The Importance of SEO in the Insurance Industry

Web searches for insurance have increased by 30% in recent years, with the top performing insurance website receiving 10.5 million monthly visits.

So, no matter what way you look at it, the market for online insurance is rapidly growing, becoming more competitive.

The UK insurance market alone is expected to reach a value of £77 billion by 2025.

To take advantage of this and beat the competition, it is vital for insurance companies to be the most visible in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Companies can do this in one of two ways: SEO and Google Ads.

Let’s look at SEO and why it so important for insurance companies.

 The Difference Between SEO and Google Ads

SEO and Google Ads are not one and the same.

Google Ads (often referred to as paid ads or PPC [pay-per-click]) are adverts that appear right at the top of SERPs on Google. Companies pay Google to have them placed there.

They are marked as ‘sponsored’ so Google’s users are aware that they are paid advertisements.

Once users click on these ads, they will be taken through to a page on the advertiser’s website.

Typically, this is a landing page set up specifically for that ad campaign.

Once companies stop paying for the ad, they immediately disappear from the top of the search engine.

SEO refers to the organic search results found below Google ads. While it's free to optimise your website for these results, it requires expertise and time to achieve meaningful rankings.

Partnering with an SEO agency can accelerate this process and deliver more effective results through professional, targeted strategies.

The page will rank highly in organic search results for as long as it takes for a competitor to create a higher-ranking page for that search term.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. It is the digital marketing discipline that ranks website pages high in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Despite it sounding very technical, SEO is both an art and a science.

Search engines must be able to crawl and understand your content to index it. The science behind SEO is helping search engines understand your website or app.

The art is helping the user understand it.

Search engines are informed by how users interact with your content (user metrics).

Carefully crafting copy is the art behind it. Clear and concise copy helps Google to understand your content.

So, the two go hand in hand. No matter how good your content is, if Google can’t understand and crawl your content, it won’t rank high in the search engines for people to discover.

Measurable, qualified traffic

With the help of various SEO platforms and software, marketeers can gauge an idea of the number of searches conducted on Google and other search engines.

The traffic on search engines is highly targeted and remarkably effective.

Once a high-quality piece of content secures a ranking on Google, a company’s main goal is already accomplished.

All that remains is periodically updating SEO content. This ensures that the content maintains it high ranking and continues to attract high-quality traffic to the site.

SEO Considerations for Insurance Companies

1. Google is the Biggest Search Engine

In the English-speaking world, there is only one search engine that 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 – making it a necessity to achieve high SERPs rankings for your domain and individual pages.

Google prioritises providing users with the most relevant and highest-quality search results. Failing to do so risks users shifting to alternative search engines.

2. The Importance of Local SEO

Google is sophisticated.

It does an increasingly good job of knowing where searches have local search intent – Local SEO focuses on this aspect. Through targeting specific geographic locations, it emphasises local search factors such as Google Business listings, local citations, and location-based keywords.

Regular SEO is much broader. It aims to improve a site’s visibility on a national and international scale.

Both aim to improve search engine rankings but differ in target audience and strategy. Businesses typically devise their strategies with a mix of both regular and local SEO.

3. The Importance of Reviews

Customer reviews are important for insurance companies.

They act as powerful trust signals for online searchers, with 84% of consumers stating that reviews are important in their buying journey. An additional 68% formed opinions about a business businesses after reading only 1-6 reviews.

Ignoring customer reviews shuts the door on valuable feedback and potential customers. Businesses must respond to both positive and negative reviews in a constructive way.

Different Areas of SEO

1. Technical SEO

Technical SEO focuses on a 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

Prioritising tasks

Conducting a technical audit helps to identify high-priority issues that need to be tackled with urgency. However, this should not be done at the expense of writing good 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 (known as long-tail keywords).

Before getting started, businesses need to research what keywords they want to target on their pages as well as 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 extensive keyword research, the executive decision may be made to split a single page into multiple 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, key word difficulty, and search intent (what exactly the searcher is looking for).

Keywords for Blogs

Keywords are often applied to website home pages and service pages. They aren’t needed for ‘about us’, ‘contact us’, and ‘privacy policy’ pages.

They are, however, a necessity for blogs. Specific blogs should be written to target keywords in a way that service/commercial pages would not.

For example, if someone searches ‘the difference between life insurance and life assurance, they are unlikely to be looking for a service page that is directly selling either of the 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 the services. If the blog becomes a sales pitch, it will not fulfil the search intent of most readers, who simply want an answer to the question they originally searched.

Know Your Insurance

The success of ranked content is determined by user analytics. Google considers criteria such as amount of time visitors spend on your page and their activities.

Keeping visitors on your site requires creating content with clear, compelling language as well as incorporating 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 content, readers will lose interest.

And if readers lose interest, Google will notice and penalise your website accordingly.

Quality Over Quantity

Blogs often become the driver for targeting numerous keywords – emphasising the need for ample content to effectively cover them all.

However, quantity shouldn't overshadow quality.

Creating well-crafted, organised content demands time. Starting with less competitive (low difficulty) keywords is recommended when targeting a vast array of keywords.

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 links to your website from other websites. They help to build a website’s topical authority in the eyes of Google.

Larger, more trusted domains are likely to have more links pointing to them compared to their smaller, less-known competitors. 

Several tactics and strategies can be deployed to increase the number of backlinks a website get. 

These tactics and strategies include:

• Writing content for other websites. For example, publishing an article on 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. For example, an article with data on an interesting aspect of insurance can be published and sent to journalists who will link to it from their high-authority news websites. (‘Top 10 most insured celebrities of 2024…’ etc.)
  
  

• Link exchanges. You (an 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, compared to being from paid traffic (PPC). 

A significant portion of website traffic comes from users directly searching a company’s name in Google. This is referred to direct or branded traffic, resembling organic traffic.

The overarching objective of SEO is for search users to discover unfamiliar brands. It entices them to visit new websites related to specific products, services, or industries that they have searched.

2. Increased Organic Search Traffic Quality

A good SEO strategy will give insurance companies high-quality search traffic. Certain keywords have more relevant and commercial search intent than others, depending on the industry vertical.

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’ 

The second group of keywords may not be entirely useless. But, in the long run, focusing on the first group of keywords is going to bring higher quality traffic, that is far 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 will enhance 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 out from the competition.

Conclusion

SEO is playing a substantial part in the insurance industry’s digital revolution.

It provides numerous benefits, from attracting high-quality leads to achieving greater brand visibility.

If you're an insurance company that is still hesitant about incorporating SEO into your overall marketing strategy, consider the following:

• 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 that are relevant to your insurance offerings – attracting highly qualified leads, leading to higher conversion rates and improved ROI.
  
  

• Stay ahead of the competition: Not all 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!

Not only does SEO uncover fundamental principles about your website, but also other areas of your marketing. It allows you to learn more about how your target audience finds you online, helping you understand how to best meet their search intent.

Find out more about our insurance industry SEO services today.