Improve Your Insurance Agency Website for Increased Revenue

In earlier posts, I’ve tried to make the point that if you don’t have a website for your agency you:

1) Aren’t really in business
2) Won’t survive

So, you’ve got one right?

As consumers continue to move online for virtually all their shopping needs, it’s been stated countless times how critical it is for an insurance agency to have a website.

Chances are, you have one up and running - but have you rebuilt it in the last 24 months or so?

If you haven’t, you may want to take a look at your competitor’s agency websites, to understand whether your website is keeping up with them. Better yet, take a look at websites you visit often and ask yourself if your website is as engaging and easy to use.

I have some tips and suggestions for making your website a prime source of information for insurance shoppers.

Some Suggestions for a Great Website

What are some ways you, as an independent insurance agent, can make a really effective website?  I’m not a web expert, but I know someone who is. Wendy Shreffler with Public Strategies in Oklahoma City knows a lot about the digital world, and has given me some best practices suggestions I’d like to share with you:

• Content should be skimmable: Statistics say that 79% of users scan web pages; only 16% read word-for-word. Newsletters fare even worse.
• By cutting roughly half the words on a page, you can achieve a 58% increase in usability
• People read online in “blocks,” going directly to items that match what they are actively looking for
• Use simple and concise headings
• People read in an F-shaped pattern, skipping lots of text in between, according to an eye-tracking study by Nielsen
• Break up long articles in sections so users can skim down the page
• Make the first two words count, because users tend to read the first few words of headings, titles, and links when they’re scanning a webpage
• People fixate longer on bulleted lists, according to an eye-tracking study by ClickTale
• Manipulating the margins of a passage affects reading speed. A research study by the University of Wichita found that articles with 95 characters per line were read the fastest. Line length had no effect on reading comprehension, however. Use layouts with whitespace margins and choose a fixed-line length layout.
• People pay close attention to images containing relevant information, according to an eye-tracking study by Nielsen; however, users sometimes ignore certain images—particularly stock photos included merely as decorative artwork
• 
  Make sure your contact information is easily found, and have multiple ways potential customers can reach out via phone, email or a fillable form
• Pay attention to search engine optimization. There are ways to do this without spending a lot of money, including freshening your content, creating separate pages for each product or service, and using your keywords in the right places, like titles, headlines, and primary content sections.
• Make sure you have a mobile-friendly website. This means that your pages fit on a phone or tablet and that your site operates properly and loads quickly on these devices.
• Include social proof. Your potential customers can be influenced by learning that other people have chosen you as their trusted insurance advisor. Testimonials are a great way to get that across.  

If you don’t feel confident about your website design, hire a web design firm, and try to find someone who specializes in insurance website design. There are also a number of website-building software solutions if you want to try those.

And What About Video?

Are you using video at all? As digital marketing continues to change, video is definitely trending. Sure, you can use them on social media, but they make a really big impact

• 87% of online marketers use video content
• 51% of marketers worldwide say video content gives the best ROI
• Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster
• 59% of executives say that if they have a choice between text and video about a topic, they would choose video
• Videos up to two minutes long get the most engagement
• Video on a landing page can increase conversions by 80% or more
• The average conversion rate for websites using video is 4.8% and only 2.9% for sites that don’t use video
• Having a video on a landing page makes it 53% more likely to appear on page one of search engine results pages.
• Video attracts two to three times more monthly visitors
• The average user spends 88% more time on a website with video.

Pretty amazing! Video doesn’t have to be difficult to produce.

In fact, at OAA, we have even used our smartphones to create compelling and engaging videos. Start with something, watch your analytics to see what improvements you get, and go from there.

The future of business is online and as growing insurance sales organizations, we all need to master presenting our businesses well in cyberspace!