5 Tips to Increase Your Insurance Agency's Search Visibility and Get More Leads
A few months ago we posted some tips for optimizing your insurance agency's Google Business Profile. The GBP, as it is sometimes called, is the biggest single factor determining whether your insurance agency shows up at the top of search results in the local pack.
How important is it for your insurance agency* to show up in the local pack? That depends on whether or not you want more leads.
According to a survey conducted by Safari Digital, 46% of Google searches have local intent, and when the local pack is present in search results, 44% of clicks go to one of the three properties displayed there.
An increasing number of searches are 'zero click', meaning no website link is clicked on. Reliable estimates put that number at about 25%. The reason for zero click searches is Google's success at providing the kind of information people are searching for inline with search results. If your insurance agency's GBP is complete, you will have a better chance of showing up in the local pack in search results. And even if many of those searches are zero click, if you provide robust information in your GBP you will still benefit from increased lead flow.
A few months ago we described the main things you need to do to optimize your insurance agency's Google Business Profile. But there are a few more things you can do to get Google's attention, show up in search results and capture more leads. Anything you do with your GBP that Google thinks would make your profile more informative, up-to-date, or accessible, will help Google make your agency location more visible in search results for a wider variety of search queries. Here are a few areas where you could beef up your profile and improve your competitive advantage.
Products
You can easily add a product carousel to your GBP with a category, description, image and landing page for each product. A quick perusal of your competition will reveal that almost none of them are taking advantage of this feature, a point that can be made for each of the 'baker's dozen' upgrades you can make to your insurance agency's Google Business Profile.
Chat
Again, almost none of your competition will have this feature turned on, and honestly, it likely won't be used more than a few times a month. That's what we see from clients who do have the feature activated. What we also see is that the majority of these chat sessions are for quotes.
And besides, Google will love you if Google Messages is available through your profile. (As an aside, you may be leery of keeping track of yet one more way that prospects can communicate with your agency. Google actually makes it pretty easy, sending a message to the phone of any GBP profile owner or manager. There are also omni-channel solutions, like the one Confluency offers, that combine messages from multiple sources, like Google, Facebook, text and web chat. Get in touch if you would like to learn more about how we can help you stay on top of client and prospect communications.)
Photos
Google will usually add photos of your business location.. Most of the time these will be photos taken via a drive by for Google Maps wherein Google contracts others to put camera areas on top of their cars and drive around town. Other people can also suggest photos for addition to your GBP. These pics may or may not be flattering.
As a GBP owner or manager you can choose which photos are displayed as your logo, cover, interior and exterior photos. So even though you may not get rid of photos that Google has graced your agency with, you can control what is most likely to be seen by people searching on the web.
Video
Again, almost none of your competition has made use of video in their Google Business Profiles. What video topics could you possibly include here? There are actually quite a few, here are some ideas:
- Describe your agency process for providing a quote and proposal.
- Describe the typical claims process.
- Do a short case study describing you helped a particular client.
Still a little daunted about this? Get in touch, we have a solution.
Posts
This was initially provided as a feature by Google to update consumers on sales and specials, a couple of things you don't find when it comes to insurance. Still, you can add information about risk management, insurance education and general safety. Confluency has provided these posts on a weekly basis for many clients and it does move the needle.
*When we say 'your insurance agency' we mean your location. If your agency has more than one location there will be a GBP for each one.