Insurance Agent Web Power

It seems like I’m on some kind of SEO Truth-Quest lately…last month I posted an article pointing out that CMS (content management system) is not equivalent to SEO.  I was driven to do that by claims I was hearing in the competitive space for insurance web marketing  that essentially amounted to this:  We give you CMS so therefore your site is search optimized.  If you want a summary of the article, it boils down to this:  NOT.

More recently, I came across some literature from an insurance company who is providing their agents with *free*, search optimized, websites.  It reminds me of an office Christmas party I went to years ago, during which we had to exchange token gifts with a co-worker whose name we drew from a hat.  My giftee wanted a Jaguar for Christmas.  I got her one – a toy, Match Box, Jaguar.  Hey, it *was* a Jaguar.  Likewise, there is SEO and there is SEO.  Robust SEO takes time, effort, and expertise, and as wonderful as it might seem to get SEO for free, you probably aren’t getting much; of course, if you really want to know if you are getting SEO value, take a look at your website analytics after a few months – that’s the proof.

There are levels to SEO, and I suppose someone can say they provide SEO, even at the lowest levels, but it seems disingenuous to me to claim search optimization without providing any details.  Below are four levels of website search optimization – I’ve started with the most basic level – some form of which I suspect the aforementioned free SEO really consists of.  But next time you come across a website provider who claims to deliver SEO for a price that’s too good to be true, go back and ask them which of these SEO components they are actually delivering.

Site Structure – This includes having a well organized website, including elements like xml site maps, good meta data, URLs and H1 tags, using canonical URLs and server header response tags where appropriate, highlighting the most important site content by keeping it near the top of your site map, and architecting a website for fast page loads.

Content – Unique content, for a variety of reasons, is king in web search.  Keyword research and optimization is important; for instance, if you have a choice between using the phrase ‘car insurance’ or ‘auto insurance’, in your page copy, which would you choose?  Hint:  one is searched on a lot more than the other.  You cannot optimize one page for everything, so a well SEOed website will use separate pages to concentrate on one or two keywords each.  Ease of editing and adding web content in and of itself isn’t an SEO practice, but it sure does make practicing SEO a lot easier, so I’m including it here.

Internal Site Linking – Some SEO practitioners view how well a site is linked within it self as accounting for 25% or 30% of SEO performance.  Confluency Solutions subscribes to that view – your most important pages should be linked to and from other pages within your website and different, keyword rich, link text should be used.

External Links or Back Links – Google and other search engines consider each third party website link back to your insurance agency website as a ‘vote’ for your website.  More weight is placed on what Google considers higher authority websites, but any legitimate* link will help improve your website’s search visibility.

SEO Today, Gone Tomorrow – Search ranking is extremely fluid:  your competitors** are changing their SEO and the search engines are constantly tweaking the algorithms that rank web pages for relevance.  More robust (and generally expensive) SEO monitors your page rank for key search terms, as well as your competitors’ and watches for changes in search engines ranking formulas; this leads to periodic modifications of your website.

Visitors are Nice But Conversions are Money – Put another way, 10 website visitors a month, all of whom become clients of your insurance agency is a better bargain than 100 website visitors, none of whom become customers.  Robust and full featured SEO will help you define conversions and make changes to improve conversion rates – and get the money.

I also notice that some insurance website providers will do a *free* evaluation of your current website.  (Geez, I wonder how that will come out?)  Again, you have to be skeptical about what you get for free.  At Confluency Solutions, we offer an SEO audit and road map, but it’s not free.  A thorough SEO evaluation can take 8 – 10 hours, and it’s hard to give that kind of time (and work product) away for free and stay in business.  Confluency’s SEO road map can be used to make improvements on an existing website or can be taken to a third party for implementation – it isn’t a sales trick to get you to become a website customer.  How much depth and specificity does a free website evaluation go into?  Is the information sufficiently detailed so you can improve your existing website or use the evaluation as a blueprint and have someone else build your website?  If it covers the elements itemized above, it will.  If not, it’s probably just a sales trick.

*Links you buy from an offer claiming to be able to deliver hundreds or thousands of back links aren’t going to be legitimate

**Competitors in this regard aren’t necessarily other insurance agencies, but rather, other websites competing for the same keyword.  These could be law firms, medical care providers or even directories.

I was reminded of something I have heard in the past:  it’s a lot easier to love your insurance agent than your insurance company.  If I remember who jogged my memory, I’ll weigh in with a comment to attribute credit where it’s due.  In any event, that statement made me stop and think about the recent primary climate wherein many incumbents didn’t even make it through their party primary.  So much for the old axiom about people hating congress but loving (and reelecting) their congressperson.

I don’t necessarily think that incumbent agents are in for the same throw the bastards out treatment, but we would all do well to stop and remember that insurance and insurance companies are not popular with the masses – and that includes your customers (and your competitor’s customers, ahem!).  So what do you do?  Let people see the personal side of you and your staff, that’s what.  Quit acting like an insurance salesperson once in awhile and let people know what interests you as a person, what you care about, and what you are involved in.  And let your friends know you are interested in their interests.

That’s at the core of social media – you know – the whole social (i.e., *not* business) thing.  It’s been said before in other forums and more eloquently but insurance agents have to learn how to socialize. Share pictures of staff in action at charity events…in fact, use social media to *raise* money for charities.  Does your insurance agency insure plumbers, accountants, retailers, and realtors?  I bet it does.  Let others in your social circles know about these service providers; everyone will thank you.

Google’s introduction yesterday of Google Instant – suggesting search terms as you type – touts a time savings of 2 – 5 seconds deducted from type time for every search as a primary benefit.  But this new feature has a disruptive potential, that is, to significantly change the nature of the searches we do.

Most search terms are short and generic, using one or two words, such as ‘insurance’.   Short tail search terms tend to comprise 50% of search engine website traffic, but a disproportionately smaller share of  conversions.  The other 50% of search traffic are due to long tail search terms, consisting of phrases three, four, five word, or more in length.  Now, watch what happens when I try to search ‘car insurance’ with Google Instant:

Before I have even finished typing the word ‘insurance’ I am presented with a number of suggested searches.  Since I’m in Florida, I might choose the third suggestion; or since I am looking to replace my auto insurance policy, maybe I’ll jump to option four.  The point is, the 50% of searchers who are typing the quick and dirty one word searches are now bound to opt, sometimes, for the more precise longer tail terms.*

It has always been important for insurance agencies to have many different web pages, each optimized for different topics (keywords).  Blogs are great for this, but so are individual web pages for each of your insurance companies (take a look at suggested query four).  Now, with Google Instant, long tail search may become an even bigger factor.

*The reverse could also happen – people setting out to type very specific, long tail search terms, will be presented with shorter, more generic search terms before they are done typing – so some formerly long tail searches could be turned into short tail terms.  It seems to me this will happen less often, however, as someone with a precise search query in mind is less likely to jump to a suggested term before they are done typing.

I have noted with interest how consistently consumer-marketing savvy insurance companies use numbers to substantiate their sales propositions.  Independent insurance agents will sometimes do so as well, sometimes citing combined years of insurance experience, for example.  It turns out that those numeric citations are all important to maximizing on-page web conversions.

No One Pays More When They Switch Their Insurance?  Insurance Agencies Need to Quantify Value Propositions

Well, almost nobody pays more.  We’ve all seen the ads touting how much money some insurance company has saved their customers.  For instance:

Progressive:  You could save over $500 on car insurance.
Nationwide:  Save up to $43 every month.
State Farm:  …save $489 on your car insurance.

Independent insurance agents can make the same kind of claims as the large companies with the large advertising budgets for the same reason the large insurance companies make claims of savings – few people switch insurance unless savings are involved.  And agents do make claims of savings -  just not in the same way.  Agents more often make claims in qualitative terms.  Consider these excerpts from some otherwise attractive insurance agency websites:

Independent Agency #1:  Our agents work hard to provide you with the best protection at the best price.

Independent Agency #2:  Our goal is to make sure your family has the best protection at the lowest price.

Independent Agency #3:  We’ve got you covered — at a price you can afford!

Quantitative assertions are far more compelling.  As Marketing Experiments pointed out during their recent home page optimization clinic, people tend to be more skeptical about qualitative assertions.  In a sense, using quantitative statements to back up your value claim ‘proves’ that proposition – at least to a skeptical, page-skimming website visitor.  And that credibility increases web conversions.

Value Statements Aren’t Just About Lower Insurance Premiums

Quantitative support for value propositions, can and should extend to every facet of your agency’s value proposition – especially on the web.  Again, here’s a few more examples from the insurance companies with consumer-marketing chops.

So…you say you are ‘experienced’…how experienced?

GMAC:  …our experience.  More than 60 years of it…

Allstate:  …the support of 75+ years of experience.

You want me to believe that the insurance purchase process is easy?  Tell me *exactly* how easy.

Progressive:  Get rate and coverage options in about 6 minutes.

Here are a few opportunities missed, gleaned from independent insurance agency websites:

Independent Agency #1:  …finding insurance has never been easier.

If you are like me, you probably find yourself asking ‘easier than what?’  Here’s an alternative:  ‘In less time than it takes to make a grilled cheese sandwich, you could save $439 on your car insurance.’  Even though this statement doesn’t provide an explicit quantification of *easier*, we all have an idea that making a grilled cheese sandwich doesn’t take very long.  And given the option of whipping up a gooey cheese delight or saving $439…well, I know what I would pick.

Independent Agency #2:  …we can search more insurance carriers than your typical Agency.

How many companies can your *typical* insurance agency search?  How many companies can your agency search?  The numbers that answer these questions substantiate the claim that Agency #2 can actually save a consumer money.  Without some values illustrating the difference, any claims the agency might make based on superior carrier choice seem thin.

Independent Agency #3:  We value the business of all of our clients; you are not just a number.

Of course you value all your clients, but how do I know your clients feel valued?  It wouldn’t take much effort to implement a survey and quantify how valued your clients feel.  It would be a lot more compelling to be able to say that ’95% of our clients rate their service experience as excellent.’  Confluency Solutions includes a survey tool (and a default insurance service survey form) as part of insurance agency website admin so agents can quantify client happiness.  But there are plenty of free or inexpensive survey tools available, like Survey Monkey, so that any agency can quantify the satisfaction of clients.

Here are some other ideas to help quantify agency value propositions:

• Expertise – the percentage of agency staff with advanced designations like CPCU or CIC.
• Community Involvement – Number of times staff volunteered for community or charitable events.
• Superior Protection  – percent of occasions when the agency was able to increase liability limits while reducing or keeping premiums level.

Arriving at numbers like these for your agency may involve some extra work, but not much.  And the improvement in website conversions and sales will be well worth the effort.