White Hat Insurance Agency SEO Methodologies

White Hat Search Engine Optimization

Your insurance agency should be familiar with terms such as insurance agency SEO, search engine optimization for insurance agencies, or search engine marketing for insurance agencies. This is the process by which agents try to get their websites to page one on Google’s or Bing’s search engine result pages (SERP). Two basic methods can be used to improve search engine rankings. One of these approaches is ironically (or famously) found in old Westerns. I am referring to the classic white hat versus a black hat cowboy era, which featured white actors such as John Wayne and Clayton Moore (The Lone Ranger), against black actors such as Jack Palance. A more modern version of this is Luke Skywalker versus Darth Vader, with the exception of the hat for Luke. Now, we are referring to SEO strategies that use white hat and black hat techniques. Your agency should not be engaging in black-hat tactics by accident or any other reason. Like the old movies, the black-hat is the villain and the villain is often vilified. These tactics can cause problems for your agency with search engines. However, you don’t have to resort to them to get compelling SEO results.

White Hat Keyword Density and Long Tail Keywords

The first step in Insurance Agency Search Engine Optimization is to create a list with preferred keywords phrases. These are often called trophy words. This could include California Liability Insurance and Massachusetts Business Insurance. New York Truck Insurance and Group Health Insurance are some examples. These are known as long tail keywords. They must appear on insurance agency websites in many ways. After determining the best keywords phrases for your agency (after reviewing them in Google AdWords and other keyword analytics tools), you should populate your website with your preferred keywords. Your metadata (description and meta keywords, page title etc.) should be used to accomplish this task. This should be done with your metadata (description, meta keywords, page title, etc.) and the actual content that appears on your website. Also, your agency should measure the “on-page” keyword density. Every page should be optimized to one to three keywords. Experts and empirical data vary on this. However, many experts agree that 5% to 6% is the optimal search engine density. Your insurance agency SEO web marketing efforts will be successful if you work within the limits of reasonable keyword density, meta best practice, quality inbound link to your website, and a robust social marketing campaign.

White Hat Link Building

Google and Bing have become more focused on quality than quantity. Your insurance agency should be focusing on building quality links to reputable websites. These could include partners and insurance companies, websites that provide information about your target market or other business topics, trusted ePublishing sites, and blogs. Buyer beware: If you are contacted by an organisation that claims they can provide “10,000” inbound links to your website, it is important to carefully evaluate the quality and credibility of the links (and the company contacting you) to make sure there aren’t any improper link building techniques.

Follow Search Engine Guidelines

You should not hide or conceal content. Meta tags should reflect your agency and the content on that page. If it is properly optimized for your solution, custom landing pages can be useful and appropriate. You can, for example, create a landing page to promote Professional Liability Insurance. It should contain relevant content and high keyword density that is specific to your PLI products.

Conclusion

Agency should use the “crawl-walk, run” approach to search engine optimization. This means that they first focus on content with optimized meta tags, keyword density and meta tags. Then, they can add to their SEO efforts by blogging, ePublishing and YouTube videos. Your website should have a balance between visual appeal and relevant, “White Hat” SEO optimized content.