Search engine optimization (SEO) is the principle that dominates the digital marketing landscape. Positioning websites and related web properties to rank at or near the top of search engine results pages helps improve search visibility, driving traffic to a given site. There are many components to the modern SEO strategy, and one of the emerging components is the concept of “reputation”. In simple terms, reputation is a site’s overall quality, and search engines like Google use complex algorithms to determine such quality. Those that satisfy quality scoring factors rank higher in search results than those that do not. In SEO for insurance agents, focus on your site’s reputation is critical.
Google’s Quality Scoring
Digital marketing industry analysts suggested that Google would incorporate quality scoring in its search algorithm as far back as a decade ago. Within the past year, the search engine giant made great strides in this arena, updating the core algorithm and rolling out its Medic Update. Google also published its Quality Rating Guidelines for marketers and site developers, providing the tools and details needed to satisfy quality scoring aspects. Some of the many factors the search engine uses to determine a given site’s quality include:
- About Us pages to help site visitors learn about a company and its background.
- Contact Us pages written with clear information about how to reach out to the company.
- Usability factors such as fast-loading pages, clear navigational structures, and a clean, uncluttered user interface.
- Copyright statements as applicable.
- Content written with an eye toward good grammar, composition, and spelling.
A site’s content – the information about a given company’s products and services – is the most critical component of its reputation. Well-written and relevant content not only answers a site visitor’s questions, but it also builds site authority. This factor strongly influences site ranking in search results.
Marketers involved in SEO for insurance agents should strive to create content that provides all the information needed to make purchasing decisions. This content must be grammatically correct, timely, and relevant to the visitor’s specific information-searching needs.
Reputation Management in SEO
In the complex world of SEO, many people tend to become confused when it comes to the concept of reputation management and how it differs from traditional SEO. While both are closely related, reputation management is the principle of using SEO tools to improve one’s online reputation. This can be utilized for many different reasons, such as recovering a damaged reputation from poor reviews to bad business decisions and even brand-building. Unlike traditional SEO, which typically focuses on ranking single pages and single keywords, reputation management takes a broader approach, seeking to rank multiple pages and keywords at the same time.
A company’s online reputation is vital. If it is positive, this further builds consumer trust, and it also helps improve quality scoring by the search engine algorithms. A poor reputation, on the other hand, can have long-ranging negative consequences for a company, potentially driving customers to its competitors. Maintaining a positive reputation, or recovering one that is damaged, can spell the difference between continued business growth or stagnation and even failure.
The ultimate goal of reputation management in SEO for insurance agents is to help form a positive first impression of a business in search results. When a search user is presented with multiple resources about a company, its products, and its services at the top of a search results page, he or she is far more likely to click through to learn more. Online reputation management, sometimes referred to as ORM, is an incredibly valuable strategy that should be incorporated into any robust digital marketing plan.
Building a Robust Online Reputation
Digital marketers and SEO professionals have many choices when it comes to helping businesses improve their search visibility. For online reputation management, some of the time-honored techniques include:
- Using social media to promote a company’s brand, products, and services.
- Building context around a given site using common text, links, and keywords/key phrases to satisfy Google’s language-association algorithms.
- Leveraging brand advertising, including the use of influencer marketing.
- Building content for the site and for related properties like blogs, LinkedIn profiles, and social media platforms.
SEO for insurance agents can be a challenging area. With a careful eye toward managing reputations, site traffic can improve dramatically, thanks to the positive effects this management has on search engine rankings.
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