Web searches for insurance have increased by 30% in recent years with the top performing insurance website receiving 10.5 million monthly visits.
And the UK insurance market alone is expected to reach a value of £77 billion by 2025.
This trend is underpinned by numerous fintech companies indirectly linked to insurance.
Take Carmoola, a UK leading fintech, which secured a £15.5 million equity investment in January 2024. They are challenging traditional lenders in the £100 billion direct-to-consumer car finance market.
So, the market for online insurance is growing and becoming more competitive.
To take advantage of this, it is vital for insurance companies to be more visible in search engines like Google.
There are two ways to do this: SEO and Google ads. Let’s look at SEO and why it matters to insurance companies.
Before we start: the difference between SEO and Google Ads
SEO and Google Ads are different.
Google Ads (which are often referred to by the larger umbrella term of paid ads, or PPC [pay-per-click]) are the adverts that appear at the very top of searches on Google.
Companies pay Google to have these placed there and they will be marked as ‘Sponsored’.
Once users click on these ads, they will be taken through to a page on the advertiser’s website (chosen by the advertiser). This is usually – but not always - a landing page set up specifically for that ad campaign.
But once companies stop paying for these ads, they immediately disappear. It’s like turning off a tap.
SEO is related to the organic search results below Google ads. It takes longer to get website pages to appear here, but it is free to do – or try to do (not including hours spent doing it).
Gaining the top position in the organic results should last as long as it takes for a competitor to come along and create a better webpage for the same search term.
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. It is the digital marketing discipline for ranking websites’ pages high in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Interestingly, SEO is both an art and a science.
Approximately 50% is about helping search engines (like Google) understand your website – this is the science part. Search engines need to be able to crawl and understand your content in order to index it.
This overlaps with the 50%: helping the user understand it – this is the art. Search engines are informed by how users interact with your content (user metrics).
SEO needs both art and science
So, on the one hand, no matter how good your content is, if Google can’t crawl and understand it, nobody is going to discover it through Google.
On the other hand, no matter how well you have optimised your content for search engines, if users don’t like it, it won’t be read either.
So, without both you could be missing out on tens or even hundreds of thousands of readers and potential customers…
Measurable, qualified traffic
With the aid of SEO platforms and software, the number of searches conducted on Google (and other search engines) for products can be gauged.
This traffic is highly targeted and remarkably effective. Once the content secures a ranking, most of the effort is already accomplished.
You'll only need to update your SEO content periodically to maintain its high ranking, and high-quality traffic will visit your site.
SEO considerations for insurance companies
1. Google is the biggest English-language search engine
In the English-speaking world, only one search engine really matters - Google.
It has a staggering 89.3 billion monthly visits and commands a 92% share of the global search engine market.
Remarkably, only 0.63% of users venture beyond the first page of Google search results. Achieving high rankings on Google necessitates meeting the algorithm's criteria for your domain and individual pages.
At its core, Google prioritises providing users with the most relevant and highest-quality search results. Failing to do so risks users shifting to alternative search engines.
The SEO Supermarket analogy
Imagine Google as a giant and very busy supermarket. In this analogy, keywords are simply shelf space.
However, as in actual supermarkets, now all shelf space is created equally. And each place on them is surrounded by competitors.
Paid ads aside, in order to earn a place on the very best shelves (rankings for the most commercial keywords), you need to earn the supermarket’s trust. After all, they want to please their many customers or they’ll start to go to other supermarkets.
Everyone wants to submit their products (pages aimed at keywords) to the very best shelves. You can try, but you’ll simply find yourself at the back of a very long line of suppliers.
So, first you need to submit some products in less prominent and lucrative shelves. After a while, the supermarket managers start to notice your product is consistently selling out. Customers are consistently satisfied with it.
So, you continue to submit high quality products for other shelves. Over time, you earn the supermarket’s trust. This means that when it comes to the prime products, you’ll be rewarded with prime shelf space.
Of course, your product will need to perform as well here as your previous products did on the less important shelves. If Google notices it doesn’t, it won’t last there long.
2. The importance of local SEO for (some) insurance companies
Google is sophisticated. It does an increasingly good job of knowing when searches have local search intent. Users that search ‘insurance brokers’ will receive a list of insurance brokers near them.
Local SEO focuses on this aspect of SEO, i.e., targeting specific geographic locations. It emphasises local search factors like Google Business listings, local citations, and location-based keywords.
‘Regular SEO’, on the other hand, is broader. It aims at improving sites’ visibility on a national or international scale.
Both aim to improve search engine rankings but differ in their target audiences and strategies. However, many businesses also devise strategies with a mix of both.
3. The importance of reviews
Consumer reviews are important for insurance companies. They serve as powerful trust signals for online searchers.
One survey found that 84% of consumers found reviews important to their buying journey. And another indicated that 68% formed opinions about a business after reading only 1-6 reviews.
Ignoring online reviews is akin to shutting the door on valuable feedback and potential customers.
Businesses should respond to both positive and negative reviews in a way that all who see them find appropriate and helpful.
Different areas of SEO
1. Technical SEO
Technical SEO addresses various aspects of your website's speed, performance and “crawlability” (i.e., how easily Google's bots can crawl and interpret what pages are about).
Technical faults are spotted and fixed using specialised SEO software. Sites can have a wide range of different technical issues, such as:
- Slow-loading pages
- Missing metadata
- Incorrect sitemaps
- Robots.txt files blocking pages
And much, much more!
Prioritising tasks
It's logical to begin with a technical audit to identify high-priority issues to tackle first and fix existing ones. But this should not be done at the expense of writing content and on-page optimisation.
Unless you have a serious issue and your pages are slow, most websites don't need to score a perfect SEO health score immediately.
2. Keyword research
Search terms are referred to as keywords. They can be words, phrases, or questions (also known as 'long-tail keywords').
First, businesses need to research what keywords they want to target their main pages at. Or, what keywords they need to create pages for.
For example, an insurance company might have a page that is about insurance for valuable items. It might mention jewellery, antiques, and art.
After some keyword research, it might be decided that this single page should be split into three separate pages:
- One page targeted at the keyword insurance for jewellery
- One page targeted at the keyword insurance for antiques
- One page targeted at the keyword insurance for art
After this, other factors need to be considered, including each keyword’s search volume, difficulty, and search intent (what exactly the searcher is looking for).
Keywords for blogs
Keywords often need to be applied to website homepages and/or service pages (they are not needed for ‘About Us’, ‘Contact Us’, ‘Privacy policy’ pages, etc.).
They are also needed for blogs. Specific blogs can be written to target keywords in a way that service/commercial pages would not.
For example, if someone searches for the difference between life insurance and life assurance, they aren’t likely looking for a service page trying to directly sell them either or both services.
Their search intent is likely to find an article that answers their question. Some of the readers might also then be interested in exploring both or either service.
Clearly mentioning these services within the blog will help capture these leads. However, it should be done concisely, too.
If the blog becomes a sales pitch, it will not fulfil the search intent of the majority of readers, who simply want an answer to the question they originally searched for an answer to.
The purpose of blogs from a marketing standpoint, then, is slightly more bottom of funnel content.
From an SEO point of view, bringing traffic and good user metrics builds trust with Google. This trust enables domains to more easily rank for more commercial keywords.
Know your insurance
The success of ranked content is determined by user analytics: Google considers criteria like the time visitors spend on your page and their activities.
Keeping visitors on your site requires creating content with clear, compelling language and graphics.
It also requires knowing what you are talking about, well!
No matter how polished articles and other website pages are, if they simply regurgitate generic fluff, readers will lose interest.
And if readers lose interest, Google will notice and demote your website accordingly.
Quality over quantity
Blogs often become the avenue for targeting numerous keywords, emphasising the need for ample content creation to cover them effectively.
However, quantity shouldn't overshadow quality. Substandard content needs to rank more highly and generate leads.
Creating well-crafted, organised content demands time. Starting with less competitive (low-difficulty) keywords is likely when targeting a vast array of keywords.
In SEO, the impact of each stage unfolds gradually. Content needs time to be crawled, indexed, and achieve higher rankings, typically taking a few months to manifest its full effect.
3. Backlink outreach
'Backlinks' are simply links to your website from other websites. They help build up a website's authority in the eyes of Google.
After all, larger, more trusted domains should naturally have more links pointing to them than their smaller, less-known competitors.
However, several tactics and strategies can be employed to increase the number of backlinks websites get.
These tactics and strategies vary a lot…
- They can involve writing content for other websites. For example, publishing an article on insurance in an insurance industry publication or an industry relevant to the insurance itself (i.e., an article about car insurance published in a car magazine).
- Digital PR campaigns can be created to attract links. For example, an article with data on an interesting aspect of insurance can be published and sent to journalists who in turn will link to it from their high-authority news websites. (‘Top 10 most insured celebrities of 2024…’ etc.)
- Link exchanges. You (a business insurance company) can link to a competitor’s home insurance page, in exchange for them to do the same for you. Or, a three-way exchange: You link to their home insurance blog in exchange for them linking to a business magazine’s website who in turn will link to your business insurance website.
Although it can be time-consuming, gaining backlinks is still an important part of a successful SEO strategy.
The benefits of SEO
1. Increased organic search traffic.
Organic search traffic refers to unpaid visits from search engines, distinct from paid traffic (PPC).
Despite this distinction, a lot of website traffic stems from users directly searching for company names in Google. This is known as direct or branded traffic, which, at a glance, resembles organic traffic.
SEO's overarching objective is to attract users unfamiliar with brands. It entices them to visit websites via searches related to specific products, services, or industries.
3. Increased organic search traffic quality
A good SEO strategy can help insurance companies find high-quality search traffic.
After all, certain keywords have more relevant and commercial search intent than others – depending on the business.
For example, for a home insurance provider, ranking for:
- ‘home insurance’
- ‘home insurance quote’
- ‘house insurance’
is more useful than ranking for:
- ‘House alarm advice’
- ‘Bike insurance’
- ‘Roof repair costs’
Of course, the second group of keywords here might not be useless. In fact, they might be useful for filtering some readers to pages focused on the first keywords.
However, in the long run, focusing on the first group of keywords is going to bring higher quality traffic – i.e., traffic that is much more likely to attract new leads.
3. Increased search visibility
Search visibility is the volume of visitors a website gains for high-ranking searches. A good SEO strategy enhances search exposure for a wide range of relevant search phrases.
Individuals who search for specific terms click on your top-ranking result percentage of the time; this means you have the same search visibility for that keyword.
If you average the percentage share of clicks you obtain for each of your target terms, your search visibility statistic will be more thorough.
This means you are more likely to be noticed by potential customers and stand apart from the competition.
Conclusion
SEO is playing a measurable big part in the insurance industry’s digital revolution. It brings numerous benefits, from attracting high-quality leads to achieving greater brand visibility.
If you're an insurance company still hesitant about delving into SEO, consider this:
- The market is ripe: The UK insurance market is projected to reach an astounding £77 billion by 2025, and online searches for insurance have skyrocketed by 30%.
- SEO offers sustainable growth: Unlike paid ads (or PPC), which disappear when you stop paying, SEO builds organic visibility that lasts. Investing in quality content, technical optimisation, and strategic backlink building, can bring long-term traffic and lead generation.
- Target the right audience: SEO allows you to rank for specific keywords relevant to your insurance offerings. This means attracting highly qualified leads, leading to higher conversion rates and improved ROI.
- Stay ahead of the competition: Not all of your competitors are likely to be aware of SEO's power, whilst others might already be on it... SEO is a marathon, not a sprint: Get into or ahead in the race asap!
SEO not only helps uncover fundamental principles about your website, but about your wider marketing. It teaches you how your audience finds you online and helps you understand how best to meet their search intent.
This has applications to your messaging across multiple platforms…
Find out more about our insurance industry SEO services today.
