Are you planning on launching a new insurance agency website? Keep this in mind…

by Taber StreurNew Insurance Agency Website

New URLs or Domains are penalized up to 12 months – Understanding this can save you some headaches

Launching your new insurance agency website can be an exciting time, but it can also be a test of patience. You’re excited to attract new clients through the use of blogging, social media and have invested in search engine optimization (SEO) for your website in hopes that your investment will soon pay off, but ensure you understand the processes in place that are out of your control.

Search Engine Penalties for newly purchased Domains

For some of you, it will be possible to get results in as little as one week. For others, the climb to the top will require research, great content and regular blog updates to reach the first page of the search engine’s results page (SERP). Yet for some the climb to the top can be even more challenging. If you have a newly purchased domain name (URL) or you have never published content on the site previously you will be penalized by the search engines for up to 12 months.

Because the internet is full of SPAM websites, the search engines do their best to deliver their users the best results for their search queries. Because you have a brand new website and domain, you have not developed any trust yet with the search engines (a client of ours recently related this to being in a new relationship!) and this will hurt your search engine rankings position until your site can develop trust with the search engines.

Search Engine Penalty New Website
Click to Enlarge

To the right is a chart that shows, in time, how much of a penalty you will have and how quickly it goes away.

We believe the best approach to the “probationary” time is to get your site in place to perform well. Investment in extensive SEO right off the bat is not typically your best approach to this issue because by the time the penalty goes away, SEO strategies may have changed and you wouldn’t see the benefit. The approach we recommend to our customers is a small campaign designed to give them a strong placeholder so when their penalty period is up, they rank well, but haven’t spent too much on other efforts like content marketing, SEO monitoring and other programs that tend to be more expensive.

Some Great Options While You Wait

During this time, paid search and local optimization through Google Business Profile is the best option. Check out each page of our website for better descriptions on how each of these works. 

Last Thoughts

If you’re considering launching a new website, take into account the graph above in your decision to market your business. If you have an existing site that you’re just updating with a new look, feel and updated content, you won’t have to worry about this penalty and can immediately reap the benefits of your new optimized site.

Tosten Marketing is an insurance agency marketing company based out of Bellevue, WA and servicing the needs of independent insurance agents across the country. Their approach is a mix of traditional and new age marketing approaches including website design, search engine optimization, social media, content marketing and much more. If you need help with your insurance agency marketing, visit their website at http://tostenmarketing.com for more information.