If you’re an insurance agent, you know how important it is to have a strong online presence. In fact, just last year, 44% of Americans surveyed said that they purchased their insurance online. However, simply having a website isn’t good enough. After all, there is a lot of competition out there! So, how can you cut through the noise? The following are five marketing tips that can help drive more traffic to your agency’s website and increase the effectiveness of your social media accounts.

1. Post regular, relevant blogs. Search engine-optimized (SEO) blogs are an easy way to organically drive traffic to your agency’s website. In fact, posting blogs remains the most important content marketing strategy for increasing click-through rates on a website. In addition, blogs are also a good way to communicate your products and services to existing and potential consumers. Publishing regular blogs that are of high quality and based on topics of interest to your target audience can make a big difference in how your website ranks in search engines.

2. Integrate real-time quoting. Consumers who are shopping for insurance are looking for instant quotes. They also want to be able to purchase the coverage they need without having to walk into an agency or wait for a callback from an insurance agent. If you haven’t already done so, now is the time to integrate a real-time quoting program onto your website. In addition, having an online quoting process can free up time for you and your staff to focus on other marketing and customer service tasks.

3. Utilize a crawl app for social media listening. Social media is a great tool for engaging with customers and prospects. But did you know that you can use social media to listen to what customers and prospects are saying about your agency? This process is called social media listening, and it is meant to help you keep up with customers, prospects and your competitors — without having to physically monitor your online accounts 24/7. Crawl apps “crawl” through social media platforms for any mention of your agency and possible keywords associated with your brand. It then sends you an alert so you can follow up on potential warm leads as well as interact with existing customers.

4. Make a visual impact with infographics. As a complement to written content, such as blogs, consider using the eye-catching medium of infographics. Today, infographics are still a very effective way to communicate complex information in a quick and easy-to-understand manner. An example of infographics can be flowcharts that explain processes such as how a specific insurance product works. Other ideas can include comparison infographics that visually compare the similarities and differences of various types insurance, such as life. Statistical infographics are useful in highlighting specific statistics that may become lost or overlooked on a website, longer article or blog post.

5. Get comfortable with SEO. Search engine optimization is a method of enhancing your agency’s website so it can organically achieve a higher ranking in search engines. Simply put, SEO can help improve your website’s visibility and drive more traffic to your site. The process works by increasing the chance of having your agency’s listing move closer to the top positions in major search engines — deciding which webpage will pop up first, second, etc. The topic of SEO can seem complex. If you don’t have the know-how or time to implement SEO on your website or in the content you produce, enlist the help of a marketing firm that specializes in the insurance industry.

About FastrackCE
Need to complete your insurance continuing education credits before the end of the year? Don’t panic! FastrackCE can help you get all your life and health and property and casualty continuing education credits done in one place and at your convenience. We offer online insurance continuing education courses in most states, covering a broad range of topics, including most of the state-mandated courses such as ethics, flood, long-term care and annuity training.