If you’re an insurance agent, page one Google rankings can seem like an impossible task. Afterall, insurance is the single most competitive category on the internet; more than the 2nd 3rd and 4th combined.

When you’re trying to get onto page one, there are three areas you can focus on:

[av_font_icon icon=’ue84b’ font=’entypo-fontello’ style=” caption=” link=” linktarget=” size=’40px’ position=’left’ color=” admin_preview_bg=” av_uid=’av-1n5ymt2′][/av_font_icon] Organic Search: Organic search is for your website. It is when your site ranks in the normal, not paid and not maps area of search results. It is your website pages that show up here and each of your landing pages should be targeting individual products and keywords to show up here.

For search engine optimization, organic search is a crucial step to compete for your keywords in an environment that is not paid search. Paid search is incredibly effective at driving new business leads, but in our industry, insurance related keywords can be expensive. If you’re trying to target auto & home leads through paid search, you’d better have a healthy budget of $750+ per month for clicks and conversions.

[av_font_icon icon=’ue842′ font=’entypo-fontello’ style=” caption=” link=” linktarget=” size=’40px’ position=’left’ color=” admin_preview_bg=” av_uid=’av-1d51nw6′][/av_font_icon]  Local Search: Local search is an under-utilized part of search engine optimization. This is taking your Google My Business listing and optimizing it for search keywords in order to show up in the maps area of Google. By showing up here, you capitalize on any potential customer searching for insurance near you. The reason this is important is that it greatly improves your chances of conversion because it pings the customers IP address then shows your results to them.

For example: If someone is looking for an “Insurance Agent in Seattle” Google will return both organic and local search (Maps) results back to the user. Maps usually is displayed first as Google knows where you’re located.

Insurance Agency Google My Business

Google My Business is just as important as having a website and they speak to one another. In fact, Google will oftentimes display, “Their website mentions motorcycle insurance” or other insurance products because Google keeps all this information on-hand to reference and return relevant search results to the users.

[av_font_icon icon=’ue814′ font=’globalicons’ style=” caption=” link=” linktarget=” size=’40px’ position=’left’ color=” admin_preview_bg=” av_uid=’av-odcr6e’][/av_font_icon] Paid Search: Paid search for insurance agents requires patience and a healthy budget. Because of the way that Google’s algorithm works, ranking on state-level for competitive keywords is highly unlikely. In order to rank highly on the page they want you to pay for those keywords.

Paid Search is effective. It is the only way to have guaranteed page one rankings and that can happen in hours, not months or years like Organic SEO.

When running paid search ads, be sure to highly target your market. We see too many instances where agents target keywords so broadly like “insurance.” This will return irrelevant results and drive up your cost per conversion. It is advised to either take Google Ads training prior to running your own campaigns or hire a Google Ads specialist who understands and works in insurance.

When investing any marketing dollars in SEO, it is important to have reasonable expectations. Unfortunately, page one Google rankings don’t always equal leads. While the most effective strategy is a mix of all the above strategies the best and most important thing to remember about any marketing is to be consistent and keep trying.

Tosten Marketing specializes in Insurance Agency SEO. Our agency was designed from within the insurance agency channel and it is the only customer we market to. We are nationally endorsed by four major insurance carriers for our SEO programs and maintain near perfect customer retention. If you need help with your insurance agency marketing, we can help you design a website, complete your SEO and give you self-help if you like doing things yourself. We offer consultation service to all of our existing customers free of charge.