You Have an Insurance Website, but Nobody Came!

Are You Attracting Internet Insurance Website Visitors?

When I tell agents that I am involved in internet insurance marketing, the common comment I get is that their own website does not really work for them. They may hae buiilt it themself, using an online website builder. They may have spent hundreds, or even thousands of dollars getting a web designer to build it for them. Or they may have a website from their company that is similar to hundres of other agent websites provided by their company. Of course, some website building solutions are better than others, but the results can be dismal if the agents are not willing to take an extra step.

Why Don't the Websites Work for The Insurance Agents?

There can be a lot of problems with any sort of website. But the common problem that agents have is that they do not get any visitors. After they have shown their brand new domain to their friends, family, and current clients, they find that it really does not do a good job of attracting new clients from the world wide web.

Search Engine Traffic

Most internet traffic is generated through search engines like Google, Yahoo, or MSN (Bing). There are paid listings, and these can be very expensive in the insurance verticle. There are also the so-called free (or organic) listings that are generated from keyword searches. But these listing are very full, and a common insurance term search can generate thousands of results.

In my experience, if your own page is not returned on the first page, it might as well be on the 100th page. Few internet surfers really page through the search results. If they do not find the results they want on the front page, they will simply reprhase the query.

Your own search engine position depends upon a couple of factors, but the business of getting a website to rank better for a given query is called search engine optimization (SEO). This is a complex subject, and it is not made any easier by the fact that major search engine companies keep changing the way they rank websites. Still, if you can concentrate on onsite and offsite keyword ranking factors, or hire somebody who can, you are certain to have a better time getting found in the search engine results!

Online Website Promotion

There are, of course, other ways to promote your own website. You can use online article and link directories (like this one), press releases, and links from other websites. If you participate in any forums or social websites, you may be able to include a link back to your business site.

Offline Promotion

If you send out emails, be sure to link to your website in your signature. Include it on your business card and other print materials.

Making an insurance website is only half the battle (or less). You must also take steps to tell the internet about it, and that is website promotion!