Successful insurance agency SEO (search engine optimization) is a little bit like choosing to open a restaurant in downtown versus a country road. If you want to be easily accessible and attract new customers, it’s probably a good idea to be located on a main street.
SEO is a marketing discipline focused on growing visibility in organic, non–paid search engine results. It encompasses both the technical and creative elements required to improve rankings, drive traffic, and increase awareness in search engines. At the most basic level, SEO is just making sure search engines can understand your site.
Search engines are important for every business because they provide targeted traffic: people looking for what your health insurance agency is offering. If you don’t have good SEO, your agency could miss out on on opportunities to generate and win new business.
Interested in optimizing your website for the better insurance agency SEO? Read on for the basics you need to get started:
On-Page SEO: On-page SEO is about deciding what keywords to base your web pages on and communicating to search engines that your web pages revolve around those same keywords. The main idea is that a page will show up in search engine results because the website has a page that mentions the searched for terms. It’s also important not to overdo it, search engines actually have a penalty that targets websites that have too many keywords on one page. So we suggest keeping it simple- 4-5 keywords or phrases for each page. Not sure which keywords to use? Try using free tools like Google Trends.
Other important things to know for on-page SEO include:
- Title tag: This tells search engines what the page is about. It should be less than 70 words and include keywords that relates to the specific page. In order to change the title tag, log in to your website domain and look for the “site title” field and enter your desired title tag. If you don’t see a similar option in your domain, you can edit this field in your webpage’s HTML where it says <title>.
- Meta Description: This gives search engines information on what your page is. Try to write this so your audience understands it, but include some of your page’s keywords too. Technically an HTML tag, you can change a page’s meta description in its HTML. It will look something like this” <meta name=”text here”/>. Just be sure to replace the the term “text here” with your meta description. Some services, like wordpress, Squarespace, and Wix come with built in SEO tools like Yoast. Here, you’ll be able to just complete the field “meta description.”
Slack’s meta description leads with what it can do for the customer, offering a solution to prospective customers before they even get to Slack’s website.
Content: The more content you create to add or direct to your site, the more likely search engines will be to feature your website’s pages in its search index. Content you may want to add to your website for SEO includes blog posts, industry articles, tutorials and how-to guides, infographics, videos, and podcasts.
Take your insurance agency SEO to the next level with social media. It can create more opportunities for prospects and customers to find your website. Since business social media profiles are public, sharing content that is housed on your site like a new blog post or video to Twitter or Facebook can improve your SEO greatly. More people will be introduced to your content, and more people will visit your site.
These tweets from Cadbury UK and JetBlue Airways encourage readers to learn more by redirecting to the owners’ website.
Link Building: Link-building is the practice of getting other websites to link to yours. There are three ways you can accomplish this: organic links, whitehat, and blackhat. Organic links are the most favorable, because you don’t have to ask for them but whitehat links are the most probable. Here’s how you can get started.
- Write a guest blog post or article for another website and link back to your website. This way, you increase your business’ credibility and direct traffic back to your site.
- Reach out to your local Association of Health Underwriter (AHU) rep and ask to be listed on their site.
- Create a graphic that speaks to the health insurance agency at large. Post it on Facebook with a link back to your website.
Analysis: Even if you have the perfect insurance agency SEO strategy, it’s important to monitor your progress by tracking your results. There are several free tools that can help you do this, including Google Analytics. Look to Google Analytics to find out who is visiting your website, how long they’re staying on your site, and what keywords people are using to find your website in a search.
SEO is key to standing out against your competition on the internet. We hope the pointers in this post help you optimize your website for the best search engine results. Want to learn even more about SEO? Check out “The Agency Digital Marketing Guide” for more tips and pointers on how to optimize your website for the best SEO.
