How To Get The Most Out Of Local SEO For Insurance Agencies
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There’s a lot of mystery shrouding local SEO for insurance agencies. So I wanted to share my thoughts on what I have been seeing over the last year working with insurance agencies around their content marketing efforts.
Now if you’re using awesome website providers Advisor Evolved most of this stuff has already been done for you. But you should still read this anyway to know the best practices. I’ll also assume you’re using WordPress for your website.
There’s really only 2 major things that impact local SEO from your website.
NAP Consistency Across the Website and Online Listings:
- On Your Website: Your agency's NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) information should be prominently displayed and consistent across all relevant pages. It's common to include this in the website's footer or header. Make sure the format is identical wherever it appears (e.g., if you use a street abbreviation in one area, use it throughout).
- Across Online Listings: Consistency in NAP information across various online directories and platforms is crucial. This includes Google My Business, Yelp, local business directories, and social media profiles. Inconsistencies in NAP information across different platforms can confuse search engines and potentially harm your local search rankings.
Local Schema Markup Implementation:
- Choose a User-Friendly Schema Plugin: For those not comfortable with coding, WordPress offers several plugins that make adding schema markup to your site straightforward. Plugins like "RankMath," "Yoast SEO," or "WP SEO Structured Data Schema" provide easy interfaces to add the necessary information without needing to write code.
- Select the Appropriate Schema Type: When using these plugins, you'll generally be guided to select the schema type that best fits your business. For an insurance agency, this would likely be “LocalBusiness” or “FinancialService.” Follow the plugin's instructions to fill in your business details like name, address, phone number, and hours of operation.
- Focus on Key Information: Ensure that the schema markup includes essential information such as your business name, address, phone number, hours of operation, and a brief description of your services. This is critical for local SEO and can help your business appear more prominently in search results.
That’s kind of a funny way for someone that sells content marketing services to talk right? Well if you’ve followed me for very long you’ll know my feelings that the point of content marketing isn’t SEO, but about creating a library of assets for distribution through email, paid advertising and social media marketing.
Regular ol’ SEO is just a byproduct of doing great content marketing for a really long time. But we’re talking about local search today.
What about the traffic? How do I get more traffic from local search?
The simple answer? The Google Map Pack. If your business's physical address is within 3-5 miles of the person searching for your type of business, and you meet a few other criteria you’ll do okay in local search.
Your Google Map Pack listing is what is driving most of your local search.
Here’s what you need to nail down to get the most out of your GMP.
- Accurate NAP on your GBP
- Recent Google Reviews (with responses from your business)
- Accurate hours listed on your website and GBP
- For bonus points some relevant backlinks (that’s an entire other article)
Now it doesn’t hurt if you’ve got several (dozen) relevant localized articles(blogs) published on your website that Google will index. But for local search, more than likely people are going to be looking at the Google Map Pack to decide on who to call. And they’re going to look for businesses that have reviews, they respond to reviews, and are actually close to them!
Once you've got the local SEO stuff figured out and you're ready to build that library of assets through content marketing schedule a call with me to learn more about Content Catalyst.
P.S. If you haven't seen it yet, check out Technology and Tactics for Commercial Producers
P.S.S. - I'm still trying to figure out this private community idea. If you've got ideas about what kind of content would entice you to join, reply to this email and let's jump on a call!
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