One of the first things you need to do when starting your insurance agency is to create a website. You also want to take the time to regularly make sure that it continues to run smoothly and check all of the boxes. Whether you are designing your agency’s first website or are evaluating it to see if you need a refresh, look out for the following mistakes.
Choosing the Wrong Design or Layout
There are a lot of things that can go wrong with your insurance agency’s website, but one of the first potential issues you’ll likely come across is the layout. The wrong design can very easily make your website look busy and distracting.
Instead, keep your insurance agency’s website clean and professional. This will help visitors focus on your products without distractions. Make sure you use a design that lets you put the spotlight on you, your agency, and the services that you offer.
While choosing a design, don’t forget to pay attention to navigation, especially the main navigation menu. It needs to be intuitive so visitors can easily find the information they need.
Forgetting About Local SEO
You’ll notice that we mention SEO a few times in this article. That’s important as one of the biggest mistakes you make on your website is to forget to optimize it for local SEO. Remember that search engines are among the most common ways that potential clients will learn about your agency.
There are multiple actions that go into your local SEO strategy. You’ll want to make sure that your NAP (name, address, phone number) is accurate and is used consistently. You’ll want to optimize your Google Business Listing. You’ll want to build additional local citations.
To get a sense of where you need to focus your efforts – you can use our free local SEO to evaluate where you stand.
Not Including Clear Contact Information
Your insurance agency’s website is one of your key marketing points. Additionally, your current clients may occasionally use it to figure out how to reach you if they lose your contact information. But for new and existing clients to reach you, your contact information must be clear and visible.
In addition to a contact page, place your phone number and other contact information at the top of every page in the header and again in the footer.
Neglecting Usability
If people can’t easily read and navigate your website, you’re not going to convert your visitors into leads.
The issue of selecting the wrong colors for your agency’s website doesn’t mean that there are necessarily colors you shouldn’t use. It means that you need to make sure your colors work together. The most common color-related mistake is choosing a font color that makes it nearly impossible to read the text over your background.
You also want to make sure not to choose a bad font for your website. A bad font is simply one that is hard to read. To start, make sure that your font size is 16px or larger for the body and even bigger for the headers.
Part of choosing the layout for your agency’s website will involve deciding where the content will go. Creating large blocks of text is a common mistake. Such walls of text will make it hard to read your website. Keep in mind that if people can’t skim or get the information in seconds, they will leave your website.
Avoid this issue by using shorter paragraphs, headings, bullets, and numbered lists. Incorporate images and videos to break up the space.
Not Including Sufficient Relevant Information
On a related note, another common mistake is neglecting to take the time to create unique, optimized content. Many agency websites are filled with content copied from other sources – this is problematic from both an SEO and a branding perspective.
Not Including a CTA
Your website is one of your most important tools for lead generation. If you don’t have a call-to-action on it, you are missing out on numerous potential leads. So, make sure that you have a goal with your website and create at least one prominent CTA. Ideally, you’ll have at least one CTA per page.
The most obvious type of CTA would be to contact you to get a quote on insurance. But you may also want softer CTAs, such as those that encourage visitors to sign up for your newsletter or email list. This will get people who aren’t ready to convert yet into your sales funnel.
Conclusion
The most common website-related mistakes that insurance agencies make involve not optimizing for SEO or making the website hard to use. With the above tips in mind, you should be on your way to avoiding these issues. Remember that when in doubt, it can be helpful to get website help from experts.