For local insurance agencies, competing with national giants like AIG, Select Quote and EHealth for SEO rankings will always feel like an uphill battle.
These companies have million-dollar marketing budgets and entire teams dedicated to their SEO efforts. But, local SEO is a very realistic opportunity for you to capture search visibility and position your agency as the go-to community resource for senior insurance needs.
Here are some specific tactics you can deploy to help you show up and begin generating more customer phone calls.
Start with Google Business Profile Optimization
This is your baseline, and it’s free which everyone loves.
When seniors or their families search for insurance agents nearby, a well-optimized profile improves the chances of your agency appearing at the top of local results. Below is an image of what it looks like when your insurance agency page is optimized and visible in the local search pack.
It’s easier than you think to get started, in fact, it takes five steps.
- Claim and Verify Your Profile: Ensure your GBP is claimed and verified. Incomplete profiles are less likely to rank well and verifying is very quick with the use of your smart phone. The old days you had to wait for a post card, thank goodness those days are gone!
- Name, Address and Phone: Include your business name, address, phone number (NAP), web address, and hours of operation. It’s extremely important that it matches exactly what is on your website.
- Add Local Keywords: You need to weave in words like “Medicare agents in [Your City]” or “health insurance agency” into your profile description.
- Post Regularly: This is what most people we work with always skip. You need to use Google Posts to share educational content, promotions, or upcoming events that your insurance agency is having. Posting weekly helps signal activity to Google, boosting visibility. If you take a few hours, you can write multiple posts ahead of time and use various automation tools to make sure you don’t miss your posting schedule.
- Get Reviews: Reviews are key to getting and keeping local ranking positions. Always ask clients to leave a review, and always respond to feedback. An easy way to do this is build an automated email in your CRM that goes out as soon as your change the status of a lead to closed won, then you’ll never forget and you’ll start building reviews.
Add Local Landing Pages
Next, you need to start adding local landing pages to your website that you can ultimately link to from your google business page posts. Start by creating landing pages for each major city or area your agency and agents serve and get specific. Remember, you are establishing yourself as the local Medicare and senior market expert!
Here are some tips
- Local Keywords: Use keywords like “Medicare Advantage plans in [City]” or “Burial insurance in [Neighborhood].”
- Highlight Local Partnerships: Mention any relationships you have with local businesses, provider offices, food pantries, or senior centers. This builds credibility and shows the search engines that you actually do understand the local market.
- Add Your Local Contact Information: Include your name address and phone number, embed google map with your location and directions to your office from the major highways.
- Include Reviews: Add client reviews that are specific to the area. You can grab them directly from your google business page or you can set up a plugin that displays all your reviews.
The more hyper-local you can make these pages, the better they’ll perform in local search results.
Content Marketing for Local Authority
Content marketing is basis of SEO and is the easiest way to showcase your expertise and credibility as a highly trusted senior insurance resource. The more helpful your content, the more likely prospects are to find and trust you. Take this article as an example, I am taking the time to give you the exact steps you need to follow.
- Write Local Blog Posts: Topics like “Understanding Medicare in [City]” or “Best Medicare Advantage Plans for [State] are two good examples. You can also do reviews on senior centers or other local businesses that seniors frequently visit.
- Host Events: People love real interaction and hosting local events like Medicare 101 workshops is perfect. You can market them through your blog and share recaps afterward to drive traffic and engagement. Events are also a great way to build newsletter subscribers and online followers. Think about it, when is a better time to invite a prospect to follow you online than after completing a detailed and valuable Medicare educational seminar.
- Answer Common Questions: I always add FAQ sections to many of our topics. These can address things like, “How do I enroll in Medicare in [City]?” or “What’s the difference between Medicare Advantage and Medigap?”
- Always Use Local Examples: Include stories or examples relevant to your community to make the content relatable. People do business with people they trust and when you can humanize your content and use local examples as a way to build credibility, it will pay dividends.
Ask For Local Backlinks
Backlinks are usually the most time intensive part of SEO, but it doesn’t have to be. You can get links from other reputable local businesses and organizations to help search engines learn to trust your agency.
- Partner with Local Organizations: For example, when you build relationships with local senior centers, health clinics, or community groups., just ask if they’ll link to your website from their resources page. Most of the time they are happy to do it, all you have to do is ask.
- Sponsor Local Events: Participate and sponsor events or charitable initiatives is not only good for your community but also an opportunity to earn backlinks from event websites.
- Write Guest Content: Offer to write articles for local blogs, newspapers, or chamber of commerce websites on topics like Medicare enrollment or health insurance tips for seniors. Most agents don’t take the time to do this, but if you have the internal resources or a dedicated marketing team, this is a great way to nurture your online visibility.
In a nutshell, the more locally relevant backlinks you acquire, the stronger your local SEO performance will be.
Optimize for Voice Search
Seniors participating with voice assistants like Alexa or Siri is on the rise. Voice search optimization can help your agency appears in those results. Here is how you can make your insurance agency more likely to show up in voice search.
- Weave in Conversational Keywords: When creating your content on your website, social channels or even google business page, focus on phrases like, “Who offers Medicare plans near me?” or “What’s the best insurance agency in [City]?”
- Answer Questions Directly: Structure your content in a Q&A format to match the natural language used in voice searches. A great way to do this is search for a local keyword like “Medicare agent near me?” and then scroll to the bottom of the page where it says “People also search for”. This section can provide some really relevant examples for what your local market is searching for.
- Optimize for Mobile: Voice search is often done on mobile devices, so ensure your site is mobile-friendly with fast load times and easy navigation. One of the easiest ways to crush your mobile optimization is not compression your images before loading them, it can kill your load speed and it’s completely preventable by using sites like tinypng.
Create Hyper-Local Listings Across Directories
Your insurance agency’s information should appear consistently across all local directories to strengthen your SEO efforts, and there are tons that you can collaborate with.
- Submit to Directories: Focus on platforms like Yelp, Yellow Pages, and AARP. Ensure your NAP is consistent across all of them. My suggestion is always use your google business page as your baseline so you’re always making sure it’s the same from one source.
- Claim Niche Listings: Use senior-focused directories like AgingCare.com or local health resource websites to expand your visibility. You might have to pay for some of these, but it’s a great way to get more visibility and backlinks.
- Monitor Citations: Use tools like Moz Local, BrightLocal or SEMRush to check for incorrect or outdated citations and fix them promptly from one place.
SMA can help you do this as well, reach out to your account manager and we can discuss a gameplan.
Conclusion
Local SEO gives you the power to stand out in your community and build lasting relationships with seniors in your area.
By focusing on hyper-local strategies, creating community-specific content, and building a reputation as an accessible, trustworthy senior market advisor, you can establish your agency as the leading local expert for senior insurance solutions.
The national players may have bigger budgets, but your local expertise and ability to connect directly with the community are unmatched. Focus on these tactics, and you’ll be well on your way to ranking and generating organic leads in your local market.
