How to Make Your Independent Agency Website A Great. Sales & Service Resource

Transcription

1 How to Make Your Independent Agency Website A Great Sales & Service Resource 1

2 CONTENTS What Your Website Can Do... 3 Make It Attractive... 5 Make It Findable... 7 Make It Actionable Make it Educational Know How You re Doing

3 What Your Website Can Do A website is a beautiful thing. It is the storefront to your online clients and prospects, and it can do a lot for your independent insurance agency. Through your website, you can easily connect with clients to answer questions and concerns, bolstering your customer service. You can also provide easy online tools, like change requests, claim filing and printable certificates of insurance, to make it easier for you and your clients to get work done. Besides serving as a great service resource for clients, your website is also an effective sales tool. Your agency s website can be used to capture new leads through online quote requests, and effectively communicate your agency s commitment to serving your clients needs through blog posts and testimonials. However, you get out of your website only what you put in. 3

4 In this eguide, we ll cover ways to make your agency s website into an effective tool for your clients and a great prospect resource for your future clients. With these tips, you ll find out how to make your website attractive, and how to get future clients there, boosting your business and your client reputation. 4

5 Make it Attractive When a client sees your website, they are gathering information to answer the question: Can I trust them? Show potential clients your agency is a trustworthy partner! You ll need a few key elements. Attractive, Responsive Design First impressions are important. Stay away from large blocks of text, avoid clutter, and make sure your site is built so that it can easily adjust for mobile use. Easy Navigation Organize your site in a logical manner. If a user can t find what they re looking for, they are likely to get frustrated and leave. Research shows the longer a user is on a website, the more likely they are to make a purchase or request more information. 5

6 Valuable Information Great websites give users exactly what they re looking for, and none of what they re not. Provide access to things that make life easier, like online quoting or claim filing. Be careful about putting too much information in one place, however, as it can look cluttered and be overwhelming. Strong Call to Action With a strong call to action, you bring users along in the buying or lead capturing process. A good call to action effectively uses size, shape, color, placement and wording to get the message across and compel users to take the next step. 6

7 Make It Findable No matter how great your website is, it doesn t mean much if it can t be found. Most potential clients will do an online search for independent insurance agents in their area and, if you want to be on that list, you ll need to use the right tools to optimize your site for search. There are many ways to optimize your agency s site, but we ll focus on three of the most efficient ways for independent insurance agencies: 7

8 Backlinks Search engines have many ways of judging reputable websites, and one of the most common is the number of reputable sites linking to it. You can gain links by asking for them from business partners or networking groups or by writing great content that valuable sites want to share. Just Pinterest be careful about which sites pick up your posts. While gaining links from reputable sites bolsters your searchability, links from poorly-ranked sites Google+ Twitter Visual.ly can hurt your online reputation. Slideshare Press Releases Business 2 Community Social Media Social media brings you a double benefit: additional links each time you post a link to your site, and presence outside of a search engine. To experience success, ensure you are posting quality content and you re Seedly YouTube posting often. The better and more relevant your posts, the more likely they are to be shared, bringing you even more quality links to boost your search engine ranking. Local Listings Directories Industry Facebook LinkedIn Pulse Guest blogs 8

9 Local Focus The best way to get local search traffic is by adding locality to your website s page titles. When search engines look at your pages, they ll focus on these titles first. Simply adding Columbus or Ohio to the titles of your pages will boost your credibility for an insurance Ohio search. Also, make sure your address is included in the footer on every page of your site the more your agency s name and its location are found together on the web, the more likely your site will pop up when someone searches for a local insurance agency You should also list your website on local listing sites like Google+ Local, Yelp, Bing Places, Internet Yellow Pages, and Yahoo! Local. This will again link your agency name with your location another place. 9

10 Make It Actionable By giving your clients the content they want, you will also attract other agencies and industry leaders, thus increasing your site s reach. The first step is to know who you re reaching. Ask questions like: Where do my clients and potential clients live? How old are they? Do they spend more time on their phone or their computer? What challenges do they face? What information can my agency share to help them? 10

11 Once you ve honed in on who your audience is, start thinking about what they need. Here are a few popular content items that you should consider adding to your website: FAQ section Online quoting and claim filing Links to online raters Online change requests Printable certificates of insurance With all of these content items, be sure to include a strong call to action. This is typically placed at the end of a page and in the last step of any online process, telling the user what to do next. To help generate leads, you can include a contact an agent or share this quote anything you can do to try and capture user information. 11

12 Make It Educational According to a recent study, 78% of consumers see custom content as a sign that an organization wants to build a good relationship with them. One of the best ways to give great educational content is through blogging. Social Media Today showed organizations with blogs generate 67% more leads than those that don t, making it well worth your time to write a weekly or bi-monthly blog. You can easily generate blog content by: Jotting down notes as clients ask questions or have concerns and address those questions: you will soon find you have a steady stream of inspiration Making your blog personable: Highlight staff members, clients and local events Sharing industry tips and tricks that can be picked up and shared by other sites: 78% 78% of consumers see custom content as a sign that an organization wants to build a good relationship with them this increases your reach, and your links, boosting your online reputation LEAD GENERATION 12 organizations with blogs organizations without blogs

13 Know How You re Doing Your site, like your agency, is unique, and what works for others may not work for you and your client base. To find out what does work, you ll need to set up and monitor specific site analytics. Analytics are a way to measure different aspects of your site, such as how users found your site, how long they stay on each page, and how many unique visitors you get each month. Monitoring analytics help you judge your site s effectiveness. When gathering analytics you should look at stats that answer the following questions: HOW is your site found? These stats help you determine the different ways current and potential clients find your site. Direct visits: Users who typed your website into their address bar or have it saved as a bookmark Organic visits: Users who came to your site through unpaid search results Referral visits: Users sent to your site by other sites (i.e. insurance raters, blogs, etc.) Top non-branded keywords: Keywords that send people to your site. These do not include your agency s name, but are something like auto insurance Ohio. 13

14 WHERE do users go? These categories let you know which pages are attracting users and what they re doing on these pages. Top landing pages: Top visited pages: Bounce rate: This is when Percent exit: Similar to These are the pages Shows which pages are a user visits your site and bounce rate, this shows through which users enter visited most often, and for leaves without interacting the percent of users who your site. Direct visits are the longest length of time. with a page. leave your site from a usually to the home page, specific page. but search and referral visits could send users to other pages like Request a Quote or About Us. 14

15 WHERE, WHEN and HOW OFTEN do users contact you? These stats are usually found through: Number contact forms completed Most effective call to action Percent total site visitors completing a form Most effective day and time for completed forms Google Analytics is a great free tool for tracking your site s stats, or you can ask your site s administrator if they provide analytics. Regardless of which you use, have a professional look over your stats to analyze them and provide advice on how you can improve your site s look, usability and reach. 15

16 Through implementing these tactics to make your website attractive, findable and actionable, you ll be on your way to bolstering your online reputation. This feeds in to your offline reputation as well, and will help create buzz about your agency s commitment to serving your clients. Other great contacts to help improve your site are those in your agency management systems user group. We at SIS know the importance of connecting with other agency owners, and our NASPA user group is always buzzing with new ideas. To find out more about NASPA, and the latest updates to Partner XE, contact us today! attractive, findable and actionable 16

17 About SIS Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, Strategic Insurance Software (SIS) is the team behind Partner XE an innovative web-based insurance agency management system that helps independent agencies streamline workflow and grow their business. Built on a foundation of strong technology and exceptional service, we re moving forward with a constant eye on innovation that will make independent agents lives easier. About Partner XE Supporting downloads from nearly 300 carriers, real time interaction, integrated agency accounting, and much more, Partner XE is a full-featured agency management system at an affordable cost for the independent insurance agency. For more information, please visit Arlingate Plaza, Columbus, Ohio