SEO for Insurance Agents: How We Can Help Your Firm
SEO for insurance agents can be difficult in many regards, yet with the expert help here at DASH-SEO, we’ll be able to successfully revive your site’s rankings within Google and have you well on your way to being the best you can be in the eyes of search engines. In this guide we’ll explore everything from what SEO can do for your business to the tips, tricks, and techniques you can utilize to better your site’s overall web presence and organic rankings. SEO is both a technical skill and a carefully crafted art form in many regards. In this post we’ll be sure to examine both sides of the coin and provide you with a great starting point to kickstart your SEO for the coming months ahead. All in all, we hope you’re able to gather valuable insights from this post and apply these practical tips to your insurance business. On the other hand, if you’d like to skip all of that and have our team of experts here at DASH-SEO do all of the SEO work for your business, head on down to the bottom of this guide and submit your site to receive a complimentary SEO audit within 24 hours. Enjoy!
What is SEO for Insurance Agents?
SEO for insurance agents consists of many of the same SEO techniques used across many different industries, yet there are still strikingly different approaches one needs to take in order to ensure success is had with SEO for insurance agents. The primary difference between the insurance industry and other industries is the difficulty of acquiring backlinks as an insurance agent. There aren’t as many readily available sites willing to link to your site as most view insurance as not the most exciting industry to link their readers to. Not to worry though, as DASH-SEO has a large network of content creators, providers, and producers who are always willing to lend a listening ear to you as an insurance agent. There are publications we know of which would love to have your insight shared with them in order to better educate their readers about the intricacies of the insurance world. With this, you can expect a high domain authority link to your website which is a nod of approval from search engines such as Google. SEO for insurance agents consists of content production which provides value to your users, backlink acquisition from high domain authority sites, and ongoing on-site optimizations geared towards better improving the overall UX for your visitors. Those are the three main pillars of SEO and we always ensure our insurance agent clients see these three crucial pillars in action.
SEO as a Digital Marketing Tool for Insurance Agents
Any tool, when used properly can be the difference between success and failure. Using SEO as a digital marketing tool for your insurance agency, when done correctly, can prove to be one of the best investments you’ll make from a marketing perspective. The reasoning behind this is the fact even if SEO campaigns are paused, they’ll still continue working for you well beyond the end date of said campaign. Think of an SEO campaign as a fine wine which typically becomes better with age. Let’s say you wrote a post about the biggest advantages and disadvantages of a life insurance policy offered by your insurance company. This post may take some time to begin ranking where you want it to rank, yet if you do everything right from the start, you can expect that post to eventually gain traction well beyond its years since being published. This is the beauty of SEO in action and the rationale why it’s always better to engage in an SEO strategy rather than a PPC strategy if you’re seeking success over the long-term.
Where Does SEO Fall Along the Digital Marketing Spectrum?
SEO is a vital component to any digital marketing strategy. The main benefits of SEO when compared to other digital marketing strategies is the semi-permanence of an SEO campaign. What we mean by this is the fact that when you complete an SEO strategy, you’ll still feel the benefits for possibly many years to come. Why is this? Well, the main reasoning behind this fact is the “three pillars of SEO”. The three pillars of SEO are on-site optimizations, content production, and backlink acquisition. With on-site optimizations, you’ll most likely feel the effects of a strong foundational on-site strategy for seemingly forever, as long as you don’t make extreme changes to your website. With content production, as long as you focus on evergreen content production (meaning it stands the test of time), you’ll continue to see rankings climb over time with said piece of content. With backlink acquisition, you’re most likely going to see the effects those acquired links bring in for many years to come, provided the websites linking to you still exist.
What is the ROI with SEO for Insurance Agents?
The Return-On-Investment for insurance agents when engaging with an SEO strategy primarily consists of what your anticipated budget is first and foremost, then we can compare your average revenue and profit margin per newly closed lead. After that analysis is completed, we can gain a better picture of what true ROI looks like for your insurance agency. Typically SEO provides ROI on an extremely higher level when compared to other digital marketing avenues such as PPC (pay-per-click) or social media campaigns. This is primarily due to the long-term results which are commonly felt through any properly executed SEO campaign. In some cases, a single piece of content can be responsible for a large portion of your online sales if it ranks in the top position for a large number of highly-valuable keywords and search queries. All in all, the ROI of SEO can be felt much stronger than other digital marketing strategies in most cases.
Types of SEO Strategies for Insurance Agents
There are many types of SEO strategies an insurance agent or insurance agency can go about performing, yet there are certainly ways to go about an SEO strategy which will certainly provide much more value than others. One of our favorites for link building is the “skyscraper method” (we’ll be discussing this method later on in this piece).
Consistent and creative content does the best within an SEO strategy. You must create a content calendar to ensure your deadlines are met and your SEO strategy is set forth without falling behind. It takes a lot of commitment to crank out high-quality content on a consistent basis. If you’re up for it, great! If you’re worried about it becoming overwhelming, don’t worry, we can take care of it for you!
On-site optimization is something you should always consider when planning which action items to complete first and foremost with your newly formed SEO strategy. Without proper on-site optimizations, you may run into constantly taking one step forward and two steps backwards, no matter how great your content and link acquisition efforts are.
On-Site Optimizations for Your Insurance Agent Website
Speaking of on-site optimizations, you’ll want to run through our list of the top-level optimizations you can make to improve your overall site speed, structure, and performance. Without the right on-site optimizations in place from the beginning, you run the risk of seeing every other effort fall by the wayside and begin to detract from your overall goals for becoming the top-ranking site within your niche.
Optimizing Insurance Agent Images for Search Engine Robots
Images may be a large part of what’s slowing down your website and we’re here to help explain why optimizing your images is crucial for your overall site speed. When your site has lots of images, that’s great for displaying what it is you’re offering in a visual format or a dynamic media element. However, when you have a very image-centric website, you run the risk of having it bogged down by the excessive load times which often come along with a very large amount of images. The best solution is to compress your images from a file-size perspective and then proceed to scale those efforts across your entire site. This means you’ll want to utilize a large-scale image optimizer plugin or simply develop a manual system which can be scaled within your team to properly reduce the file size (not the dimensions) of your images. Altogether, this can be a fantastic way to successfully optimize your images across your entire website where search engine robots will be able to tell the difference, yet your users will not. Pretty awesome, right? Right!
Providing a Great UX (User-Experience) Every Step of the Way
User-experience is the foundation for the moments where your users will either choose to further engage with your site or simply bounce off of the page and choose another competitor. Which will it be? Will they stay due to your fantastic UX or will they choose elsewhere to find the solution for their problem. Great UX is when the user can find exactly what they’re searching for and bad UX is when simply nothing works in the user’s favor. Be the former, not the latter, and you’ll begin to see better conversion rates over time.
A Fast Site is a Good Site
Have you ever clicked through to a website and the pages load as if they’re being presented via a squeegee? Yes, we have witnessed that scenario too. It’s not a pleasant one. Be the outlier within your domain and ensure your site is with the times. A great tool to test your page speed is Google’s Page Speed Insights. You’re most likely attempting to rank higher and higher on Google, right? So you’ll certainly want to use a tool produced by Google themselves to best align your site with Google’s recommendations. Try it out for yourself and see what the results say. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us and we’ll be sure to help decipher the recommendations and how we can best assist your insurance business with implementing Google’s recommendations.
Internal Linking Strategies
If you’ve browsed a site in the past and have noticed there are a few links throughout the posts or pages you’re reading which point to other related posts or pages; that’s internal linking. Internal linking is not only good for the user-experience side of things, it’s also good for signaling to search engine robots where to pass on link equity. Think of it as a nod of approval from one page to another which in turn helps distribute domain authority across your site in an effective and efficient manner.
Proper Title Tags & Meta Descriptions
A title tag is a great way to persuade users and search engine robots with keywords and calls-to-action. Title tags are located within the SERPs (search engine result pages) and are the larger text which appears above the meta description. (See above image for reference). Meta descriptions are the smaller text below the title tags and provide a summary of what you can expect when clicking through to view the page or post. It’s an excellent area to persuade users and provide context to what they can expect when compared to other competitors attempting to rank for the same search query or phrase. All in all, optimizing your meta descriptions and title tags will certainly help you move up in the search engine results and persuade users to click through to your site instead of choosing a competitor’s site.
Consistent, Powerful Content for Your Insurance Agent Website
Many insurance agents will subscribe to content libraries and proceed to post the exact same content as their competitors without realizing how damaging this can be to your site’s overall SEO performance. You’ll never want to intentionally post the same content other sites post as this could potentially expose you to a “duplicate content penalty”. “What is a duplicate content penalty?” you may ask. We’re glad you asked! A duplicate content penalty is when you’re posting content across your site which is a direct copy from other sites. It may not be intentional plagiarism necessarily, yet Google doesn’t care due to the fact it’s viewed as “lazy” in their eyes and they never reward laziness. Take note: don’t use content libraries and simply produce high-quality content on your own. If you’re not able to do so due to time constrictions or you simply don’t want to go about writing content on a consistent basis; contact us and we’ll be happy to provide you with our content writing services.
Effective Keyword Research from the Start
Effective keyword research from the start is truly a great way to kick things off when it comes to launching your content production. Think about it like this: if nobody is searching for the content you’re producing, why bother? Now, we know, that may sound a tad bit harsh; yet it’s true. Of course, you’ll want to mix in some pieces of content which you truly feel passionate about. Not everything has to have a keyword research motive, yet it’s much more important to focus on incorporating your passion for your product or service into content which people are searching for in the first place. Let’s say you want to write about auto insurance so you select the key phrase: “How Much is Auto Insurance for Luxury Vehicles?”. This is a great key phrase to focus on as it has user intent (the user is seeking pricing information), it has search volume for multiple components of the key phrase (“how much”, “auto insurance”, & “luxury vehicles”), and it ultimately is persuasive to title a content piece in this nature. Now let’s compare it to a blog post title such as: “Why I Can’t Stand Other Insurance Companies”. Yes, you may begin to rank for certain search queries related to this title, yet it won’t be anything worthy, most likely. If anything, you’ll most likely end up attracting the wrong type of user who hates all insurance companies; regardless of your personal stance. All in all, it’s best to keep things pertained to your services and expand upon those keywords with your expert knowledge throughout.
Keyword-Researched Titles
A persuasive title, as mentioned above, can be the difference between hooking readers in and turning them off. Clickbait titles work to a certain extent, yet within the insurance industry, it’s best to stick to attractive titles which lure the reader in, while not exaggerating the content itself through grossly overstated shock value. Finding a happy medium for your readers, while also incorporating keyword research value, is an art and a science; both of which we’re happy to assist you with.
Keyword-Researched Headers
H1s, H2s, H3,s etc… are the headers above paragraphs which not only provide an emphasis of importance for readers, they also provide emphasis for search engine robots seeking information on how to categorize your post in their eyes. H2s are the most common header you’ll see, yet H3s (which are used in this paragraph’s header) are equally important for longer, well-researched posts.
Producing Persuasive, Well-Written Content
Content is king in several ways, yet one of the most important ways is its ability to persuade users to convert. Well-crafted, properly researched, and professionally presented content can be the difference between new business and no business. Now is a better time than ever to focus on your content strategy and see how it can apply to bettering your website’s performance within search engines. Choose to persuade not only your audience, but also search engine robots and you’ll do just fine.
Catering to User-Intent
User-intent is the catalyst of an excellent content strategy. Without catering to user-intent, you’ll often fall short of appealing to your intended customer base. A great example of user-intent is anything which targets users from a problem-solving perspective. Are you truly offering them a solution to their problems? If so, you’ve already hit the nail on the head when it comes to user-intent. Good job.
Incorporating CTAs (Call-to-Actions)
CTAs are hugely important throughout any website, yet they’re especially important within an insurance agent’s website. You don’t want your users lingering in an area of white-space, not knowing what to do, right? Right. Through a few different tools, we’re able to see exactly where your users are hovering and incorporate highly-targeted CTAs within those areas. You in turn go from not closing deals due to poor CRO (conversion-rate-optimization) and poor CTA placement, to closing numerous deals in a much more rapid timeframe thanks in part to CTA and CRO enhancements.
Utilizing Rich & Dynamic Media Throughout Your Content
Nobody enjoys wading through waves of text blocks with no visual stimuli whatsoever. Don’t post plain black & white text and expect your readers to become engaged with the content. You must choose to incorporate dynamic media elements throughout each post and page. This post you’re reading right here is a perfect example of what we’re talking about. 🙂
High-Quality Backlinks for Your Insurance Agent Website
Backlinks are one of the major ranking factors within Google’s search engine algorithm. Backlinks can sometimes be difficult to acquire, especially within the ultra-competitive niche of insurance. Not to worry, as DASH-SEO has plenty of experience acquiring high-quality backlinks for a wide range of niches.
What is a Backlink?
A backlink is essentially a nod of approval from other websites, in the eyes of Google. In the eyes of us human beings, it’s simply a link from another site pointing to a specific page within your website (most commonly the home page). Now when a link is pointed to your website from another website, link equity is then passed on to your website (as long as the link is “do-follow”). This in turn increases your overall domain authority amongst search engines and that in turn increases your organic positioning within said search engines.
Why Backlinks Matter in SEO?
Backlinks, as mentioned above, are a way of proving your worth as a website in the eyes of Google. Focusing on obtaining high-quality, relevant, and whitehat backlinks is what we at DASH-SEO specialize in.
How We Acquire Backlinks Effectively & Efficiently
We have many methodologies to acquire backlinks for your insurance agent website, yet one of our favorite is the “Skyscraper Method” which is where you research the top performing pieces of content from your competitors for a specific keyword you’re targeting and compile a better, original piece of content for your site. From there, you’ll reach out to the publications and websites linking to the top performing pieces of content from your competitors and let those webmasters know you’ve produced a better, more relevant piece of content which would further resonate with their users. Nine times out of ten this works fantastically well. Again, this is just one of the dozens of methods we apply to our backlink acquisitions strategies.
Eventually Acquiring Organic Backlinks
Over time, you’ll begin to acquire backlinks organically through people finding your high-ranking content and choosing to link to said content within their own website as a reference point. This is the pinnacle of link-building and is when you’re truly acing SEO. We look forward to helping you achieve this level of SEO success in the near future.
Choosing DASH-SEO for Your Insurance Agent SEO
Now that you’ve read this post, you may be wondering how to contact us to evaluate your site. Simply fill in the form below and we’ll be sure to respond to your inquiry within 24 hours. We look forward to helping your website grow organically and provide you the ROI you’ve been searching for all along.