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Why You Should Claim Your Agency's Google My Business Page

March 11, 2015
By: Voldico

As an independent insurance agent, you've probably noticed that marketing your agency online is tough. And you're not alone. Insurance is one of the most competitive industries to advertise on the internet.

But what if we told you there's one small step you can take today that could have a big impact on your online visibility?

Well, there is.

If you haven’t already, you need to claim your agency’s Google My Business page. When somebody does a search for something like “auto insurance”, Google will show results for a few agencies that are close to the searcher. These are called “local results,” and they’re directly tied to your Google My Business page.

What Is a Google My Business Page?

Your Google My Business page is basically a listing for your agency with contact information, a description of your business, photos of your office, and more.

Even if you didn’t create a page for your agency, Google has probably created one for you. Unfortunately, it’s also likely that this automatically generated page looks pretty bad. And worse, it could include incorrect information about your business.

You Can’t Ignore Google.

Google accounts for the majority of internet searches (nearly 70% of desktop searches and 90% for mobile in 2014), which means that it is highly likely that a potential client will see your Google My Business page before anything else, including your website.

Taking control of your Google My Business page (i.e. claiming it), is the best way to ensure your potential clients are seeing the best, most accurate version of your agency.

4 Reasons You Should Claim Your Listing

  1. Your Google My Business page is often your agency’s first impression online. Having a page with no photos or incorrect information is hardly appealing. It can also lead them to the wrong site, give them a wrong number to call, and more.
  2. Correct information and regular updates will help your page, and potentially your site itself, rank better on Google.
  3. Having control of your page means that you can connect with your clients via Google+, sharing updates, events, photos, and more.
  4. You can also be notified directly of a new review on Google and be able to respond to the review. Google will also pull in reviews from other sites, which can be viewed conveniently from your page’s dashboard.

As you can see, there are a lot of important reasons why you should take some time to claim, verify, and optimize your page. It may sound complicated, but it’s a fairly streamlined process that should only take about 30 minutes of your time.

So How Do I Claim My Agency’s Google My Business Page?

Read here for a post that details the entire process from start to finish. Search for your business on Google and see how your Google My Business page looks.