There are many fancy tools out there that can help you market your insurance agency. They purport to help you become the number one agency on your local search engine. These companies promise their latest and greatest methodologies will help you achieve the most conversions in the shortest time. They’ll also charge an arm and a leg. Some of these strategies work. But, you can still achieve satisfactory SEO results with good old fashioned hard work. And, with a small amount of capital.
First thing’s first: Keyword research. Keywords are the basis of any great SEO strategy. Finding the right keywords could mean the difference between success and failure. A great resource to find keywords users search for is AnswerThePublic.com. This is a free visual keyword research and content ideas tool. Simply enter a keyword and the website will spit back related keywords. It’ll also display the most popular ones according to what people search for in Google. This is a great way to figure out which keywords are popular enough for you to focus on for an SEO strategy. But, also how to write your content around a particular topic.
After optimizing your website with keywords, you need to keep your website healthy. A couple of great tools for this is Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools) and Bing Webmaster Tools. These tools are very powerful and are 100 percent free. There are a number of services provided, including tracking missing pages , backlinks, rankings, and more.
Another essential part of SEO is making sure your local rankings are up to par. Keep up with local citations. Make sure your listings appear consistently wherever they are. This means logging in and claiming listings on different websites. And, updating those listings whenever your agency undergoes a change. The best way to keep track of this is in a simple spreadsheet like Excel.
Optimizing your agency website and keeping it healthy are pointless if you don't track and analyze your website. One of the most powerful tools, if not the most powerful tool, is Google Analytics. This tool tells you how many visitors your website gets. It shows what they did once they got there and how long they stayed. It shows if they completed any online forms, and which keywords they used to find your website. To a beginner, Google Analytics may seem intimidating, but with a little basic training, it can still be useful.
There are many other free tools out there that help you with SEO. But, I would encourage you to read the fine print, as most free trials aren't free. And even if they are, they may only offer limited capabilities. The tools above are for the layperson, the small business owner, the SEO do-it-yourselfer on a budget. So, take full advantage of them. Make them for work for you until you no longer have to DIY.