April 2010
5 Lead-Generation Problems Most Insurance Websites Share
And How You Can Fix It Fast!
"If you build it, they will come" is one of the biggest myths of web marketing.
For starters, the original quote from the movie Field of Dreams actually said "if you build it, HE will come."
As many insurance agents and brokers have discovered, just because you spend $10,000 on a website doesn't mean you'll get a ton of new visitors and many new leads. In fact, many of those expensive websites fail to produce any leads.
The reasons for their website failures are obvious for online marketing experts. Generating online leads through your website requires the right ingredients, and most insurance websites don't have those ingredients — let alone know what they are.
If you find your website falling short, there's a good chance that your site is missing something… and here are five ways to fix it fast.
1. Usability
Function over form. When it comes to business websites, your overriding goal should be functionality.
Your website's function is to generate leads, not win awards for your designer. To put it another way, if your website visitor stops to admire your design, then they've taken their mind off of buying your product. That's not the purpose of a business website.
Your insurance website must be designed to help visitors quickly find AND buy what they're looking for:
- Information. Many insurance shoppers kick off their online journey by doing research. Make it easy for them to find answers on your site.
- Questions. For insurance buyers, you want to make it easy for them to decide on a plan and submit an application as quickly as possible.
- Purchase. For insurance buyers, you want to make it easy for them to decide on a plan and submit an application as quickly as possible.
This means that you need to have an easy-to-use navigation bar that help visitors find exactly what they want. Your files should also be organized into understandable folders.
For example, if you offer several different product lines, you may want your articles and guides on health insurance to be collected in a “health insurance tips” section.
2. Trust-Building Elements
Most consumers who come to your site don't know who you are. Increasingly, online shoppers are conditioned to be suspicious of many business websites.
Having a clean-looking website with lots of useful information will help allay much of their fears. In fact, it's typical for many online insurance shoppers to “bounce” away from an agent's website just seconds after they arrive. And all it took was just one look at the messy home page.
Fortunately, for licensed agents, there's a variety of simple ways to quickly build trust with website visitors:
- Carrier logos. Insurance companies spend millions promoting their brand recognition — and trust. By including your carriers' logos on your website, you can inherit some of the trust they've already built up over the years.
- Testimonials. Ask your satisfied clients to provide you with a written testimonial and display blurbs from the best ones on your home page. Make sure to include their name (last name can be an initial), home town and, when available, photo.
- Authentication badges. Displaying your TRUSTe, Verisign or Better Business Bureau badge is a very effective way to quickly lower people's suspicions, because those companies verify that you're a legitimate business.
Note that authentication badges will require a fee, but they're worth it.
3. Engaging Tools
Today's web shoppers demand more from business websites. They dislike websites that are nothing more than online brochures.
They want business website to engage them in a way that leaves them a little smarter. That's why the top mortgage and real estate websites have online mortgage calculators and easy-to-use database of local listings.
They want to do their own research and shopping, and they don't want a salesperson — until or unless they have specific questions.
For the insurance industry, the two interactive tools that online insurance shoppers have come to expect are a quote engine and an online application. A quote engine allows your website visitor to generate quotes and compare plans side by side. When they're finally ready to purchase, an e-application guides them through the necessary forms.
Best of all, as soon as the shopper uses your quote engine, they typically become your new exclusive lead.
Because of these two tools, more agents and brokers have started to report receiving commission checks on closings where they never even spoke to the client.
4. Call to Action
The call to action is the ABC ("Always Be Closing") element, and it should be on each page on your website.
You can have multiple calls to action on a page, but there should always be a primary call. That primary call to action should be big, bold and "above the fold" (visible when you first come to a page).
Whether it's to call you for information or use your quote engine for updated rates, your viewer should have no doubt as to what you would like them to do next.
On your home page, your primary call to action will probably be competing with many others. For example, if your primary call to action is to use your health insurance quote engine, that may be competing with your call for other insurance product lines.
In such a case, your primary call to action should take up 30% of that first screen (before you click down). It may sound like a lot, but it's the proven strategy. If all your calls to action are the same size, you run the risk of confusing your readers.
In your interior pages, you'll probably want to show your primary call to action somewhere near the top of the page... and again at the bottom. Even on “About Us” and glossary pages, you need a call to action to guide your prospects to the next step.
5. Build Traffic through Search Engines
Online shoppers find what they're looking for primarily through search engines, such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. That's also how insurance shoppers find the agent websites in their state.
To capture your share of the online insurance market, you need to be found on the first pages of Google for targeted keywords. For example, if you're in Atlanta, you probably want to make sure that you rank high when someone searches for "Georgia health insurance" or "Atlanta health insurance quotes."
To get that high ranking for commonly searched keywords, you need SEO, or search engine optimization.
SEO is the big buzzword for online marketers and insurance agents with websites. And the competition for those first pages of Google is getting fierce… because everyone knows that most shoppers don't go past the first two pages of their Google search results.
For a basic understanding of SEO, go straight to the source and view Google's very own SEO Starter Guide (http://bit.ly/seo1guide).
For advanced SEO advice and assistance, contact your Norvax account representative.
