Don’t know the latest social media platform that half your clients likely hang out on? Learn it. Aren’t sure how to post on the article-writing platform on LinkedIn but have a great article on long-term insurance? Get someone to show you. In other words, there are no excuses for not learning or finding out how a social media platform works and how you may leverage that to your benefit.

It’s your insurance business. It won’t grow unless you do.

If you want to be sought after and regarded as an insurance agent or broker to deal with because of your experience and expertise, make sure your contact information is detailed and clear and includes your address, a link to your website, blog and/or YouTube productions and a phone number where you can be reached. Yes, a working phone number that connects directly to you. LinkedIn is not a dating site. Your phone number is only used to do business and make a date to discuss insurance options or a group policy proposal for a small business.

If people cannot connect with you, you insurance business is not going to grow as much as it could.

The survey asked about:

1. customer service
2. claims satisfaction
3. value for price paid
4. percent who plan to renew
5. percent who would recommend the company

Based on their responses, the top auto insurance companies were:

1. USAA
2. State Farm
3. Farmers
4. GEICO
5. Auto Club of Southern California
6. Nationwide
7. Liberty Mutual
8. Allstate
9. American Family
10. The Hartford
11. Erie Insurance Group
12. Progressive
13. MetLife
14. Travelers
15. Mercury General

It’s important to note, having sued drivers covered by most of these companies, I would have a different ranking.  My ranking would largely be focused on what company is most reasonable in willing to admit when their drivers caused a problem, and who are willing to protect their customers by making fair settlement offers when their customers do something wrong.

Using my criteria, I’d put USAA, GEICO, Liberty Mutual, and Hartford in a top group.  I’d put MetLife, Nationwide, Travelers and State Farm in a middle group.  I’d put Farmers, Allstate, Progressive, and Mercury in a bottom group.

My criteria is certainly different than that used in the survey, but I also think it’s an important perspective when you’re buying insurance.  Heaven forbid, if you do cause a wreck, you want to make sure your company protects you.  When the company doesn’t offer enough and forces a lawsuit to be filed against you, then that’s likely the insurance company not doing its job.

A blog can establish an agent as an expert who knows products well and can help others make smart policy choices. The insurance industry is filled with jargon, but with the translations of a good agent, it does not have to be so. Agents who blog have a knack for taking complicated riders, policies and clauses and turning them into plain English for customers. It’s good marketing, and visitors appreciate it.

A blog is also excellent material for search engine optimization (SEO). All search engines thrive on original content, so if an agent blog frequently and creatively, the content will appeal to engines and rank higher in results. Content does not need to be endless, but frequent, original, fresh posts make a difference. An onsite blog allows an agent to offer visitors precise information in the areas that directly affect them. For instance, a medical insurance professional can discuss how Medicare works, or what Medigap insurance is, as he or she links visitors to the coverage they seek.

Blogs have grown out of forums and message boards, and it is now even simpler to post and to be noticed. Add something new often, and visitors will beat a path to the door over time. Dismiss “instant” success stories. Instead, build your blog carefully and steadily to seek out steady traffic that converts.

Should an agent allow people to comment on posts? While the idea is appealing, it works better in theory than in practice. Moderating comments for spam and inappropriate content can consume an undue amount of time and effort. Instead, provide readers with the information to call or contact the agency online with questions and comments.

How does an agent prevent a blog from becoming a static entity on an insurance website? Use Real Simple Syndication (RSS). Most blogs offer an RSS feed that syndicates your blog entries into other forums, search engines and blogs.

It the process sounds overwhelming (and it can be for a new user), look into hiring an insurance-industry-savvy SEO company that knows what is needed to make an insurance website a huge success. The marketing investment is well spent for the potential for new customers it will provide.

Ready to Quote is an insurance marketing company focusing on search engine marketing and <a href="http://www.readytoquote.com“>insurance websites. Learn more at http://www.readytoquote.com/ or call 1.800.504.8593

You may already know a great deal about Google seach engine results for web searches. But Google also offers additional, specific (and lesser-known) search engines. Have you heard of Google Blog Search? This service does just what it says it does: it searches for and through blogs just as Google Shopping offers results and price comparisons on items for sale.

Truth be told, not all insurance agents and brokers blog, and they really should begin. Blogging expands your online reach in a significant way. But of those agents and brokers who already blog, not all realize that they could be using Google to better promote their writing.

So, if you already blog on your insurance website, it is a smart marketing manuever to submit your blog to Goolge Blog Search. It’s not difficult to do. You just need to find your feed URL. Your URL will look something like this:
nameofyourwebsite.com/com/blog.

At the bottom of your website, you should see a link that says, “ATOM, XML or RSS.” Click on one of them. Then, visit Google Blog Search at blogsearch.google.com/ping to add your blog’s feed.

The process cannot be completed overnight, so check back in a week to ensure that your blog has been added.

For an even smarter boost, click the option that provides “automatic pinging” when you submit your URL. The option is applicable to WordPress platforms and to several others. Every time you add something new to your blog, Google updates your listing, which is surprisingly important. No one will read an out-of-date blog; an old blog can even work against you, making it appear that you take little interest in your marketing or that you have abandoned the endeavor.

Most importantly, remember that relatively frequent entries keep your readers interested in what you have to say. Google’s algorithms love fresh content. Accordingly, your insurance website will rank better in results if you blog actively, post fresh articles and send out regular news releases.

Don’t know how to blog? Don’t have time to do it? Think your writing is atrocious? You’re not alone. Many insurance agents and brokers have enough work trying to run a business without keeping track of a website. A search engine optimization (SEO) company may be your answer. Such a company will run your marketing plan for you and bring out your best features to help visitors become customers.

Ideally, find an SEO company that has serious experience selling insurance and a full understanding of the market. Such a winning partner can guide you to the higher rankings and increased conversions you need to make your business grow.

Ready to Quote is an insurance marketing company focusing on search engine marketing and <a href="http://www.readytoquote.com“>insurance websites. Learn more at http://www.readytoquote.com/ or call 1.800.504.8593

Do you know what you need to do if the algorithms keep changing? You already know that affects how you market your insurance website, but dealing with it is another can of worms you may not be prepared to handle. Although many agents and brokers mutter faint curses under their breath when the rules keep changing, it is done to make sure the Internet has good, interesting, fresh and relevant copy. But, yes, it does mess up your insurance marketing. It’s frustrating.

You’re not alone. There are hundreds of other insurance companies that groan loudly when yet another algorithm change is trotted out. There have been so many of them lately that if you are riding herd on your agency search engine optimization (SEO) program, now may be the time to consult with an SEO specialist with particular expertise in insurance marketing. There just aren’t enough hours in the day to do it all.

The latest changes —- think Penguin —- have made insurance agents jittery about their rankings and how the changes affect their marketing plans for the foreseeable future. No sense getting uptight. Sit back and wait to see what shakes. Take the time to determine if the changes would upset your marketing plans. They may not, so rushing in to fix something that isn’t possibly broken may make things worse. Analyze the changes before taking action. If you are not sure how to do that, hire it out to a good SEO company. It’s a smart business move, worth every penny.

Focus intently on your news releases and ensure they are top quality, interesting, relevant and offer solid links to your website. Make sure what you write about is interesting to people. Sure, not all of it may be barn-burning material, but try to put out information, in plain English, that people need to know. Write about things of interest. Things that help potential customers make a decision to buy and things that are newsworthy.

And one last super valuable tip: if you don’t do social networking, you need to get on that bandwagon pronto. Why? You need to get on that bandwagon because, believe it or not, it makes a big difference in promoting your agency and in attaining a good SEO ranking. So, aim for the best and use Google+ and Facebook. In the alternative, hire an SEO company that specializes in helping to rank insurance websites.

Ready to Quote is an insurance marketing company focusing on search engine marketing and <a href="http://www.readytoquote.com“>insurance websites. Learn more at http://www.readytoquote.com/ or call 1.800.504.8593

Did that get your attention? Did you know that even if you spend lots of dollars on getting the perfect insurance website, paying for great blogs and tons of highly useful articles with relevant content, that the content is not yours to keep?

You may never have needed to know that, unless you choose to move your insurance website to another service provider. If you make that decision, you may just be told you have no rights to what you paid for.

You want to market your insurance agency effectively, and to do that you want to know where you stand, how to improve and what is needed to move forward. In doing that, you may decide you need a new website, and assume that the content is transferable. Legally, you are not entitled to the contents. Take a look at your service agreement.

If it does not say your search engine optimization company, content provider and/or website designer specifically transfers rights to your insurance company, then they own the content. Even if you technically own the content, since you paid for it, legally, that is another can of worms.

Companies that have you locked in really retain no particular advantage other than it makes things hard for you to transfer your insurance website to another provider. There isn’t much you can do about it, but you can most definitely learn from that situation and not make the same mistake again.

For your new insurance website, make sure to have your contract spell out in great detail that your insurance company owns full rights to the content of the website, design, and whatever content management system is being used. Insist that there will be no close out fees/transfer fees if you have completed a contract term. Make certain you own your own domain name and have all the relevant information needed to access it and have all your licensed picture rights transferred to your insurance company at no addition cost.

Controlling your own insurance website content is the smart thing to do.

Ready to Quote is an insurance marketing company focusing on search engine marketing and <a href="http://www.readytoquote.com“>insurance websites. Learn more at http://www.readytoquote.com/ or call 1.800.504.8593

If you don’t, you are not alone. There are so many changes in what you need to do to get ranked well and stay there, that you almost need to be a search engine optimization (SEO) specialist to be on top of it all. If you run your own agency, there is not enough time to do that.

Recent changes, thanks to Google’s Penguin updates, have made insurance agencies very concerned about their rankings and what they are supposed to do for future marketing efforts.
While it is scary to try and figure out what to do next, it’s best just to sit tight and approach things calmly. First, analyze just how much the latest changes impact on your marketing plans. It is entirely possible that there are not many changes to be made. If you do not know how to analyze the changes and what they mean, search for and hire an established SEO company with experience in the insurance industry.

What really affects your insurance website is what you do in terms of press releases. The news release is not, contrary to what some think, dead. Now, since the latest changes, you get to spend time focusing on quality content without stuffing it with keywords. Yes, content is still the most important thing you need to provide. Keep the rest of the information, such as your agency name, and provide relevant links to your insurance website. Write about things that interest those looking for insurance, newsworthy topics that capture people’s attention.

Not into social networking? You need to be. Being involved in social networking does payoff in terms of SEO, and that is the whole point of being online —- to promote your insurance agency and get good SEO rankings. Your best social choices? Facebook and Google+. Make no mistake, Google is watching social interactions, and if your insurance agency is a part of that scene, keep up the good work.

You might hear the term “content marketing.” It’s the latest in thing to do. However, it is not new. Google has always placed a high value on active blogs and web pages that are updated often. Really the only thing you need to consider when writing insurance articles (and if you can’t write, hire it out) is what you focus on and how it should be distributed. For distribution, just frequently add fresh content to blogs and your insurance website and remember to stick with it diligently. Remember to use a wide variety of text linking to different pages on your website, not just the home page.

Ready to Quote is an insurance marketing company focusing on search engine marketing and <a href="http://www.readytoquote.com“>insurance websites. Learn more at http://www.readytoquote.com/ or call 1.800.504.8593

If you said “No,” you are not alone. Having health insurance reduces the amount that you have to pay for your medical care. Having no insurance is risky, because very few people can pay the kind of bills a major medical event triggers.

Getting health insurance quotes these days is far easier that it used to be, thanks to the internet and a few smart insurance brokers who offer you the convenience of online quote shopping. Going health insurance quote shopping is as close as your mouse, as is the ability to find affordable health insurance on the Internet.

Just think about it: you do not have to call all of the health insurance agents listed in the phone book, or go see them in their offices, not any longer. Imagine just booting up your computer and using your browser to search for an insurance website where you instantly get health insurance quotes. Yes, instantly. And they’ll be quotes that provide you a variety of viable options for affordable health insurance.

To learn more and get a health insurance quote, visit http://www.benepath.com

Luckily, most of the newest marketing methods all meld together —- mostly. You might just be able to use banner ads, provided you use them on the right kinds of sites. For example, using them on a large, extremely active, national mega-site is a potential waste of money, especially if you do business in a smaller way, and work locally. On the other hand, you can target the right people and choose the sites to match, with the help of an experienced SEO company —- one with a track record in the insurance market.

Is a banner ad appropriate for your insurance website? Are people even clicking on them anymore? The answer to those two questions are, “It may be appropriate for your marketing strategy, but you need to have that evaluated,” and “Yes, people do still click.” The main thing you need to know is who is clicking and what demographic they fall into and then figure out if that is your target market.

For instance, a recent marketing study shows those age 55 and older are more than likely to click on banners. In fact, just about 50 percent of the clicks come from this age range. However, 58 percent fall into the 15-to-24 age range. Is that your market? If you answer yes, then banner ads may work for you.

Just remember that people click for as many reasons as they choose not to click, so you need to target the placement of your marketing banner very carefully. Choosing sites on your own can be a major pain. Instead, partner with an experienced SEO company that understands the insurance market. You then have an understanding ally who can help shape your insurance marketing plan.

Ready to Quote is an insurance marketing company focusing on search engine marketing and <a href="http://www.readytoquote.com“>insurance websites. Learn more at http://www.readytoquote.com/ or call 1.800.504.8593

If you do the math, that means 33 percent of Americans, on average, use social media as their primary search method. What does that mean for your insurance website? It means that you need to be more visible in the social sense, particularly if you want to market to the younger demographic. Marketing methods are rapidly changing and you need to keep up with them if you expect to grow your business.

While you may not need to be in a great hurry to plunge into the social media stream, it’s a marketing niche that has the potential to greatly impact how you do business in the near future. Pay attention to the age range you want to embrace, what products you market and who is likely to buy them. It’s certainly not like trying to find out when the next hot movie is going to hit town or which hair salon is the trendiest, but there is food for thought in how to properly market an insurance website and products using social media.

Social media, without any doubts, is ideally suited to building bridges with prospects and colleagues —- the very same prospects and colleagues who may refer business your way. Having a strong social presence is not a deterrent, as the younger grow older and into your market demographics.

Love the idea of social media to market your insurance agency, but dislike the thought of setting up an account and trying to learn how to use it, when to use it and how to optimize it? Now is the time to find the right search engine optimization (SEO) company, with a background in marketing insurance, and partner with them, to get a leg up on the latest in marketing strategies that impact on your agency in a positive way. The world is your oyster. Time to start making plans to grab that media pearl.

Ready to Quote is an insurance marketing company focusing on search engine marketing and <a href="http://www.readytoquote.com“>insurance websites. Learn more at http://www.readytoquote.com/ or call 1.800.504.8593

The time has come for a more conversational approach, meaning plain English in words everyone understands, even if a concept may be difficult. Insurance companies need to pay attention to this latest trend, as Google is the driving force behind it, and when Google does something, you know it’s going to drive your marketing efforts.

What’s the latest? Casual verbal conversation searches. That is like asking a search engine where the nearest movie theatre is, what times the shows are, what the address is and where is the best parking near the theatre. The near future holds an interesting experience for everyone and that includes insurance agents who want to market their websites in a competitive manner. It’s the best way to stay ahead of the pack when it comes to proper search engine optimization protocol.

Casual verbal conversation searches are just like your neighbor asking you across the back fence where he can get a good set of reasonably priced tires for his 1979 Mustang. It’s people-talk, not search engine speak —- the stilted string of words used to search for something a person needs. This will have a huge impact on how people search for insurance of any kind. Instead of trying to plug in awkward terms to find out about final expense insurance or about Medicare supplements, the person doing the search can just ask something like: “Show me what I need to supplement my Medicare policy.”

The idea of a search engine responding to human-speak enquiries is exciting, but it will not happen overnight. Nonetheless, Google’s reasoning is sound. People want to communicate online the same way they talk. You only have to read a few Twitter or Facebook posts to know that. If you want to stay ahead of your competitors in the insurance marketplace, then make sure you hire a search engine optimization company that not only understands the insurance industry, but practices what it preaches. You find a company that does that, and you are set to meet the future.

Just think about how your customers may find you in the future. Imagine them Googling that they need better drug coverage, a homeowners’ policy that offers replacement, not assessed value, a car insurance policy that covers three teen drivers, and so forth. It’s a brave new world out there for insurance companies who market online. Get into the mainstream of the latest trends now, before you find your website losing traffic.

A conversational approach to searching will change key phrase research and ultimately, how an insurance website (or any website) is optimized. Make sure you work with a search engine optimization company with extensive experience in the insurance industry. Then get ready to ride the wave of success.

Ready to Quote is an insurance marketing company focusing on search engine marketing and <a href="http://www.readytoquote.com“>insurance websites. Learn more at http://www.readytoquote.com/ or call 1.800.504.8593

Your website might be the best-looking insurance website you have ever seen, but if your content is filled with industry insider jargon, things shared between others in the same profession, you’re in trouble. While the shorthand may be necessary in some instances, it is best to keep it to a bare minimum. People who want to buy insurance do not want to ready insurance lingo and not understand what it means. They want to get the point of what each policy offers, quickly, do some price comparisons, make a decision and buy something. If you confuse them upfront, you lose them — a bad thing for your business.

Industry-speak is confusing to people who do not have a reason to use various acronyms as a common part of their daily conversations. If you have an insurance website, you must tailor your content in such a way that is it understandable to everyone. Yes, you still need to adhere to search engine optimization (SEO) best practices, but that does not mean you need to eradicate all mentions of acronyms. What it does mean is you need to always aim your content at your potential customers, as that is the ideal insurance marketing guideline to convert traffic to your website.

Even though you may think that using jargon makes you look informed and knowledgeable, it only serves to drive people away, because they want the concept of insurance explained to them in plain English. You run the risk of coming across as a stuffed shirt, bursting at the seams to show people how smart you are. Visitors to your insurance website want to know you as a person, how your customer service is, whether you have a product that will suit them and if your prices are reasonable. The plain, down-to-earth kind of concerns you would have when you go searching to hire an SEO company to enhance your website and boost it in Google’s rankings.

A good SEO firm will tell you all these things and point out why being an approachable, likeable, plain speaking insurance agent with a social media, user friendly website does well in search engine rankings. And isn’t that what wanting better rankings is about —- reaching the people you want to market to?

Ready to Quote is an insurance marketing company focusing on search engine marketing and <a href="http://www.readytoquote.com“>insurance websites. Learn more at http://www.readytoquote.com/ or call 1.800.504.8593

Remember one thing though —- headlines do not need to be long, long sentences. In fact, shoot for less than eight words. If you can’t make it eight words, then try another heading. Why is this so important? The longer the heading, the higher the likelihood that search engines split it with an ellipsis, which looks really ridiculous to begin with and causes confusion for the engines. Spilt titles are difficult for a search engine to categorize properly, meaning this lowers your chances of getting a higher ranking.

Also, there is a myth about website titles. It says you should rely on using meta-tags to give your keywords that extra bit of oomph. Do not rely on just your meta-tags to trumpet your keywords. Be careful what you choose for a title because the title can affect your website more than you realize. So, ideally, you would want to list specific keywords first then add in others, the ones with a broader scope. You lead with your best keywords in the title, because search engines give them the most importance. Put another way, specific keywords used in a title often override any meta-tags you have.

One bit of good news when it comes to insurance marketing and creating and choosing titles to use online is that Google can handle up to 70 characters and not split the title. So long as the title does not go over 70 characters, the whole thing is displayed. This isn’t to suggest that longer titles are good, as shorter ones tend to be more effective and capture people’s attention.

If you want your insurance website to start acting like it is a force to be reckoned with, hire the right search engine optimization (SEO) company that also offers clean, clear and crisp website design, highly effective and ethical SEO techniques and top notch professionalism. It’s the best investment your insurance agency will ever make.

Ready to Quote is an insurance marketing company focusing on search engine marketing and <a href="http://www.readytoquote.com“>insurance websites. Learn more at http://www.readytoquote.com/ or call 1.800.504.8593

There is a famous myth in the search engine optimization (SEO) industry, or rather, people have the following impression about search engine optimization results —- that the minute they get their website optimized, it will shoot to number one spot on the first page of Google’s search engine results. Nothing could be further from the truth, unless you hire a company that uses black hat methods that only return short spurt rankings, which typically only last about a week, if that. Not to mention the fact that with the latest tweaking in algorithms, such sites would be dead in the water.

It is true that an active and tailored SEO plan for your insurance marketing does return great benefits for your company. It can drive traffic to your site, make social networks sit up and notice you, get your insurance agency’s name in the news and likely pull you on to the first page of Google. This does not happen in 24 or even 48 hours. SEO plans are well built, consistent, persistent and return results over time. You need patience to see those results and to watch them grow steadily. Bonus? The bonus is that building a slow and steady increase in page ranking with a quality SEO plan keeps your agency in a good spot for a long time.

It’s all about steady, refined, relevant websites and content that appeals to your about-to-be-customers. You want to build your results over time and make sure they stay right up where you want them. This is important for new insurance websites. For older sites with a history on the web, the process is a bit different, but nonetheless, still dramatic if you have lost ranking. For instance, if your website has been around for about five or more years, and is now in the back pages of Google, your site content can be properly optimized according to the newer web requirements. Add in a number of credible links and you will see almost immediate results.

Remember, Google’s algorithm, even with all the recent tweaking, is focused on quality. That makes sense when you consider that in order to stay profitable, Google needs a large audience searching the Internet. People do not appreciate spammy sites, or garbage content. Google knows this and strives to weed out the “rest” of the herd that needs culling, leaving in the “best” results for users. Google rules will get even stricter over time. It’s important to have a company that knows what it’s doing to not only design your insurance website, but keep a sharp eye on content and build you a better SEO plan to grow your online business.

You’ve maybe tried other companies and discovered you did not get what you wanted and needed to boost your site ranking. Try the company who has over a quarter of a century of insurance business under their belt. They’ll get you results.

Ready to Quote is an insurance marketing company focusing on search engine marketing and <a href="http://www.readytoquote.com“>insurance websites. Learn more at http://www.readytoquote.com/ or call 1.800.504.8593

People buy things from your insurance website because they feel they know you, appreciate your experience, your education, credentials, your style of writing and explaining insurance policies or they like your smile. Whatever the reason people do buy insurance from you, you can be certain it was not your logo or the pictures of the inside of your office. People like dealing with people. It’s the personal touch that makes a difference.

In short, you do not want your insurance website to end up being a buffer or barrier between you and your potential customers. You want it to be an extension of who you are. This is even more important if you have more than one insurance agent on staff. Each person that deals with the public needs to be known. You want everyone in the office to be a part of your online presence.

If you want to score large in the insurance industry, you make sure people know who you are personally. Your hobbies, the organizations you belong to, why you chose to sell Medicare supplements or car insurance or term life insurance or health insurance. You want them to see you doing the things you love, even if that is riding a horse in back country trails. The real you is what you want to convey to potential customers.

In sharing a part of who you are with those who visit your insurance website, you have opened the door to more personal contact; heightened the potential for visitors to stay and get to know you and buy something. By showing people who you are, the real you, you have a cutting edge advantage over your competition, because you become more personable, approachable and someone people want to know better. The advantages to this strategy? You likely sell more insurance. It does not get any better than that.

Ready to Quote is an insurance marketing company focusing on search engine marketing and <a href="http://www.readytoquote.com“>insurance websites. Learn more at http://www.readytoquote.com/ or call 1.800.504.8593

You spend hundreds of hours making sure you get people to your website. You want the business and you have good products to offer. You have a really professional and clean site that is easy to navigate and had relevant content. So far, so good. What about links? Having relevant and quality links helps you get high quality traffic. In fact, you may even see an increase in traffic to your URL.

So, what happens when visitors land on your insurance website? Do your visitors stay on your site? Are they reading your content, articles and news items? Are they contacting you or just scanning a page or two and then leaving? In short, are they being engaged enough to stay on your site?

Keeping visitors happy offers you two benefits. The longer someone stays on your site, the higher the chances they will buy something — or convert from a surfer to a buyer. If people needing insurance find the information they want on your site, their opinion of that site goes up and you are likely to get a phone call or contact email. It’s a simple equation really; have good content that speaks to people and they will remember you and recommend you. Good content is so very crucial these days, even more so in light of Google’s constantly changing algorithms.

While you might be able to tell how high a bounce rate you have for your website, the information does not tell you how people react to your web pages. Did they read the whole page? Just scroll down? Just read certain content? Leave your site by clicking on a link you provided? This is information you need to know to tweak your insurance website.

How in the world do you keep track of that kind of information? First, you need a search engine optimization company that knows what it’s doing, one with overwhelmingly outstanding hands-on experience in the insurance industry. They have the information you need, the skills to help you get your insurance marketing kicked into high drive and the time to explain things like Google Analytics, to help you track your traffic. It doesn’t get any better than that.

In the final analysis, successful insurance websites keep their traffic on the site long enough for the surfer to call them, fill out a form or sign up for a newsletter, etc. More ways to track your traffic. It’s your business and your success. Do your website up the right way the first time.

Ready to Quote is an insurance marketing company focusing on search engine marketing and <a href="http://www.readytoquote.com“>insurance websites. Learn more at http://www.readytoquote.com/ or call 1.800.504.8593

First and foremost, your insurance marketing must be people-friendly, or “user-friendly” for those online. It must be simple, terms must be easily explained, it must be easy to read and easy to follow. While some might think that “easy” and “insurance” do not belong in the same sentence, this is a bit of a fallacy. Sure, there is technical jargon and legal jargon, but if your insurance marketing plan is what it needs to be, you have addressed those issues with aplomb. So, let’s say you have an insurance website that is really nicely laid out, easy to navigate, colorful without being the cousin to a neon sign, and offers a quote function. You’re ready to go and get traffic, or are you?

While having bells and whistles on your website, including the latest Facebook, Twitter, Google + or Pinterest connections, that does not, in and of itself, drive traffic to your website. Even the best website on the Internet must not only be properly optimized, but offer visitors relevant information that they are looking for when trying to find insurance. So while optimization is the tip of the iceberg, the underlying foundation for the site is information. As Google crawls your website, determining your site ranking, they use text content to get an appropriate rank.

These days, you are not the only insurance website online and thus, in the crush of competition for customers, you want to stand out. You already know more people shop online now, for insurance and other things, more than ever before. Knowing that, you must think strategically and position your agency as an online resource.

Simply put, should someone be looking for pertinent information to answer questions about their insurance needs, and you have that information on your site, the visitor is more likely to ask you for a quote. So, having online quoting is a bonus. Garnering a new customer begins with a properly optimized website, online quoting and offering relevant information. It doesn’t hurt to have first class insurance web design either.

It is also vitally important that the information you offer is clearly presented and thoroughly explained. No one likes to go to a website, read something and find it confusing. This drives people away. This does not mean you have to go into great detail about everything you know or sell.

It means that the policies most commonly bought from you should be clearly explained in a manner that most people will understand. If a potential buyer is comfortable with your explanation of what they are looking for, they will likely be comfortable buying a policy from you. Giving valuable information and answering questions also positions you as an expert in your field. Bonus.

Want to get the best of service anywhere to improve your website ranking? Find a search engine optimization company with serious experience in the insurance industry. They know what you need.

Ready to Quote is an insurance marketing company focusing on search engine marketing and <a href="http://www.readytoquote.com“>insurance websites. Learn more at http://www.readytoquote.com/ or call 1.800.504.8593

Take a long, hard look at your insurance website. Do you like what you see? Does your staff like it? Do your customers like it? How does it compare to your nearest competition? These are hard questions to answer, as a website is a personal thing and as it was developed, there were parts of you that went into making it what it is today. However, you need to stand back and regard it from the point of view of a visitor to your site. It might not be as wonderful as you think it is. It’s time for some serious introspection about your insurance marketing goals.

First things first. Leads are the lifeblood of an insurance agency. No leads, no customers. No customers, no income. Your website needs to garner leads that will convert. That does not just mean having your contact information on the site. It means a lot more, like a good search engine optimization (SEO) campaign, one that draws traffic to your website. Once you have the traffic, you can get leads and from those leads, you can do quotes. While it sounds simple, you may be surprised to know that we hear from a number of insurance agencies wondering why their websites just do not bring in the traffic they need to grow their business.

While they may have a nice site, it may be old, out-of-date, built on a different platform, not properly optimized, or it does not load quickly, or have social media or even an instant quoting function. Yesterday’s websites are losing ground, if not vanishing entirely. In order to have an up-to-the-minute insurance website, you want to get as many targeted visitors as possible. Targeting your visitors begins with the right kind of SEO campaign, a revamped or new insurance website and a steady, controlled marketing strategy aimed at your target audience. For instance, if you specialize in selling Medicare supplements to seniors, you likely are not interested in students in college. Focusing your campaign is critical to your website’s success.

Back to the quoting function for a second: It’s crucial to have a quote request form readily accessible on every page of your website, not just the home page. For instance, instead of just having a Medicare supplement information page and a Medicare supplement quote page, ensure that there is a short contact form on the Medicare supplement page, which offers a visitor to your site the choice of filling out a detailed Medicare supplement request on the quote page. Of course, by offering quotes online, you must have secure pages for the collection of private information. All this is part and parcel of effective insurance website design.

If you want the traffic to grow your business, find an SEO partner with serious experience in the insurance industry. They know their stuff and it looks good on you.

Ready to Quote is an insurance marketing company focusing on search engine marketing and <a href="http://www.readytoquote.com“>insurance websites. Learn more at http://www.readytoquote.com/ or call 1.800.504.8593

Okay, what is the bottom line in insurance marketing? You want to make your business a huge success. To do that, you need a clean, crisp and professional image online. You need a professional website that has the latest changes in coding, the hottest new plug-ins, a dynamic blog, news releases that are relevant to your customers and articles that have fresh content in them updated on your site at least once a month. Don’t have the time to do that? Hire it out.

Find a search engine optimization company that also has solid experience in the insurance industry, and start asking what they can do for you to help you make your presence known on the Internet. The answer is they can do a lot, starting with evaluating your existing site for upgrade potential, comparing it to your competition, checking the code it is built on, explaining new tags out there to help categorize your content for search engines and offering you a cohesive team that does their thing in the background – from start to successful finish.

Over time, your insurance website will start to move from where it is now to a better spot on page one of Google’s search engine results. Keep in mind that this kind of movement does not happen overnight. It’s like trying to lose weight fast. It takes time and effort. Such is also the case with search engine optimization. It takes time to build a proper website that reflects who you are and what your business is all about. It takes time to choose the right keywords and then use them properly to get honestly earned recognition from the search engines.

If you want fast, down and dirty results, you can go that route, but usually two things happen. The first is you peak fast and only stay up for about a week. The black hat methods only work for the short term. The second thing likely to happen is, if you are caught using some of the less-than-ethical methods of boosting your website rankings, your site is yanked. Why waste time and money on a flash in the pan, when you could invest in a stable future with a skilled SEO company that takes the time and builds your site and rankings with care, due diligence and integrity.

Ready to Quote is aninsurance marketing company. ReadytoQuote.com specializes in marketing insurance websites online. Learn more at ReadytoQuote.com.