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Here are the top 5 ways you can improve your local SEO starting today!

As a business owner, you almost certainly know what SEO is — and what it can do for your website. 

Optimizing your website for search engines means your site (and your business) can be found more quickly and more often by people searching for insurance services. A good SEO strategy can move your site to the top of a search results page.

But there’s a problem: As an insurance agency, you’ve got a lot of competition — and if you’re only implementing a “general” SEO strategy, you might be attracting people from areas outside your target market. 

The solution: Augment your existing SEO methods with a comprehensive local SEO strategy. Local SEO helps ensure your agency rises above your local competitors, which means your agency will be seen by more of the people that matter — customers in your local or regional area.

Local SEO isn’t just nice to have; today, most consumers begin their search for service providers online. Even if they don’t specify a locality in their search, most search engines (including Google) can detect the searcher’s location. 

In the search results page, local results are prioritized. So regardless of whether a potential client types their city or town into the search engine, the agencies nearest them will show up first — and probably wind up attracting the most attention and the most business. If your site isn’t optimized, it’s your competitors who are going to wind up taking those top spots and pulling in the lion’s share of new customers.

Ranking Locally: SEO Tips

Now that you know just how important local SEO is for your business, it’s time to develop a strong strategy for your website. 

Select Your Keywords

All searches use keywords, so the first step is to make a list of all the keywords your customers might use when looking for the products you offer. Google offers a really useful (and free!) keyword planner through its Google Ads product. You don’t have to fund an advertising campaign, but you do need to register for a Google account (also free) to use the tool. Keyword.io is another useful keyword planner that’s free to use.

Optimize Your Site

Once you’ve developed a list of keywords, it’s time to use them to optimize your site so search engines can find it more easily. Start with your homepage and your service pages. (Ideally, you should have a separate page for each service or product.) Try to incorporate keywords into your page headings, and use images, too. Images don’t just break up the text on your page; they have labels or tags that can be optimized for local search terms, too.

Tap Into The Power of Google

Make sure you’ve got a Google business listing. It’s free, and it’s a great way to truly take advantage of all Google has to offer. You can register for a free account here, then wait for confirmation to arrive via snail mail at your business address so you can confirm your account. Once your business account is active, you can optimize your listing specifically for Google’s search algorithms.

Seek Out Reviews

Customer reviews are powerful; in fact, word-of-mouth is one of the primary ways online searchers decide which business to use. Don’t be shy about asking satisfied clients to leave reviews on Google, Yelp, and other online review sites. Then make sure your website and social pages have easy-to-find links to your review pages so it’s really easy for happy customers to leave a positive review.

Forget About Your Own Interests

Sure, you want to sell insurance — and what better way than to promote your products via your business’ blog? The problem is, for clients, selling gets old after a while. And if all you’re doing is pushing your products post after post, people are going to stop reading. Worse, they might consider you (and your business) a nuisance. 

It’s fine to talk about products in some of your posts; however, a solid local SEO strategy includes blog posts about local events that have nothing to do with your products and everything to do with your customers’ lives and interests. Devoting some of your blog posts to local activities demonstrates your commitment to your community and your customers, and it’s a good way to make sure your blog is read more often, too. 

Bottom line: Optimizing your site for local traffic might seem like a time-intensive project — and to be honest, maintaining a good SEO strategy does take some effort. If it's overwhelming, the good news is, there are plenty of businesses who can optimize your site for you, and even keep it optimized over time. Yes, there's a cost involved. But for most insurance agencies, local SEO yields returns that are far beyond their initial cash investment, helping them build their businesses and their bottom lines.