Digital technology has transformed the way people find services. In the past, if people needed to find an insurance agent, they’d use the Yellow Pages or get a recommendation from friends or family. That era is long gone. These days, clients find and evaluate businesses online, which is why SEO for insurance agents is so important. But what is SEO in insurance, and how can you use it to grow revenue?
Importance of SEO for Insurance Agents
According to the Independent Insurance Agents of Dallas, the commercial insurance industry has the highest customer acquisition costs (CACs) of any industry. Last year, the average cost per click of Google Ads in the insurance industry was $8.41, partly explaining the phenomenon.
Insurers must find more sustainable alternatives to programmatic advertising in light of rising CACs. SEO for insurance agents provides a credible solution.
SEO is an excellent option for insurance companies because it boosts brand awareness and visibility while opening up a channel for lead generation. Google and other search engines use a range of signals to decide what ranks on their search engine results pages (SERPs). Some of the factors involved are content relevance and quality, page loading speed and performance, quality backlinks, and even website structure.
Of course, as the high cost of customer acquisition suggests, commercial insurance is a crowded and competitive space. Outworking your rivals requires knowledge of SEO best practices. Thankfully, we’ve prepared 10 actionable tips for improving your rankings.
Top 10 Ways to Boost SEO for Insurance Agents
So, what is SEO in insurance? Here are 10 valuable tips to boost your organic traffic.
1. Conduct Keyword Research
Keyword research is a critical part of SEO in insurance for three core reasons:
- Keyword research helps you understand how your target audience talks about your solution. When you know how your audience thinks and talks about insurance, you can tailor your content to speak to them.
- Understanding the words and phrases your target audience uses helps you optimize your landing pages and other content to capture these searches.
- Finally, keyword research helps you understand your competitors’ SEO strategies, gauge how challenging it is to rank for particular keywords, and identify content gaps you can exploit or remedy.
Keyword research tips for the insurance industry
Here are some tips for keyword research related to the insurance industry.
- Use a mix of high-volume and broad keywords (i.e., pet insurance) and drill down to more specific terms (i.e., dog insurance).
- Where appropriate, target local searches, i.e., “flood insurance Florida.”
- Voice search is on the rise; target conversational terms.
- Use long-tail keywords to target your ideal audience with surgical precision.
- Employ competitor analysis to spot content gaps.
Consider search intent
Keywords can give away your target audience’s state of mind. You can use this information to tailor particular content around their search intent — the intention behind their searches.
- Informational: If people ask questions like “Why do I need pet insurance?”, link to a blog article that satisfies their query.
- Transactional: If the keyword is “get car insurance quote,” send them straight to a landing page form.
- Navigational: For a search like “baker insurance agency,” you’d want to send users to your homepage.
- Commercial: For questions about “best pet insurance,” link to a comparison article on your site that helps them research your services.
Keyword research tools
There are lots of great keyword research tools on the market. Here are five of the best:
- Ahrefs
- Moz
- Semrush
- Google Keyword Planner
- AnswerThePublic
2. Create High-Quality Content
Write for people, not for search engines. High-quality content answers questions and helps establish your authority. It builds trust, gets shared on social platforms, and enables you to connect meaningfully with your audience.
How high-quality content helps SEO ranking
Google uses several factors to rank articles. Many of them are directly related to high-quality content. Here is how it all works.
- Well-written, information-packed, and unique articles satisfy user intent, which helps search engines delight their users.
- Great content keeps users on your page, which is a positive signal for search engines.
- The best content gets backlinks from reputable sources, which boosts SEO for insurance agents.
How to write quality content for the insurance industry
Here are some valuable tips for writing great content.
- Focus on providing valuable information and helping your audience
- Understand your target audience and their paint points, and write articles that empathize with their struggles and offer solutions
- Lean into your experience and expertise to provide something readers can’t get elsewhere.
- Outsource your content creation to Neilson Marketing Services. We’ll write and publish high-quality, SEO-optimized insurance content on your blog and social media channels.
Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T)
While E-E-A-T is not a direct ranking factor, it helps Google determine if your content is high-quality.
Here are some ways to boost E-E-A-T on your websites and blogs.
- List qualifications and professional experience in writers’ bios.
- Use first-party statistics and research.
- Only link to solid, reputable sources.
Using keywords in content
While it’s important to use keywords and phrases to target your audience, don’t do it at the cost of readability. Weave keywords into headlines and content but take a light touch. Moreover, consider semantic or related keywords to pick up more queries and increase variety within your content.
3. Optimize Website Structure and Navigation
Search engines work by crawling the web and indexing content. Good website structure helps search engine “spiders” navigate your pages. So, strike a balance between clear and well-structured content that still reads well for users. If user experience (UX) is a priority, your site will also satisfy search engines.
Tips to help the structure of your website
Here are a few things you can do to ensure your site is readable to search engines.
- Devise a site map with main categories (home page, about us, services, etc.) and add subcategories within them (e.g., in your services dropdown, add homeowners insurance, auto insurance, and so on).
- Add internal links between your pages.
- Submit an XML sitemap to Google Search Console.
- Keep URLs clear and descriptive, i.e., insurance.com/pet-insurance.
How to make your website easy to navigate
User experience is first and foremost. Thankfully, it aligns with SEO principles for web design. Here are some tips.
- Focus on clarity so users always know where they are and where they can go.
- Ensure your website layout is consistent.
- Keep your main menu clean, and offer five or six navigational items.
4. Utilize Local SEO Strategies
Local SEO for insurance agents will be your bread and butter unless you’re a nationwide or international insurance agency. So, look at keyword research to understand how often your target audience enters a geographical descriptor into their search terms.
There are a few great reasons to target local search. For starters, around two-thirds of consumers trust local businesses more than big businesses. Secondly, Google prioritizes nearby businesses, especially when users search via Google Maps.
If you want to boost Local SEO, follow these tips.
- Create a Google My Business profile and encourage reviews.
- Use local keywords and create relevant content about your area.
- Get listed on local directories or local insurance association websites, and explore potential partnerships with nearby businesses.
5. Implement On-Page SEO Techniques
On-page SEO includes URLs, headings, images, content, internal links, and meta descriptions. You need to get this right so search engines can understand your content and match it with user search queries.
Here is a quick rundown of actions that help optimize on-page SEO.
Title tags: Keep them under 60 characters, include keywords, and add your location where possible.
Meta descriptions: Limit them to 160 characters, promote your unique selling proposition, and use a call to action.
Headers: Structure your content with H1, H2, and H3 tags and insert your keywords to help search engines contextualize content.
Content: Insert keywords naturally, link to your other pages, and make your content rich and helpful.
Images: Compress images so they load quickly. Always add alt tags to improve accessibility, and where appropriate, tag them with your keywords.
URLs: Use short, descriptive URLs and separate words with hyphens to boost readability for humans and search engines.
6. Improve Website Loading Speed
Website loading speed is a factor in SEO. If a user clicks on your website and it takes a long time to load, they will bounce after a few seconds. Indeed, mobile users are even more impatient when browsing.
Tools to measure page speed
Thankfully, many tools can help you diagnose your page speed. Here are four of the best.
- Google PageSpeed Insights
- WebPageTest
- GTmetrix
- Pingdom
How to boost page speed
If you measure your page speed and find it’s outside insurance industry benchmarks, there are some actions you can take to get things in line.
Optimize images: Reduce image sizes or use lazy loading techniques — allowing content to render only when users need it.
Caching: Explore browser caching or use content delivery networks (CDNs) to serve geographically diverse audiences with local servers.
Code: Look at your website code and prune JavaScript, HTML, or CSS.
Consolidate: Look at HTTP requests and find ways to consolidate these resources.
Webhost: Determine if your web host is the best choice for serving your target audience.
While page speed isn’t the most important SEO factor for insurance, the field is so competitive you must take every chance for optimization that you can.
7. Build High-Quality Backlinks for Off-Page SEO
Backlinks are highly influential in SEO for insurance agents. However, quality beats quantity. In essence, Google treats backlinks as referrals to your website. Of course, not all referrals are equal. We all place more value in voices we can trust, and so do search engines.
Implementing good backlinks helps you in several ways.
- They boost your traffic from the referring site.
- They signal to Google that your site is valuable.
- They increase your domain authority.
How to acquire quality backlinks in the insurance industry
Winning backlinks from high-quality and authoritative sources takes a lot of effort. However, it is possible with the right approach. Here are some of the best strategies.
- Write detailed guides or content with original data and research.
- Focus on shareable content, like comparison tools, infographics, and interactive calculators.
- Guest-post on industry sites and blogs or other industry-relevant websites.
- Sign up for services like Help a Reporter Out (HARO) to provide expert advice on insurance industry topics, which can result in backlinks when the article is published.
- Sponsor local events and take advantage of the publicity.
- Seek out inclusion on local directories and insurance body association lists.
- If appropriate, partner with local businesses for cross-promotional link-swapping.
- Let Neilson Marketing Services handle your backlink strategy, and wear one less hat in your business. Contact us to learn more.
8. Optimize for Mobile Devices
Mobile phones account for over 60% of all global searches, a figure that grows yearly. According to Google, user experience is an SEO factor. As such, mobile responsiveness is something you need to consider. Finally, if your strategy involves local SEO, it makes sense to target mobile searchers.
How to ensure your insurance website is mobile-friendly
Getting your website up to spec involves checking the following boxes.
- Compress images and aim for a three-second loading speed or below.
- Ensure all fonts are legible and have sufficient contrast.
- Make buttons and user interface (UI) elements large and easy to tap.
- Ensure your “Contact Us” forms are simple and fit for mobile screens.
Making your insurance website mobile-responsive takes trial and error and a lot of testing. Manually test on different devices and platforms, and use tools like Lighthouse to verify quality.
Overall, responsive design provides consistency and a superior UX. It also results in lower development costs than paying for separate desktop and mobile websites.
9. Ensure Website Security and Compliance
Security and compliance are essential in the insurance sector. These concepts are also vital from an SEO perspective. Google and other search engines want to provide users with a safe experience, and any deviation from that can result in ranking penalties.
Here are two areas you need to keep an eye on.
HTTPS: Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) has been a ranking signal for a decade. It encrypts user data in transit, which is essential when dealing with sensitive data.
Regulatory compliance: Adherence to legislation like the General Data Protection Regulation and the California Consumer Privacy Act fosters trust and a good user experience. While compliance won’t directly boost SEO, these factors signal the legitimacy of your website.
Website security best practices
Follow these tips for a secure and compliant site.
- Obtain SSL certificates.
- Perform regular security updates.
- Enforce good digital hygiene among employees and strong password policies.
- Update your website’s content management system (CMS) regularly, ensuring plugins and themes are not vectors for cybersecurity attacks.
Strategies to meet compliance
You can also proactively meet compliance standards in the following ways.
- Clearly and visibly outline how you collect, use, and store user data.
- Provide opt-in mechanisms for cookies and any data collection.
- Establish a response plan for any data breaches, and always be transparent with your clients.
Integrating Security and Compliance into your SEO Game Plan
Security and compliance should be central to your SEO strategy, not afterthoughts. Here is how you can stay vigilant.
- Use SEO tools with a focus on technical SEO to ensure HTTPS compliance.
- Monitor and address any cybersecurity issues.
- Ensure your security policies are part of your overall web content.
10. Avoid Negative Ranking Factors
Google’s March 2024 core update demonstrated how serious the search engine giant is about penalizing attempts to game the search algorithms. Violating best practices can and does lead to negative rankings.
Here are some negative ranking factors you need to watch out for.
- Keyword stuffing that hurts readability and user experience
- Slow loading, excessive ads, and a lack of mobile-friendliness, which frustrate users
- Duplicate or plagiarized content
- Backlinks from low-quality or disreputable sites
- Invisible text that attempts to game SEO
Checklist for avoiding negative SEO factors
Here is what you can do to avoid falling foul of negative ranking.
- Schedule regular SEO audits and address any issues straight away.
- Keep your content informative and laser-focused on your target audience’s needs.
- Avoid shortcuts or black-hat SEO tactics.
- Practice backlink quality control, and disavow links from sites with poor reputations.
- Ensure user experience comes first by writing great content and optimizing web performance.
Final Thoughts: SEO for Insurance Agents Is an Ongoing Effort
SEO for insurance is a long-term project. You can never rest on your laurels because client requirements and the search engine landscape are forever evolving. Staying competitive requires continuous effort.
The key takeaways here are the following:
- Monitor your keywords, rankings, and traffic to understand the impact of your SEO campaigns. Then, use this information to make data-driven decisions.
- Algorithms and best practices are continuously evolving. Keep up-to-date, and adjust your strategies where necessary.
- Don’t expect overnight success, especially in crowded sectors like the insurance industry. Follow best practices, write great content, and be patient. Your authority will grow, and you will capture more leads.
At Nielsen Marketing, we understand that running an insurance agency is full of stresses and strains. With a busy schedule, finding time to develop an effective SEO strategy is challenging.
Our experts can create and publish authoritative insurance content on your site, monitor your website performance, optimize your website for SEO, and stay ahead of algorithm updates. From there, you can do what you do best, like fostering client relationships and closing leads.
So, book a call today to discuss the right strategy for your business.
About Neilson Marketing Services
Since 1988, Neilson Marketing Services has been implementing innovative marketing solutions and strategies for our clients in all areas of marketing. Contact us today at (866) 816-1849 to put our talent, expertise, and vast resources to work for you. Let’s make things happen, together!
