Insurance is not the most glamorous subject in the world. It doesn’t always offer the most exciting ideas for promotion – unless you get lucky enough to have someone like Flo as the face of your insurance agency. Whether you are part of a captive or non-captive agency structure, it is absolutely crucial for your future growth to have a significant online presence. 67.1% of consumers use the internet to find their next insurance provider and that number is expected to raise to 78% by 2017.

On the other hand, insurance is a product that everyone needs, making it a highly competitive market. Of all the online market segments we compete within online at Influence Online Marketing, insurance agency marketing offers the greatest challenges for us and our clients to rank consistently. Insurance agency online (local SEO) marketing is particularly difficult due to the level of local and national competition; every local market is saturated with large national carriers advertising at the top of the search results in the paid results. Combine this with the 3 State Farm agents around the corner from you, separating your agency from the local competition can be particularly difficult. This is what I call the “double whammy” effect for the insurance industry; very few industries have this unique challenge. Creating effective strategies to market your agency over the competition is a must to stay alive. Here are the top four ways to promote your insurance agency online:

1. Consider New and Long-Tail Keywords

Think past the traditional keywords in the insurance industry. If you are a new agency, you won’t be able to compete with the big companies for keywords such as car insurance or home insurance. However, if you target a more specific audience with long-tail keywords, you may find it easier to get to the top of the results.

A long-tail keyword contains at least four or five words. For example, someone who owns a Ford Explorer might look up “Ford Explorer car insurance” or “auto insurance for a Ford Explorer.” You can see how being more specific and including more keywords could help you rank better in searches. If your agency is in a rural community, ranking well for (Ford) “F150 insurance rates” can mean a considerable increase in the amount of local prospects you can attract. The key is to choose words that get enough searches but not a lot of competition.

2. Get Recognized Locally

Insurance is one of the areas where many people still like to shop locally. Include your company on local directories to help improve your visibility. Directories such as Yelp can draw attention to your agency in local searches. It also gives you a quality link back to your website, which improves your ranking for search engines.

Make sure your agency is listed with Google Places (Google My Business; Google’s local search component), too. City search sites are important since many people use them even if they plan to visit in person or call the company. This increases your visibility for people who won’t visit your website.

3. Become an Authority

Content marketing has become a crucial part of any business’ online presence. By creating quality content on subjects directly related to your insurance agency, you increase the level of trust that consumers have with you while improving your rankings with Google and other search engines. In addition, you dramatically increase the chances of your agency appearing in obscure search terms that many of your local competitors may have missed.

4. Learn How to Get Links

Links are another method that the search engines use to rank a website’s value. If other, high-quality websites link to your site, it is basically a vote of confidence for you. It can take time to get links, but there are several ways to go about it.

Look at local city or county websites and your Chamber of Commerce. Many times, these sites include a page of resources for local residents. If you offer homeowner’s insurance, talk with the local real estate agents to see if your insurance agency can be mentioned on their sites with a link back to yours.

A common question at a used car lot is related the price for insurance for certain vehicles. Many used car lots are interested in being affiliated with an insurance agency that can offer the best rates for their new clients because in some circumstances, it can mean the difference between a sale and the customer walking away. Therefore, talking to car sales people about linking to your website is a powerful way to improve your rankings as well as dramatically improving the quality of traffic that visits your website. A prospect that is buying a used/new vehicle pending the right insurance rate can ultimately be a fast converting customer that may result in a long term customer that can be up-sold to other services you offer.

Partner with companies that offer complimentary services and have a strong online presence. It not only gives you another link back to your site, but it also increases your visibility to potential customers. It also enhances the trust factor if you are associated with another company the customers already trust.

Of all the tactics we execute at Influence Online Marketing, attracting authority links to our client’s websites is the single most powerful way to improve the visibility of an insurance agency. This is an incredibly time consuming tactic that should be left to the abilities of a professional.

You can find a lot of tips and tricks to improve the ranking for your website. However, many of those will work only for a short time or stop working with the next Google update. These four methods are solid, tried and true options that prove your credibility and enhance your reputation in the online world.