Everyone in the insurance industry has the same goal, regardless of specialty and across all niches: to attract and convert leads.
Is your website working to help you do that?
Here are the five essential things that your insurance website needs to have in place if you want to be sure that it’s working for you.
Responsive Design
In today’s mobile-crazed world, it is essential that your website be able to render properly on all available screen sizes.
Did you know that 96% of smartphone users have done research about a service or product on their phone?
Furthermore, 94% of all smartphone users have used their device to search for local information, with 90% having taken action as a result.
With privately owned local insurance agencies on the rise, local searches are a conversion opportunity that you don’t want to miss.
It’s of paramount importance that, whatever screen size their searching on, prospective leads be able to easily view and navigate your website.
If your website is loading slowly or the images aren’t fitting on the screen, viewers won’t stick around.
Responsive website design assures that potential leads who are searching for the products and services that you provide will be able to clearly view and easily navigate your insurance site on any available screen size.
Additional advantages to responsive design are that your website will already be prepared for any and all screen sizes that may become popular in the future, as it automatically adjusts to the screen it is being viewed on.
Fast Speed
The internet is not for the slow-paced.
According to Google, 53% of visits are abandoned if a mobile site takes longer than 3 seconds to load.
When properly designed, a speedy website should:
- Optimize images
- Eliminate unnecessary plugins
- Minimize redirects
- Cache
Your current customers and prospects all expect to access your website on a mobile device and to have it load fast. If your site is too slow, you’re losing business. It’s as simple as that.
SSL Certificate
You want to be viewed as a trustworthy authority. Your website should help you with that. An SSL certificate tells your visitors that your site is secure and their information is safe with you.
Some websites begin with “http://” and others begin with “https:” – that extra “s” communicates that you’re connected to a website that is secure.
The technology that makes a site secure is called Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).
SSL works to protect user information by establishing an encrypted link that ensures all data passed between the web server and browser remains private. Personal data that you submit is encrypted, transmitted, and decrypted instantaneously. So, were a hacker to intercept the data while it’s being transmitted they wouldn’t have the “key” to decrypt it.
Unlike an unsecured site, where your personal information would be transmitted and free for the taking.
There are numerous benefits to securing your insurance website with SSL. They include:
- The ability to protect data submitted by site visitors
- Your agency projecting signs of trustworthiness
- Adhering to Google’s recommended security guidelines
- Having an insurance website with SSL certification is a small investment that yields long-lasting returns.
Fresh Content
Keeping an informative blog with up to date information that will be interesting to readers makes you a trusted resource and keeps your site in good standing with search engines.
A lack of informative content, outdated content, or no content at all makes it appear as if you don’t have authority in your industry.
Consistently creating new content in the form of blog posts, infographics, or videos, for example, tells your audience that you are informed and that you understand their pain points and concerns.
Content can help bring new leads to you. Better qualified leads that are looking for exactly the product you’re offering. How so? Let’s say you write a blog post about saving money on contractor insurance. You publish that post to your Facebook page and then pay to promote it to an audience of construction professionals who live near your business. Someone who sees that post and clicks on it is likely to be your intended audience, and you just had a chance to gain their attention.
Four Steps to Put Your Content to Work:
- Regularly create new content
- Publish that content on your social media accounts
- Pay to promote that content to a specific audience
- Deliver that content to your email list
Online Insurance Rater
While the information outlined above are must-haves for any type of website to succeed, there is one thing that is specific to insurance websites alone.
If your goal is to capture leads – which, of course, it is – then having an insurance rater on your website is absolutely essential.
Regardless of your area of specialty – be it commercial lines or contractor insurance and bonds – the turnkey insurance websites at Insurance Agent Engine are available with online raters designed to help your clients receive instant online quotes while capturing lead information for your agency.
And, depending on the products you provide, clients may even be able to purchase and pay for their policy immediately, making you the broker of record.
If you’re ready to have an insurance website that includes all of the above, Insurance Agent Engine is here to help you achieve it.
Having designed websites for insurance professionals for over a decade, our sites assure the highest level of functionality, with an emphasis on aesthetics, and include all the tools needed to get more leads.
Once your insurance website is outfitted with all of these must-haves, you’ll have an insurance website that’s primed to become a lead generating tool. Now that’s a good investment.