Insurance website SEO can be tricky.

But don’t worry. I’ll show you EXACTLY how to do it in this article. If you need some support or have questions, Get a Free Consultation. At Scott Keever SEO, not only do we specialize in Cincinnati SEO campaigns. We also crush it for Insurance Agencies.

Remember that as people go through their daily lives, they’ll do all that they can to stay safe. Or at least avoid experiencing events that mean losses. But it’s quite impossible most times.

People experience pains. This could be due to an auto accident, a domestic accident, or life-threatening events. For most of these events, they need insurance coverage.

This is what you do as an insurance agent: You make sure that people recover from their losses without losing all their life savings.

But how can you help people if they can’t find you?

The insurance field is a competitive field for both insurance companies and agents. It’s as competitive as the home care market and real estate market. They all require a strategic approach to SEO if you must dominate Google search results.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were over 501,000 insurance sales agents in the United States in 2016. Combined, there are about 1.1 million insurance agents, brokers and service employees in the United States as of 2016.

How can potential customers find you on search engines? How can you enlighten them about the insurance plans they need?

The truth is that search engines are one of the biggest drivers of traffic to websites. In fact, visitors from search engines are usually targeted and about to take action regarding their insurance coverage.

This means you can convert them to your clients with just a bit of work compared to prospects from other channels.

How do you become visible to potential clients on search engines? These are the steps you’ll learn in this guide for insurance agents.

Let’s get started…

1). Research Insurance keywords

When people are looking for insurance agents, they don’t type your name or company. Simply because they probably don’t know it.

What they type into the search engine box are keywords. With these keywords, they’re able to find the right insurance agents for them.

What are the keywords potential clients use? You can’t know these keywords by guessing. You have to use keyword research tools to find the keywords people looking for insurance agents are searching.

When you find the right keywords, you can target them and bring in the right type of traffic to your website, and of course, leads to your business.

However, targeting the wrong keywords mean that you attract the wrong visitors to your website. These site users are hard to convert no matter how much benefit you offer them.

What are the tools you can use to find the right keywords to target for your insurance business? Some tools you can use are SEMRush, Ahrefs, CognitiveSEO, KeywordTool.io, Ubersuggest, etc.

In this guide, I’ll explain how you can use KeywordTool.io and Ubersuggest. These are tools you can use for keyword research without subscriptions.

KeywordTool.io gives you keyword suggestions drawn from Google’s autocomplete feature.

These are keywords that other search engine users have used in the past. This tool will provide more suggestions than a few that you see in the Google search bar.

Before using the tool, you have to compile some keywords that you think your ideal customers are more likely to use. After doing this, visit KeywordTool.io. Enter one of the keywords you have listed and select the country.

Click on “Search” to get the suggestions. This keyword tool will give you suggestions of other similar keywords that people have entered into Google search engine. It’ll also give long-tail variations of your keyword.

Now you have the list of the keywords but you still lack some information about these keywords.

You also need to have details like the search volume, trend, level of competition, cost per click (CPC), etc. You can only have access to this on the paid version of KeywordTool.io.

But you can use Ubersuggest to get these details about your keywords. This is a tool that provides details like search volume, SEO difficulty, paid difficulty, and cost per click (CPC).

You also have access to the search engine results page (SERP) analysis of your keyword.

This means you can see the pages currently ranking for the keywords and know what you’re up against.

To use Ubersuggest, visit the website. Enter your insurance keywords into the box and select your preferred country. Click on the “Search” button.

This will give you the details about the keyword you entered.

You can also click on “Keyword Ideas” to see keyword suggestions similar to your keyword. You’ll also see the details for these keyword ideas.

It’s important to have a list of the keywords you want to target as this gives your content a focus.

2. Create content to engage your ideal clients

The most important part of SEO for insurance agency is your Content. After all, Google or other search engines won’t rank an empty page. Only a page with written content, or other types, will rank.

However, this doesn’t mean anything you write will rank. You have to produce great content. Google has to satisfy its users. And it will only present pages that users like and are more likely to gain from.

Google has various ranking signals that determine what position each page should occupy on the SERP. For the record, content is one of the 3 most important ranking signals, according to SEL.

Google Search Quality Analyst, Andrey Lipattsev revealed this. Along with content are backlinks and Rankbrain.

But before we move on, what’s great content for the insurance industry?

A great content will give the right insurance information to potential clients who use search engines and also guide them to pick the best insurance agent and coverage based on their specific needs.

According to Demand Gen Report, 47% of buyers view 3-5 pieces of content before engaging with a sales rep.

How do you produce great content to land insurance clients?

As an insurance agent, you need to list the biggest issues you know (based on the research you did and the feedback you’ve received from your current clients and new clients) potential clients may have about choosing an insurance agent or policy.

Then produce content to provide solutions to these problems.

Other steps you can take are:

i). Focus on a niche

There are many types of insurance policies. And except you have limitless resources, it’s always more effective to target people looking for a particular type of insurance coverage. [source]

For instance, instead of writing for the general insurance industry which is very competitive, you could focus on life insurance, health insurance, home insurance, liability insurance, vehicle insurance, or other types. That way, you’re competing with fewer websites for potential clients.

ii). Create a FAQs page

What are the most common questions that potential customers can have about choosing an insurance agent or policy?

You can create a FAQs page to answer these questions in details. This helps your page to show up when people put those questions in search engines.

Two popular examples are “how to choose an insurance policy” and “how to choose an insurance agent.”

InsureOn, an insurance company has a detailed FAQ page that explains some of the common questions people have. Take a look:

iii). Use various content formats

Not everybody has the time or zeal to read written content such as blog posts, articles, etc.

Even if they do, they’ll not read everything on the page. According to the Nielsen Norman Group, an average web page visitor will read between 20 to 28% of the words on a page. They’d prefer to scan the content.

Furthermore, people usually understand visual information faster than written content. You can have your content as an infographic, podcast, or a video to make it available to a wider audience.

 

3. Make your website mobile-friendly and fast

In recent years, mobile traffic has been increasing. About 60% of Google searches are done on mobile devices. In fact, Google now runs Mobile-First indexing to index the mobile version of your website before the desktop version.

What does this tell you?

If you want organic traffic, you can’t afford to have a crappy mobile website. First of all, your website won’t rank high for your targeted keywords as Google will see it as a bad result.

Also, if you piss off the majority of your website visitors, they’ll bounce off your website and Google will rank your website lower.

What are the steps to take to make your website mobile-friendly? The first step is to know if your website is mobile-friendly.

To do this, use the Google mobile-friendly test tool. Enter your website into the box and click on “Run Test.”

This will show you whether your website is mobile-friendly or not. If you use a responsive theme on your website, it will usually be mobile-friendly. However, there may still be other issues with your website.

If there is, clicking on “More details” will show you what areas of your website needs to be fixed for a better mobile experience.

Apart from being mobile-friendly, your website needs to be fast. Most users expect your website to load fast.

Most users will bounce off your website if it takes too much time to load. By the time your page loads for more than 4 seconds, you have lost an estimated 25% of your visitors. In fact, the longer it takes to load your page, the higher your bounce rate will increase.

A high bounce rate is a negative signal to Google and it will see your rankings drop. How fast is your website? Of course, if you don’t know your website load time, it’s difficult to reduce it.

Some tools you can use to calculate your website load time are Pingdom, GTMetrix, think with Google mobile speed test, etc.

I’ll explain how to use think with Google mobile speed test here. This helps to test the speed of the mobile version of your website. Visit the tool page and enter your website address. Click on the forward arrow.

The tool will test your website and reveal its load time. It will also give you an estimate of the percentage of visitors you’re losing due to your website speed.

You can receive the recommendations of what to fix in your email. This will show you elements you need to fix to improve page speed.

After implementing these changes, you can test your website speed again to see if there’s an improvement.

4. Get trusted and valuable backlinks

This is one of the most important ranking signals. A backlink is a signal of trust from another website to your website. When a website links to another website, it means they trust that website enough to refer their readers/customers there.[source]

As important as backlinks are, they’re not easy to gain. Apart from that, backlinks also carry different power depending on the referring domain.

Getting a link from an authoritative website passes more authority than a less authoritative website. But it’s much more difficult to get backlinks from authoritative websites.

Here are some of the steps to take to get backlinks to your insurance website:

i). Produce great content

This is one of the most important steps. When a website links to another website, they want to be sure that their visitors would benefit from it.

Useful and interesting content doesn’t have to be text-based content. It could be an infographic explaining a concept or a tutorial video — provided it informs, entertains, educates, and inspires people.

Do you want us to create high-quality content that will boost your rankings in Google top 10 results?

Get a Free Consultation.

ii). Host or attend local events

This is an opportunity to build relationships with other local businesses. Added to that, you can gain local links which will help to rank for local search terms.

At a local event, there are many website owners. There are also journalists who will write about the events and may mention your business website with a link.

To gain more local links in Denver, a DUI attorney gave an offer of scholarships to Colorado students who admit to drunk driving. The scholarship offer was featured on The Denver Post and later The Wall Street Journal.

iii). Post helpful answers on forums

This helps to build your credibility as an insurance expert. Also, you can link to a post on your website if it answers a question in details.

Remember to find relevant ‘insurance-related’ questions on Quora and answer them as well.

Spread your tentacles and you’ll have more opportunities to gain inbound links to your website pages.

iv). Track mentions

Sometimes, a website could mention your website, company name, or product name without adding a link to your website. You can send a message to them to add a link to it.

5. Perform competitive analysis

If you’re trying to rank for insurance keywords today, you also need to know that some insurance agents already rank for those keywords. What are they doing right?

How can you improve on what they’re doing?

To perform an effective competitive analysis, you have to consider major aspects of your competitor’s online presence. Some of them are:

i). Content strategy

If your competitor’s website is ranking higher than yours, there’s a likelihood that their content is better than yours. Maybe not — but that’s what Google thinks.

Or maybe their website and content are solving visitors’ problems better. Some things you need to check are:

  • The topics they’re writing about.
  • How often they post.
  • How long their posts are.
  • Other types of content they produce apart from written content.

ii). Keyword Strategy

Sometimes, you may be unaware of keywords your potential clients are using before buying insurance policies. It’s quite possible that your competitor already ranks for these keywords.

But to know the keywords your competitors are ranking for, you need keyword tools like SEMRush or Ahrefs.

To use SEMRush for your competitive analysis, enter your website address into the tool. It’ll show you competitor websites based on the type of content you have on your website.

You can analyze these competitors using the same tool. Enter your competitor’s website into the tool.

This will show you details like their top keywords on search and you can also determine what keywords to target.

You can also use the keyword gap tool which provides keywords your competitors are ranking for that you’re not.

SEMRush allows you to make a comparison of your backlinks to up to 5 of your competitor websites.

Other important things you can do:

Local SEO strategy

What are your competitors doing to rank for local keywords? I mean, is your competitor ranking better in your city, state, or country?

For example, if your insurance company is based in Georgia, you’re supposed to rank for these keywords in Google:

  • Insurance agent Georgia
  • Best Insurance agent Georgia
  • Top insurance agents Georgia
  • Georgia insurance broker near me

etc.

So you need to check a few factors that are causing your competitor’s website to rank higher than your own website in the search engine (i.e., Google).

Some things to check are:

  • Google My Business page: Check the content of their page and see what they have. This could be their images, the number of reviews, opening hours, etc.

  • Local citations: The number of local citations has an effect on a website’s ranking for local keywords. Apart from the number, the listings (i.e., local directories in your city, state, or country) your business appear on also matter.

You can use citation tools or put your competitor’s physical address in quotes, in a search engine. This will reveal some of the local listings they appear.

Analyzing your competitors can reveal many things about your business that you need to be doing. Don’t lose this opportunity.

6. Improve Local SEO

If you’re an insurance agent in New York City, for example, you probably want clients who are also in New York rather than Miami.

That’s why you need to optimize your insurance business website and online presence for people in your locality.

This is important because 61% of local searches result in a purchase within 2 hours. How would your business change if you sign up a new client within 2 hours from now?

There are many steps you need to take to appear on insurance searches in your locality. These are:

i). Google My Business

To appear in the Google local map pack, you need to have an updated Google My Business page. With this page, you can give more details to people who want to purchase insurance policies.

Here’s how the Google local map pack looks like:

When you list your insurance company with Google My Business, your prospects can easily access your Business name, Phone number, and Address. There are also other details like your website address, images of your office, Posts about events or Promotional offers, Opening hours, Customer reviews, etc.

To create a Google My Business page, visit the website and click on “Start Now.”

You can then fill in your business details and verify your business after doing that.

It’s vital to always update your Google My Business page with new information like posts and images.

ii). Local citations

To rank higher in local search results, don’t stop at creating your Google My Business page. This is only one listing out of many. For the competitive insurance industry, you need many more than that.

In a study by BrightLocal, they found that the top 3 results in local searches have an average of 85 local citations.

Apart from general local directories, it’s also necessary to appear in directories in your city and directories for Insurance agents.

Some examples are Insurancejournal.com, Usinsuranceagents.com, Agentsweb.net, etc.

Note: It’s important that you don’t hurt your business while adding your business details to local listings. Using a consistent name, address, and phone number (NAP) makes it easier for search engines to confirm your business’ credibility.

Do you want us to get you trusted local citations that will boost your rankings in Google Local map packs?

Get a Free Consultation.

iii). Reviews

How can you convince people to buy insurance policies from you? It’s actually simple: By showcasing the thoughts of others who have purchased a policy with you in the past.

Reviews help potential clients know more about your insurance policies and how good (or bad) your customer service is.

It’s no surprise that 85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

However, people won’t always drop reviews even when they’re satisfied with your service. You have to remind them, especially after offering a service they’re satisfied with.

iv). Location keywords

To rank for more local keywords, you have to include a location in your targeted keywords. Don’t worry, it’s quite easy to do.

As much as you don’t want a client in Miami if you’re in New York, bear in mind that a New Yorker looking for an insurance agent doesn’t want an agent from Miami too. So they specify this when typing keywords into the search engines.

To attract them, you have to specify your location too.

Here are some good examples of location-based keywords:

  • [city] insurance agents (e.g., Miami insurance agents)
  • Best insurance agents in [city]  (e.g., best insurance agents in Miami)
  • [city] health insurance agents
  • [city] insurance policies

There are more of this and you can use them based on your results with keywords research. You should target what users are searching most that show the intent you want.

7. Set up analytics to track your site metrics

To win at insurance agency SEO, you need to know your current performance level.

Some questions you need to answer are:

  • What is the current amount of your website traffic?

  • What portion of the traffic comes from search engines?

  • What are the keywords you currently rank for?

  • Which pages are performing well in search?

To answer these questions, you can use the Google Analytics and Google Search Console tools.

The Google Analytics tool helps you to get detailed information about traffic to your website and the referral sources. Google Search Console help you to track search performance.

If you’ve not installed Google analytics code into your website, you should do that. After the installation, Google can track your traffic statistics.

Go to your Google Analytics dashboard and click on “Acquisition.”

Then click on “Overview.” You’ll see all the traffic sources. Click on “Organic Search.”

When you click on Organic search, you’ll see the amount of traffic coming from search engines and the keywords. You’ll also get details on the traffic from each keyword.

 

To use Google Search Console, go to your console dashboard and click on “Open Report” under Performance.

You can see the total clicks, total impressions, average CTR, and average position.

If you go down, you can see the queries that brought users to your website through Google, the number of clicks, click-through rate, and position.

Having this information helps you to know your current performance and you can always come back here to see if your steps are leading to positive changes.

Final thoughts

Many of your potential ‘insurance’ clients use Google search engine when they’re looking for insurance agents or an insurance agency.

It makes sense if you can take steps that will make you visible to your potential clients when they’re looking for you.

In other words, make your website super-easy to find to both Google machine and the people you’re communicating to (i.e., people who need insurance coverage or guidance).

The steps outlined in this guide will help you to improve your site’s search rankings for Insurance keywords and gain more clients. Even though you can’t achieve this overnight, the reward is worth the effort.

Have questions about Ranking Your Business Website in Google? Get a Free Consultation Today.