, what value does this link have for your customers? Does this website also offer insurance products? Or do they have an agency locator?

When linking to sites it is always good to type out a sentence or two explaining where the link goes. FAQs are an excellent resource for external links.

Example of a valuable FAQ with a link to an external site:

Question: How do I find out about state insurance laws?

Answer: Washington State has valuable resources located at: http://www.insurance.wa.gov/

Replace Washington State with a state that you write business in and you are set.

Collecting Customer’s Emails

On average, insurance agencies have about 10% of their customer’s email addresses*. This low number can be attributed to a number of items. Some customers have been around longer than 10 years or so where collecting emails wasn’t anything to think about. Many of the older agency management systems have never had a place to store email addresses or the agency never took the time to collect the email addresses.

Collecting email addresses can be very simple, but it may take some time.

When a customer is on the phone, submits something online or walks into your agency ask them for their email address. It will take a few extra minutes but over a couple months that 10% can easily jump to 20% or 30%.

Run a postcard promotion or contest (Requiring customers to give you their email address of course)

Privacy matters

When asking customers for email addresses explain to them how you plan on using their emails. (Email best practices)

Don’t spam!

Newsletters can be a very simple way to promote your insurance agency and to build your web presence. However, if a customer gives you their email address don’t assume that they are also interested in receiving your monthly newsletter. If you add them without asking first, they may opt-out, black list you or report your newsletter as spam. If they opt-out you should definitely respect their wishes and not send them anymore unsolicited emails. If they black list your email address then you will be unable to send them any more emails. (Even legitimate emails) If they report your newsletter as spam (All major web based email providers have this feature) your email address may be flagged as a spammer… (This is something that is very hard, if not impossible to correct).

Best practices – How to use email addresses

Now that you have your customer’s email addresses what should you do? There are many legitimate reasons to email customers. When you first receive an email address from a customer send them an email talking about ways your insurance agency uses emails and your website to communicate with their customers. (This is a good place to promote your monthly newsletter and let them opt-in)

Legitimate Reasons to contact your customers:

Catastrophe or claims updates – A good example of this is during hurricane season in the south or ice storms in the north. Email your customers before and right after the natural disaster happens to remind them that there is valuable claims information for them on your website and to get it now before the power goes out.

Financial Times – As we know, even the largest of companies can fall or be bought out by another company. In times like these, it is a good idea to inform your customers that one of the reasons you are an independent agency is that you represent multiple carriers and that their insurance policy is safe.

Significant Changes – New service offered, new company or an office move.

Confirmation emails – Confirm policy changes, annual reviews or quote requests.

Follow ups – After a service was provided follow up and make sure your service level was satisfactory.

*10% is based off of conversations I have had with various insurance agencies located throughout the country.