Insurance brokers need quality website content to get the best out of their insurance software
In our previous post ‘Insurance e-commerce brokers need quality website content‘ we looked at why great website content is crucial in attracting customers to your website. In this follow-up post we’ll take a closer look at what makes great content, particularly for insurance brokers.
‘Our site quality algorithms are aimed at helping people find “high-quality” sites by reducing the rankings of low-quality content’. Amit Singhal, Google Fellow
So, if Google is trying to identify and promote high quality content because that’s what internet users are searching for, we’d better provide it!
3 golden rules for creating ‘high-quality’ content
As discussed in our previous post, content takes many different forms, but it’s important to understand that just having any old content is no longer good enough.
As far as Google is concerned, great content has the following three attributes:
- Quality
- Unique
- Relevant
In terms of Quality, this should be self explanatory – copy must be well written with correct grammar and spelling, and generally all content should be professional and have authority.
Relevance is also pretty straight forward. If the internet user is searching for “business insurance” and your website is focused on “pensions”, it will obviously not be relevant. Although this is a somewhat simplistic example, the main takeout is that the more specifically relevant your content is to what the user is searching for, the more likely it will be that your site will rank higher with Google. If your website ranks higher it will get more visits.
The Uniqueness of content is a bit more difficult to define. One thing that search engines try and filter out is duplicate content, whether it be on your site or on other websites.
If you think about it, there’s not much point in them providing search result listings to the same article on five different websites. If the user clicks on the first and decides that its not what they’re looking for, they will come back to the search engine results, click on the next link down and find exactly the same article again. Not a great user experience.
What search engines are looking for is content that provides ‘unique value’. In essence they are looking beyond the provision of pure factual content, and towards more insight, opinion, experience and recommendation. This should be really fertile ground for insurance brokers to bring their value add proposition to life.
What types of website content are important?
- Blogs. If you can post fresh content on your blog a few times a week or month, this can be great for boosting your website rankings and attracting new customers. Insurance brokers can use their blogs as an opportunity to provide information on the products and services that they provide, as well as voicing their observations and experiences. Keeping customers informed of regulatory changes and their impacts can also be highly valued. Be careful not to overdo the sales pitch!
- Product, trade and services content. This is a huge opportunity for insurance brokers which again can be used to attract and engage potential customers. Be careful not to provide so much information or technical detail that you overwhelm the reader, and always be cognisant of who the reader is.
- News and other timely content. A great way to demonstrate your relevance and subject matter expertise. Beware that outdated news on the main page of your site demonstrates the opposite.
- Social media. If you have fresh and interesting content that people will want to share, this is a great medium to use.
How good is your website content?
If you already have a website with content, you may now be asking yourself ‘is it good enough?’ To find out, ask yourself the following questions:
- Is the content useful? Are we providing our target customers with the information they’re looking for?
- Could a potential customer make an informed decision about using our products and services?
- Is your content full of blatant sales and marketing?
- Are the benefits of dealing with your firm clear and compelling?
- Is your content sufficiently interesting and engaging to stimulate return visits to the site, bookmarking or sharing?
- Has all of your content been professionally written?
- Is your content a good reflection of you and your brand?
There are no shortcuts to great content
‘The main thing is that people should avoid looking for shortcuts. In competitive market areas there has always been a need to figure out how to differentiate yourself, and nothing has changed today. Think about how you can create compelling content or a compelling experience for users.’
Matt Cutts – Head of Google’s Web Spam Team
As Matt Cutts says, there are no shortcuts to producing great content, so if you would like some professional help and advice in this area, please visit the Quotall Insurance Marketing Agency website or contact us.
To find out more about Quotall’s insurance software for brokers, please feel free to contact us.