Insurance SEO: The Basics, Why It’s Important, And How We Can Help

As an insurance agent or the owner of an insurance agency, you know that what determines success in the insurance industry is how you can stand above the competition.

There are many ways to stand out among your competition. One of the best ways to to invest in an SEO strategy. SEO is one of the most powerful methods of marketing your business, but it’s often underutilized.

The reason is simple–for someone that doesn’t know much about online marketing or doesn’t have much experience, SEO can be an intimidating topic. It’s hard to know exactly how to talk to search engine bots and execute advanced SEO strategies.

Luckily, Lombardo Digital Marketing is here to help with your insurance agency’s website. We provide leading solutions for insurance agencies and insurance agents to ensure that whenever a client searches “insurance agency near me” in your area, your insurance agency website shows up #1 in the search results.

So, what are you waiting for? Are you ready to dominate your local market? If so, keep reading as we outline step-by-step what you need to do in order to outrank the competition and grow your agency exponentially in the next 12 months with an SEO strategy from Lombardo Digital Marketing.

What is SEO?

Before we dive in, it might be useful for us to explain what we mean by SEO. SEO is just an acronym–it stands for Search Engine Optimization. Search engine optimization is the process of optimizing a website to be visible in the search results for Google, Bing, and other major search engines. You can see the impact of SEO and an increased presence in the search engine results page by checking tools such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console.

Here’s what that looks like:

The goal here is to be able to show up in the local 3-pack and in the top 3 of the regular search results, as well. This can be challenging in highly competitive markets, but you can imagine the importance of the SEO process effort.

With high search rankings, you will naturally start to notice more web traffic, more conversions, and more phone calls as you cater to search intent. Thus, SEO efforts represent a marketing opportunity that can have lasting results.

One of the unique challenges that an SEO campaign represents is that you can’t just buy rankings. Yes, you can purchase ads to place yourself at the top of the search results, but it will always be marked advertisement. Being a true master of the organic search results takes time and investment, along with a familiarity with search engine algorithms. But it’s worth it! A successful SEO strategy can truly transform your entire business.

At its core, SEO is a marketing strategy. It’s technical, visual, and a unique marketing skill. If you want to invest in SEO, there’s a lot that you need to know. But the first thing is that it is the process of making a website more search-friendly. Now, we can dive into more details and what this all means for your insurance business or for independent insurance agents.

Insurance SEO Checklist for Beginners (Do It Yourself)

It’s not recommended to try and deploy an SEO strategy yourself if you are not experienced. The reason is that if you do something wrong, you could incur a severe penalty against your site from Google. This could result in your site gaining little or no traffic.

However, if you insist on doing SEO on your site yourself, there are some basic things that you can do in order to help your chances of ranking higher in the search results.

# 1: Sign up for Google Search Console

The single best thing that you can do for your site to improve SEO is to sign up for Google Search Console. Google Search Console is a free service provided by Google that gives website owners insights into how their site is performing in the search results.

This includes information on what keywords your site is ranking for, how many impressions and clicks you’re getting, what position your site is in, and whether there are any issues with your site that Google has identified. It’s crucial for gauging search engine visibility and understanding how you can drive more traffic to your insurance website or Google Business profile.

Google Search Console is essential for any insurance company website that wants to rank higher in the search results, and it’s something that you can do right now for free. Just go to Google.com/webmasters and sign up for an account. You can conduct the keyword research process to optimize for terms that you see your insurance products popping up for frequently in local searches.

#2: Build Free Backlinks

Once you have Google Search Console set up, the next thing that you need to do is start building backlinks to your site. Backlinks are simply links from other websites to your website.

Google uses backlinks as a signal of the quality of your site. The logic is that if other websites are linking to your site, then you must be doing something right.

Of course, not all backlinks are created equal. A link from a high-quality website will carry more weight than a link from a low-quality website.

There are many ways to build backlinks, but the simplest and most effective way is to reach out to other website owners and ask them for a link. This is called link building, and it’s a very important part of any SEO campaign.

If you’re not experienced in link building, then it’s best to hire an experienced SEO professional to help you. Building the wrong backlinks could be harmful to your website rather than helpful.

#3: Write Frequent Blog Posts

Another great way to improve your website’s SEO is to write blog posts on a regular basis. This is called content marketing. Google loves fresh content, and a well-written blog post can help your website rank higher in the search results. Using SEO tools to optimize your posts for relevant keywords and other targeted keywords is very important for generating website traffic.

Not only that, but a blog is a great way to build backlinks to your website. You can include a link to your website in the blog post, and other websites can link to your blog post if they find it interesting or useful. This can generate even more insurance leads and lead to increased positive reviews and online reviews, all without using marketing budget on paid advertising.

If you don’t have time to write blog posts yourself, you can hire a freelance writer to do it for you. Just make sure that they are experienced in SEO and understand how to properly optimize a blog post for the search engines to attract local clients.

Now that you have some actionable tips on improving your site’s visibility in search engine results, you can get to work on helping your insurance agency’s online presence thrive.

What Does an Insurance Agent Need to Know About SEO & Search Engines?

Okay–so now you know a bit more about SEO and why so many businesses invest in SEO as a strategy. But what does this mean for an insurance agent?

The answer to that is: it means everything! SEO is the lifeblood of many local and regional businesses, and it can be an incredibly successful strategy for you, too.

Any insurance agent or agency that wants to have success at the local level should make investing in SEO a priority for their business. Here are some of the key concepts that you will want to understand if you want to become more familiar with SEO for insurance agents.

SEO Is Effective For Insurance Agents

Let’s get one of your most burning questions out of the way. Yes, SEO is an effective strategy for insurance agents to increase their revenue and grow their business. However, you still need to be sure that SEO is implemented in the right way for it to have success.

That’s why you should hire an insurance SEO agency to handle your needs. When done correctly, SEO could be the single most powerful way for you to grow your insurance business. Without the right guidance, though, you’ll find it very difficult to see results.

We can work alongside your insurance agency to ensure that you have everything you need for a successful campaign. We’ll also show you exactly how our SEO strategy is working for you and report on results as we have them available.

Two-Pronged Search Engine Optimization Approach

The next thing that you’ll need to know if you want to deploy SEO as a marketing strategy for your insurance business is that SEO is typically a two-pronged approach for insurance agencies.

Having success with insurance SEO requires that you optimize from two angles: organic search and local search. Finding the balance between these is the key to being able to consistently generate business through the use of insurance SEO.

When you work with Lombardo Digital Marketing, we’ll be sure to maintain a well-balanced SEO approach that not only seeks to rank your website for local and regional searches, but also establishes your agency as an authority on insurance-related topics. When Google sees you as an authority source, they are much more likely to rank your pages high in the search results.

With the combination of these two methods, you can be sure that your SEO strategy has the necessary foundation to be successful and generate desirable results.

Content Is King

If you are getting ready to commit to an insurance SEO strategy for your insurance business, then you need to accept that fact that when it comes to SEO, keyword research and Google search results, content is still king.

This has been the case for many years and it is not likely to change anytime soon. The main reason for this is that content is what helps Google to understand what your website or blog post is about.

If you want to have success with SEO, you need to be sure that your website contains high-quality, informative content that establishes yourself as an authority source on that topic. You’ll also need to be sure that your content is compliant with Google’s 2022 Helpful Content Update.

When you work with Lombardo Digital Marketing, you can have peace of mind that content will always be prioritized during your SEO strategy. We’ll put in the hard work that is required to make content a priority and a key part of your web presence.

SEO Takes Time

Before you even start down the path of using an SEO strategy for your insurance business, you need to understand that SEO takes time. That’s not to say that SEO isn’t worth it, but patience is required for SEO to really take hold and have an impact on your web presence.

You need to be in it for the long haul if you want to see sustainable results. This is a big commitment and not something that should be undertaken lightly.

When you’re ready to make that commitment, though, Lombardo Digital Marketing will be here to help you grow your insurance business through the use of SEO. We’ll work tirelessly to do all of the things necessary to put your best foot forward when it comes to SEO and your relationship with Google.

If you’re eager to see results from your SEO strategy, you’ll want to work with an SEO agency that can expedite the process as much as possible. That’s what working with Lombardo Digital Marketing provides.

Google My Business

When it comes time to invest in your SEO strategy for your insurance agency or business, then you most certainly need to know the importance of Google My Business. Google My Business is one of the most powerful tools available to business owners of any niche or category.

That’s because it helps you to control how your business appears in Google Maps and the local search results. This is a free service provided by Google, but it is one that you need to sign up for and maintain if you want to ensure that your insurance agency is appearing in the right way.

When you work with Lombardo Digital Marketing, you can have every step of this process taken care of for you. We will set up, optimize, and maintain your Google My Business profile. We’ll monitor your rankings and supercharge your rankings to outrank all of your competition.

SEO Can Work In Conjunction With Other Marketing Strategies

Despite what some insurance agency owners may think, SEO is not an all-or-nothing strategy. SEO can actually work quite well in conjunction with other marketing strategies. You don’t have to pick between SEO and other marketing strategies.

Lombardo Digital Marketing helps you navigate how you should be budgeting your marketing spend. In addition, we can deliver SEO services at a more affordable price than other companies due to our lean business model. In this way, we help to make sure that you get the most return out of each of your marketing strategies.

Insurance SEO Ranking Factors

Any insurance agent or insurance agency owner that wants to make SEO a central part of their marketing strategy should know about the SEO ranking factors that will impact their performance in the search engine results pages.

Here are the key factors that will determine whether you outrank your competition.

Name, Address, Phone Consistency (NAP)

The first and most important factor is NAP consistency. This refers to making sure that your name, address, and phone number are consistent across all of the different directories that you’re listed on.

If there’s any discrepancy at all, then it will be harder for Google to rank you. This is because they won’t be able to verify that you’re a real business. Lombardo Digital Marketing can help you to clean up your NAP and get it consistent across all of the different directories.

Reviews and Testimonials

The next factor is reviews and testimonials. Google puts a lot of weight on reviews when it comes to ranking businesses in the local search results. The more reviews that you have, the better.

Lombardo Digital Marketing can help you to get more reviews from your customers. We’ll also help you to respond to any negative reviews in a way that will mitigate the damage and improve your overall rating.

On-Page SEO

On-page SEO refers to all of the different things that you can do on your website to improve your SEO. This includes things like optimizing your title tags, meta descriptions, and header tags.

It also includes making sure that you have keyword-rich content on your website. Lombardo Digital Marketing can help you to optimize your website for SEO so that you can rank higher in the search engine results pages.

Off-Page SEO

Off-page SEO refers to all of the things that you can do off of your website to improve your SEO. This includes things like building backlinks, social media marketing, and local citations.

Lombardo Digital Marketing can help you with all aspects of off-page SEO. We’ll help you to build high-quality backlinks, optimize your social media accounts, and get your business listed in all of the relevant local directories.

Directory Submissions

One of the most important aspects of off-page SEO is directory submissions. This is because Google uses directories to verify business information. Lombardo Digital Marketing can help you to submit your business to all of the relevant directories. We’ll also make sure that your NAP is consistent across all of the different directories.

Citation Building

Another important aspect of off-page SEO is citation building. This is similar to directory submissions, but it’s slightly different. With citation building, you’re not just submitting your business to directories.

You’re also submitting your business to other websites that list businesses in your industry. Lombardo Digital Marketing can help you to build citations on all of the relevant websites.

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is another important aspect of off-page SEO. This is because Google uses social signals to determine the ranking of businesses in the local search results. The more social signals that you have, the higher you’ll rank.

We can provide social media management and other services to increase your social media presence.

Content Strength

As we said before, content is king. Google puts a lot of weight on the content on your website when it comes to ranking you in the search engine results pages.

This means that you need to have keyword-rich, informative, and well-written content on your website. Lombardo Digital Marketing can help you to create high-quality content for your website.

When you are able to publish high-quality content and articles, you’ll be able to latch on to more searches, which will inevitably increase the traffic to your website.

Content is king. And we’ll help to make you the king of content.

Website Structure

The way that your website presents itself to Google and other search engines is crucially important. The way that your website does this is by showing Google its site structure.

Google needs to be able to easily see what pages are on your site and what the structure of those pages are. This helps Google determine what each page is about and what topic your site is about. When Google determines how high your page ranks, it will do so by evaluating the content of the page and the structure of your site to make sure that they are serving the searcher with the best possible content.

When you work with Lombardo Digital Marketing, you’ll never have to worry about this. We’ll make sure that your site has all of the back-end code that it needs to present an accurate structure to Google.

Website Administration

Another factor that Google takes into consideration when ranking webpages is the quality of the administration for the website. For any website, you should have sitemaps submitted to Google Search Console. This tells Google that the owner of the site is active and talking to Google.

Additionally, you should have legal documents posted clearly in the footer of the site. Users should be able to quickly access documents such as the Privacy Policy and Site Disclaimer.

When you work with us for an SEO campaign, we’ll make sure that your site is not at risk for a Google penalty due to failure to comply with these basic guidelines. Our team will keep your site in full compliance with Google.

Page Index Rate

Naturally, the traffic that you get to your website is going to heavily depend on how many pages with high-quality content that you have indexed with Google and the other major search engines.

At Lombardo Digital Marketing we have proprietary methods and standard operating procedures for making sure that all of the pages on your site that feature relevant content are properly indexed and can be seen by people searching using the major search engines.

Types of Insurance Agent SEO

When it comes to the insurance business and marketing, there’s not just one type of SEO. There are actually several different types of SEO that our team can utilize to increase traffic to your website.

Here are the various types of SEO that we can deploy in order to ensure your online presence is as it should be.

Local SEO

The first type of SEO that we can utilize to boost your online presence is local SEO. If you are an insurance agent that only serves a specific geographical area, then you’ll want to make sure that you’re doing everything possible to be found by people searching for insurance in your area.

This is where local SEO comes into play. Local SEO is the process of optimizing your website and online presence for people searching for insurance in your geographical area.

There are a number of different ways to do this. The first is by making sure that your website is properly optimized for the area that you serve. This means including your city and state in your titles, Meta descriptions, and throughout the content on your website.

Another way to optimize your website for local SEO is by setting up Google My Business. This is a free listing that allows you to list your business on Google Maps. When people search for insurance agents in your area, your business will show up on the map.

Google My Business also allows you to include important information about your business such as your hours, phone number, and website.

Another way to optimize your website for local SEO is by setting up local citations. These are listings of your business on directories such as Yelp, Angie’s List, and the Chamber of Commerce.

These listings help to increase your visibility in your local area and also help to improve your search engine rankings.

National SEO

If you’re an insurance agent that serves clients all over the country, then you’ll want to make sure that your website is properly optimized for national SEO. This is similar to local SEO but instead of optimizing your website for a specific geographical area, you’ll be optimizing it for people searching for insurance agents nationwide.

One of the best ways to optimize your website for national SEO is by creating high-quality content that is relevant to people searching for insurance agents. This content should be well-written, informative, and keyword-rich.

Another way to optimize your website for national SEO is by setting up citations on national directories such as the Better Business Bureau, Superpages, and Foursquare.

By setting up these listings, you’ll be able to increase your visibility and improve your search engine rankings.

Social Media SEO

Social media SEO is the process of optimizing your social media accounts for the search engines. This means creating informative and keyword-rich profiles, posts, and descriptions.

It also means creating content that is shareable and engaging. The more people that share and engage with your content, the higher your social media profiles will rank in the search engines.

Now more than ever, people are taking to social media to seek out recommendations and information about insurance companies. People like to search for their services on the platforms that they trust. That is why it is crucially important that

Types of Insurance Agents We Can Help

At Lombardo Digital Marketing, we have experience helping insurance agents from just about every industry. We are proud to offer insurance SEO services to:

• Home Insurance Agents

• Life Insurance Agents

• Auto Insurance Agents

• Business Insurance Agents

• & more!

Our full-service suite of digital marketing services will ensure that regardless of your industry, we can help you dominate your local market and lift your business (and revenue) to new heights.

Benefits of an SEO Strategy for Insurance Agents

Are you weighing the benefits of an SEO strategy against the risks? If so, you’re in the right place. We’re going to walk you through the benefits that you can expect to experience if you choose SEO as a marketing strategy for your insurance agency.

Organic Reach

One of the main benefits of investing in SEO is that you’re not just buying a one-time advertisement. You’re investing in the long-term visibility of your website in the search engines.

Though SEO requires long-term maintenance to continue to be successful, much of the hard work of an SEO campaign is done in the first 12 months. After that initial investment, you can experience organic search benefits that will last well into the future.

Continuing to grow your online presence is one of the most surefire ways to guarantee traffic to your site now and in the future.

Build A Community

When you’re ranking in the search engines for your target keywords, you’re not just increasing your website’s traffic. You’re also increasing your brand’s reach.

People who see your website in the search engine results are more likely to trust your brand and become a part of your community.

This is especially true if you’re ranking for keywords that are associated with your brand identity such as your company name, product names, or services.

Building a community is important for insurance agents especially, since much of their business comes from referrals. Maintaining a good reputation is critical.

High Search Volume

One of the most clear benefits of investing in SEO as an insurance agent is that there is high search volumes for keywords related to insurance agents. This means that there is a lot of room to capitalize on search results.

You’ll also be happy to know that not many insurance agents know how to capitalize on these high amounts of searches. When you work with Lombardo Digital Marketing, you’ll already have an advantage over the competition.

How to Choose an SEO Agency for Your Insurance Agency

Okay, so you’re sold on hiring an agency to help manage the SEO for your insurance business. Now what? Well, it’s time to pick out a company to work with. Luckily, we’ve put together a step-by-step guide to selecting a partner for your SEO needs.

Discuss Internal Goals

First, you need to have an internal meeting to discuss your goals and establish what it is you’re looking to get out of your SEO campaign. This is very important as it is the benchmark against which you’ll judge the success of your foray into SEO.

Learn As Much As You Can

The next step is learning as much as you can about SEO. We recommend reading our blog, as it’s packed with information that will be useful in this process.

You should also read some general information about SEO so that you have a baseline understanding of the concepts we’ll be discussing. This will help the decision-making process later on.

Reach Out To An Agency

Now that you have a good idea of what your goals are and what you’re looking for in an agency, it’s time to start reaching out to companies.

You should have a list of questions prepared to ask each agency, such as:

What is your experience in the insurance industry?

What are some examples of clients you’ve worked with in the past?

Can you provide a case study of your work?

What is your strategy for achieving our goals?

Can you provide a list of references?

These questions will help you weed out the agencies that aren’t a good fit and focus on the ones that are.

Discuss Expected Outcome & Contract Details

The last step is to have a discussion with the agency about your expectations and the details of your contract. This is where you’ll finalize the details of your partnership and make sure that everyone is on the same page.

Once you’ve gone through these steps, you should have a good idea of which agency is the right fit for your business. If you have any more questions, feel free to reach out to us and we’ll be happy to help.

Why Choose Lombardo Digital Marketing for Your Insurance SEO Needs?

Lombardo Digital Marketing offers all of the benefits that you could want out of an SEO agency. Here are some of the amazing benefits that you can enjoy when you choose Lombardo Digital Marketing to manage your SEO.

Experience

As an insurance agent, you know that experience is important. The same goes for when you’re choosing an agency to help with your SEO needs.

Lombardo Digital Marketing has years of experience helping insurance agents with their SEO. We know the ins and outs of the insurance industry and how to get you the results that you need.

Versatility

Not only do we have experience, but we’re also versatile. We can help with a variety of needs, such as:

Keyword research

Website design

Content creation

Link building

And more!

No matter what you need, we’ll be able to help.

Track Record

The proof is in the pudding. We have a track record of success when it comes to helping our clients achieve their goals.

We’ve helped our clients to achieve a variety of goals, such as:

Increasing traffic

Improving conversion rates

Ranking higher in search engines

If you’re ready to work with a company that has a proven track record of success, then we are the right option for you!

Communication

We know that communication is important. We’ll always keep you in the loop with what’s going on with your campaign and we’re always available to answer any questions that you may have.

You shouldn’t have to worry about whether or not your agency is doing their job. When you work with Lombardo Digital Marketing, you can rest assured knowing that we’re always working hard to get you the results that you need.

Let’s Recap & Connect

There you have it! Now you know how to choose the right SEO agency for your needs.

If you’re ready to take your insurance SEO to the next level, then we’re the right agency for you. Contact us today to get started!