Showing up in search results is wonderful, getting leads is better

Showing up in search results is wonderful, getting leads is better. We all tend to get locked into that old page one of search results...does our insurance agency website show up there? Suppose you accomplish that. Then what? If that's the end of it, very little has been accomplished. If that page one search result appearances leads to a phone call or a form submission, then you have something.

So what is the difference between just showing up and getting a lead? Often it is your insurance agency's reputation. Sometimes we call this social proof, sometimes we call this your digital shadow. What it is, no matter what we call it, is what others say about you.

This shadow can show up in page one search results in a variety of ways: it might be a Yelp rating or reviews done on the Google platform. Your 'shadow' might also show up right on your website. No matter where these reviews and ratings appear, they motivate casual web surfers to move into your sales funnel if the reviews and ratings...

• ...are positive, or at least mostly positive. You can't keep everyone happy all the time and misunderstandings happen. Actually, the occasional less flattering review can help validate the authenticity of the good ones.
• ...are recent. Undated and old reviews don't have much street cred - consumers don't pay much attention to them.
• ...appear in quantity. One or two reviews don't carry much weight, 20 or 30 do.

Take a look at the partial screen clip from Amazon's home page. Amazon has a little bit of data and they have learned a little something about selling online.

They can (and do) extoll the virtues of their fireTVstick. But is that sufficient to motivate people to turn from browsers to buyers? Amazon is not taking any chances. After all, Google's Chromecast is pretty much the same thing, costs about the same, has been around for almost three years and (oh, by the way) gets four and five star ratings on a number of review websites.

Amazon combats those competitive challenges by displaying review results for the fireTVstick. After all, 100,000 people can't be wrong. Your insurance agency can do much the same thing, by asking clients for reviews on multiple review websites. Google, Yelp and Facebook are good places to start. Review profiles from each of those platforms will show up in search results. You probably already have a Google My Business and Yelp profile, if you haven't claimed them, you should. If you don't have a profile, create one. It doesn't cost anything. It also doesn't cost anything to display those ratings on your insurance agency website, just be sure to date them and provide reviewer names (be sure to get permission).

In fact, review (reputation) management is one of the least expensive yet most effective digital marketing techniques you can take advantage of. Further good news: most other insurance agencies are not capitalizing on this tactic, though this is changing. So why not get while the gettin' is good?