HOW DOES GOOGLE WORK? 7 SECRETS TO LAND YOUR BROKERAGE ON PAGE 1

Web crawlers, long tail keywords, search engine algorithms

– are you scratching your head trying to figure out what

you are supposed to do to get your insurance

brokerage’s website on the first page of Google?

The way Google works to determine

where your site ends up on the search

engine pages looks like this:

You publish or update content on the web, such as on your website, on social media sites, or on other sites.

Google bots, which are endlessly crawling the web, index the new page once they find it. The more links to your site, the more deeply your content is crawled; the greater authority of the links, the greater authority of your site.

Your content is stored in multiple indexes.

Google estimates your authority and rank.

A user queries, with the help of Google keyword suggestions.

Multiple filters are applied, such as for personalisation, text manipulation, and links to and from other sites.

An organic result is displayed, with the sites that Google’s algorithms determine to be the most authoritative on page one.

Here are the tips that will move your

site to where your insurance brokerage

should be.

1. Make Sure Your Site Is Loading Quickly

If your site isn’t loading quickly then you can count on

visitors abandoning your site before they even get a chance

to view your informative insurance blog posts or learn about how your services can provide a solution to their

problem.

You can check your site’s speed at online resources like Google’s PageSpeed or GTMetrix. Then, to increase speed you can: Either compress or scale images before you upload them to your site

Enable browser caching and compression on your server – you can contact your website hosting company to do this

Deactivate or delete unnecessary plugins

2. Watch Your Click Through Rate

In Google’s view, click through rates signify how relevant viewers perceive your content to be. The better your rate, the higher your page rank is likely to go the next time those Google bots crawl your site and index it. The reasoning is simple. If you know someone who is known to be an expert, then you’ll recommend them to your friend who is looking for an expert to deal with a problem.

Google does the same thing when it rewards sites with higher click through rates.

For the insurance industry, a good benchmark is 2.65 for

search and .33 for the Google Display Network. You can

improve your rate by bidding on targeted keywords and making sure your chosen keywords are seamlessly integrated with your landing pages and ad text.

3.Natural Keyword Usage

The current trend in keyword usage is to be natural. Google is now penalising sites that overuse keywords,

particularly the exact keyword match. The exact keyword should be found:

● In the title URL● Image description● Meta description● First 100 words

Then, try varying the syntax in the text.

For example, ‘professional liability insurance cost’ could be written with a different syntax, such as, ‘cost of professional liability insurance.’ Your primary keyword should appear natural, even subtle throughout the text. Aside from your natural usage throughout your content, adding modifiers such as ‘best’, ‘2017,’ ‘local’ and ‘checklist’ to your title tags can help you to improve your SEO.

4. Long-Tail Topics

You should also include long-tail versions, as, in practice, up to 70% of your searchers will come from long-tail keywords. White hat SEO expert David McSweeney has found that it is not so much about including the actual long-tail keywords in your text, as it is about covering the long-tail topic.

For example, for 'how to save money on home insurance,' an

in-depth post that thoroughly answered the question,

but without the exact long-tail phrase, could rank better

than content that uses the keyword as the title.

5. Crisp, Short, Exact Keyword URLs

SEO guru Brian Dean has found that when you follow the former tip and only use the exact keyword match as described above, that you can give your pages a boost by using the exact keyword for your URLs. This only works, however, if you aren’t keyword stuffing. Otherwise, the URL will be just one more exhaustive usage of your primary keyword.

6. Use Authoritative Outbound Links

You already know that inbound links from high-quality sites will help your page rank, but outbound links may help as well. While Google hasn’t officially mentioned that using outbound links will make a difference, recent research on the phenomena proved that linking to highly authoritative sites makes a difference in page rank.

This does make sense, as when you help your viewers find

more valuable information from other sources, your site

becomes a greater value to your visitors.

7. Update Your Content

As you follow all of these tips to optimise your content, you of course want to add regular, fresh content to your site to keep your readers coming back, and the bots. It is just as important to update your old content. Updating your content signals to search engines that you are putting love into your site because it’s worth it.

Understanding how search engines rank your site, you are better equipped to get your insurance brokerage onto the first page. Refine your site and improve your practices and you will see results. As mobile usage has been skyrocketing, mobile optimisation is becoming increasingly important in ensuring your site is capable of making your internet marketing efforts work for your brokerage. Our next article will cover the top tips for garnering more mobile visitors.

Want to learn more? Download our free guide,

“Insurance Brokers Guide to Website Enhancement

and Serious Lead Generation.”