Picking the right SEO firm and marketing plan for your online endeavours can be a particularly difficult challenge if you’re working for or are running an insurance agency. I consult to a number of insurance agents and through my lead generation program, I probably speak to at least 200 insurance professionals a month. More than most SEO practitioners out there. I’m aware of the many challenges captive and independent agents deal with on a daily basis in terms of getting their business more local exposure.

Before we get too deep into this post, I want make one thing clear. I’ve tried to make this post as light and as succinct as possible. If we were to get into the “nitty gritty” of every situation, this post would extend to a multi-post series. If you have specific questions or concerns, pick up the phone and call me and I’ll be happy to help you with any questions you have about this post or issues you have with marketing your insurance agency locally.

Let’s get to it.

Are you a captive or independent agent/agency?

Whether you’re looking for an SEO firm, have an SEO firm or you’re doing your own SEO, it’s incumbent upon you or your current firm to know what the difference is and how this impacts your bottom line. If I had to name the number one issue that I have seen in failed local marketing campaigns for insurance agents, it’s a poor understanding of specific keywords that relate to the agency. As an SEO practitioner, it starts with understanding what the insurance agent does, what they sell and who they service.

Whether you’re an independent or captive agent, each scenario comes with its own unique challenges for marketing online. Does your current SEO firm know this? If they don’t know the difference, they could be wasting part of your marketing dollars.

Think about it logically. The way a Farmer’s Bureau agent markets herself online will be totally different than an agent that can write with over 10 different insurers/carriers. If your SEO firm doesn’t know the difference and they haven’t positioned you correctly online, you may have an issue. It’s starts with extensive keyword research as it relates to your locality and your business.

Do you want more preferred/standard business or non-standard business?

If you’re a captive agent with State Farm, you’re more than likely going to prefer targeting standard/preferred clientele online.

Some agents I speak with don’t care about what kind of customers they attract and some do. For example, if you’re writing for insurance companies that don’t have good rates for non-standard customers, you’re going to want to stay away from keywords that typify non-standard customers. There’s no point in speaking to the prospect if you have zero chance of writing the policy. Correct? Again, this is an issue I’ve seen many times on previously managed SEO campaigns that I’ve taken over. Some SEO firms simply use the “shotgun approach” and isolate high volume keyword terms that make no difference to the insurance agency’s bottom line.

We’re going to talk a little more about it later in the post but if you’re wanting more standard/preferred customers, you’re going to want to stay away from managed campaigns by Dex, Yellow Pages, Google AdWords and sources like NetQuotes.

What is your specialty in the insurance industry?

Do you sell more personal or commercial lines? Do you prefer to sell auto and home insurance? Depending on where you are, there are probably at least 5 other insurance agents that sell comparable products to what you sell. What separates you from them? Do you have or have you considered a marketing plan that isolates your abilities so you can dominate your local market?

What language does your customer speak?

One of the more overlooked factors that count for insurance agencies is understanding their local market and their current metrics. If 20% of your customer base is Hispanic and you’ve made no effort to market to them, doesn’t it makes sense to inquire and research the possibility of attracting more of these individuals from your community? A good SEO firm worth their salt should be able to find unique local opportunities that will put you in a position to attract more members of the local community. This is an overlooked factor in SEO that so many people get wrong.

Do Pay Per Click managed campaigns from Google Adwords, Yellow Pages, Dex Media and others work for local insurance agents?

The short answer is no. Are there exceptions? Yes but the exceptions usually distinguish themselves by investing a huge amount of time into their pay per click campaigns and most insurance agency owners I know don’t have the time or expertise for this.

In the image below, I’ve highlighted the paid sections in red and the organic sections in green. Generally speaking, your best bang for your buck is if you invest in getting your insurance agency to appear within the green section consistently.

The very customer that clicks the ads sections (red) are the very customers that are statistically more difficult to retain on a yearly basis. To generalize, these customers in many cases are impulse buyers that are easily distracted. Logically speaking, they responded to the loud ad that says “Hey I can save you money!” and that is the same customer that will respond to another advance by another agency that saves them $50 on a yearly auto insurance policy.

What Google Adwords and Yellow Pages don’t want you to know is that 88% of customers look farther down (in the green section) in the page results and prefer to click organic listings. The majority of these customers trust the results in the green section far more than the ads in the red section. So if I’m running your insurance SEO campaign, this is the area that I’m targeting for you.

Now there’s always exceptions to the rules but if I’m in the insurance business, I’m going to try to stay away from any sort of paid lead or paid click. The main reason is that words associated with the insurance industry are the most expensive keywords online. I’ve researched insurance keywords that cost upwards of $55 a click. On a local campaign level, you’re not going to have to pay these prices but it doesn’t change the fact it can be very costly to run a Google Adwords campaign on a local level for your insurance agency.

Does PPC (Pay Per Click) work? Absolutely it works. It’s my observation that it is not smart to spend lots of money on Google Adwords or any other PPC for local marketing as it relates to the insurance industry. Of course the scenario changes if you’re working on a corporate or national level. We’ll discuss that in another post. Statistically speaking, your best customers are going to come from clicking the organic results and those are the customers you’re more likely going to be able to retain, year in year out.

Yellow Pages managed campaigns for insurance agents

Probably the biggest complaint I hear from insurance agency owners is from the bad experiences they’ve had with paid Yellow Pages campaigns. Some of these programs start at $300 a month and can go into the thousands of dollars a month depending on the options you choose.

Listing all the reasons why Yellow Pages online management programs don’t work for 95% of insurance agents is a subject for another post but I’ll try and break down the main reasons:

– What your Yellow Pages rep probably isn’t going to tell you is that Yellow Pages has been a dying platform for many years. Because Yellow Pages isn’t able to generate enough traffic on their own, they’re forced to buy clicks from Google and advertise in the red section listed above. As I mentioned before, these aren’t the customers that will come with a very good retention rate for most insurance agencies.

– The rep that sold you your Yellow Pages marketing plan is not the same person that manages it. In most cases, the Yellow Pages rep doesn’t know or has not spoken to the person that runs your program.

– There’s a tendency for the campaign manager to group all insurance agents together regardless of various local factors. In others words, you’re getting a cookie cutter plan that probably won’t work for you. Are you exactly the same as every other insurance agent out there? If you’re not, why should you get the same plan that Yellow Pages offers every insurance agent?

– Because you’re paying Yellow Pages to run your campaign, you’re paying a hidden management fee that most Yellow Pages reps don’t speak about or may not know about. According to my math, Yellow Pages ad rates are anywhere from 250% to as high as 1500% higher than Google Adword pay per click rates. So not only are you paying for a campaign manger that doesn’t know you from any other insurance agency but you’re paying exorbitant rates to do it. Not a good deal.

– Some of the strangest and most obtuse questions I’ve ever heard asked at Adwords or pay per click seminars are by Yellow Pages campaign reps. You don’t want someone going to battle for you online that doesn’t know how to old a sword. Competency is crucial.

There’s a lot more to it than this

This is a small fraction of what needs to be considered while creating a local SEO program for an insurance agency. There are many many more factors than this.

Remember this; whoever you choose, make sure they understand you and what makes you different from the ten other insurance agents within 15 miles of you. When you consider that your prospects are evaluating your website and marketing plan in as little as 4 to 14 seconds, it’s important to have a firm that can define your unique selling proposition.

If you’re an insurance agent that would like to share your experiences with local SEO, please feel free to comment below. Thanks.