Website is the center piece of any digital presence.
Website
In today’s digital world, an insurance agent website is an essential tool that should form part of any business and marketing strategy. If you are building a new insurance website or refreshing your current site, knowing how to differentiate yourself is key, and first impressions ALWAYS count. A robust website is a foundational pillar for business success, increasing brand awareness, driving user engagement, and boosting conversions. And crafting that standout platform doesn’t have to be complex or challenging. Whether you choose an insurance website builder, or you hire someone to design an insurance site for you, having a presence online is key. The website is the center piece of any digital presence.
10 Reasons Insurance Agents Need Their Own Website
There are many benefits for insurance agents to use carrier websites, to receive subsidies for the first few years for office allowances from the carrier to help get things moving. You also get help for leads, advertising, and technology. While it is easy to let the carrier do marketing for you, it may not have the impact you had hoped. Being proactive and having your own insurance agency website can help you expand your client base and increase referrals.
1. First Impressions Matter - Your website is the first interaction a client has with your independent agency online. It acts as a digital handshake, introducing the visitor to what you have to offer. If your messaging, aesthetic, and information fall short of expectations, you may miss out on a new client. Similarly, if you don’t have a website at all, today’s digital-savvy consumers won’t even know you exist. That leads to more missed opportunities. If you have a well-presented, highly informative website, you create opportunities. You draw visitors in through this exceptional first impression, keeping them engaged longer and increasing the odds that they’ll reach out or move forward as a client.
2. Enhances customer engagement - Interactive website features do more than display content, they actively engage visitors, converting passive browsers into leads and, eventually, loyal customers. Sharing industry expertise through blog posts, showcasing your authority via portfolios, and collecting user input through feedback forms all contribute to increasing engagement. When you encourage active visitor participation, whether through making a purchase, leaving feedback, or engaging in community forums you cultivate more robust connections with them. Customers who feel a sense of belonging and value within your community are more likely to return for future purchases and become enthusiastic brand advocates, driving immediate sales and sustained growth.
3. Showcases credibility and professionalism - A meticulously designed and well-curated website doesn’t just represent your brand, it elevates it. Greeting online visitors with intuitive user experiences, polished designs, and responsive performance signals that every facet of your business matters. This attention to detail conveys professionalism, making visitors more likely to engage with and invest in your offerings. Modern websites do more than appeal visually, they also cultivate trust. Since consumers often vet brands online before making a purchase, a top-notch website proves you prioritize every touchpoint in the customer journey. It instills confidence in users, demonstrating that you value your brand and the audience interacting with it.
4. Showcases your company, products and brand - Your website directly reflects your brand, showing visitors who you are and what your business represents. When a prospective client looks for local insurance agents, they may wind up at the carrier’s national site. When they enter their zip or other location-based data, a list of agents is produced. Each page that the carrier provides has the same format and general information. By having your own site, you can stand out, giving the prospect incentive to become a client. A website is, first and foremost, a resource brimming with information. By focusing on the quality of your website, you can showcase your company and products with ease. The information they are after will be right at their fingertips, whenever they want it.
5. Boosts Your Online Marketing - Harnessing the full potential of digital marketing is pivotal for boosting your website’s bottom line. If you aren’t marketing online, you’re missing out. A great website opens this door wider. You won’t just have an online presence, but you can also embrace SEO to place your site higher in results lists. This can increase traffic levels to your site, making it more likely that anyone looking for an independent agency finds you before your competitors. Plus, if you decide to pursue other online marketing options, such as using Google Ads or a similar network, having a website is crucial. It gives you a place to direct people who see your advertisement that offers more than you can get those social media profile alone.
6. Increases brand awareness - Every web design detail, from typography to content style, contributes to your brand’s identity and personality. Such meticulous branding differentiates your business from competitors and extends its reach beyond local boundaries. By cultivating a distinct and memorable identity, you ensure your brand messaging breaks down geographical barriers, resonating far and wide.
7. Establishes a competitive edge - A polished website is a crucial differentiator, particularly when marketing a small business in a saturated market. It anchors your brand’s digital identity and reflects its dedication, foresight, and ambition. When customers assess options online, a compelling website can tilt the scales in your favor, enabling you to stand out, even among industry giants.
8. Enables data collection, analysis and insight - Add analytics to your website, and you can see where prospects are coming from and what pages they visit the most. This allows you to track which advertising campaigns perform the best and tune the content so that it can appeal to your clients and area prospects. With integrated tools like Google Analytics, you gain insights into user behavior, trace traffic sources, identify popular content, and map out navigation paths. By continually monitoring and interpreting this data, you can make informed decisions to refine your offerings and website marketing strategies to bolster growth and retention.
9. Provides 24/7 accessibility and convenience - Clients do not always have the time to call or email their questions during regular business hours. Unlike a brick-and-mortar store with set operating hours, your website operates around the clock, offering products, services, and vital information without constraints. This constant availability provides unmatched convenience to potential customers and reinforces your brand’s dedication to meeting their needs. B Adding Frequently Asked Questions, forms, tips, and advice enables clients and prospects to access your agency 24/7 and get the information they need. This value and convenience make clients more likely to refer your agency and helps leads become clients.
10. Evolves with audience preferences - Your website’s structure, from its content and design to its navigation, offers flexibility to adjust as trends and priorities shift, helping it remain relevant and usercentric. To promote a new product, consider crafting a dedicated landing page. If you aim to enhance user engagement, adjust website usability using direct feedback and collected metrics. Continuous updates and improvements also signal your brand’s dedication to delivering excellence and valuing customer feedback.
Standing out as an independent agency can be surprisingly challenging. While you may not think that your website is a crucial part of that equation, that genuinely isn’t the case. To put it simply, without a strong website for your independent agency, you are missing out on opportunities. If you are wondering why having an exceptional site matters, here’s what you need to know.
Ideal Agent Website
Functionality, Appeal, Simple Content and Connection
Design Options - Your website is the first chance to make a great first impression. Your website is the hub of all activity. Prospects, clients, and referral partners often search for an agency online and visit a website before you even know they exist. Gain trust and credibility with a clean and modern website design that makes you look trustworthy.
Search Engine Optimized - Prospects and current clients must find your website when they search for insurance on Google. Getting your agency to the top of Google, “IN THE BOX” and other search engines isn’t always as easy as flipping a switch, so you must be serious about (SEO) and implement simple things you are serious about SEO.
Mobile Friendly - Customers must be able to visit your site, request quotes and contact you from any device, anywhere. The more active your website, the more value you get out of it. Your website is so much more than an online brochure and more to reach prospects, better serve your clients, and highlight what makes your agency shine.
Social Media Friendly - Think of social media like opening the front door to your agency. Getting 5-star reviews on Google, Facebook, and other online services helps establish your insurance agency as the trusted, credible solution in your local area. The more 5-stars you get, the higher you’ll be in the search results when people are looking for insurance in your area.
Contact Page - More prospects and clients will call, email, or stop by your agency when it is so easy. Ensure your agency’s NAP (name, address, and phone number) is accurately and consistently displayed within online directories and listing sites to improve visibility and help your website’s SEO (search engine optimization). Choose one with great domain authority, you’ll get the best bang for the buck from them.
Online Quote Forms – A call-to-action (CTA) is a prompt on your site that leads your visitors to take a specific action, is a must. Online quoting forms generate leads with multiple quote forms, email notifications and rater integration. The more you actively use your website tools, the more value you get out of it. Your website is so much more than an online brochure.
Photo Gallery and other content - Personalize your website and build trust with your customers and visitors. Get creative, be human, and have some fun! The more fun stuff you post, the more people will get to know your agency and want to follow along with likes, follows, and comments. Leverage your local presence with the latest updates about your agency in the local community.
Insurance Carriers and Product Pages - Boost your search rankings and educate potential prospects and clients with content about the insurance carriers you represent and the products you sell. The ability to change or add new carriers and product offerings or remove old ones any time is a must. A Document Library saves time and impress clients with custom documents in a library on your website.
Agency Newsletter - Use a newsletter to give customers updates about your agency. Provide valuable content to your audience so they look forward to your emails and also build a brand recall. When you deliver content that is relevant to your customers, they will get in the habit of opening your emails. When you send them a promotional email, they are less likely to ignore you.
Insurance Agency Blog - Build trust as an industry authority with an easy-to-use blogging platform The ultimate goal in creating blogs is to drive as much traffic to your website as possible. Creating content regularly informs search engines, such as Google, that your website is actively updated and therefore should be checked frequently to see what new content has surfaced.
Customer and Contact Management - Automate, manage customer life cycle, and make the experience excellent, fluid, and effortless. Online customer service reduces in-agency servicing time and satisfies customers with 24/7 customer service and carrier access. Customer Relationship Excellent customer experience has recently overtaken pricing and product as the key brand differentiator.
Email Marketing – Utilize a CRM or build an email program to send clients and prospects regular emails. Email isn’t as glamorous as AI-powered chatbots, Instagram influencers, or other new-school tech, but it is still one of the best marketing and retention strategies around today! The return on investment (ROI) of email marketing is hard to beat.
Marketing Dashboard – Dashboard tracking of traffic, clicks, rankings, opens and more. Monitor search engine rankings, website traffic, and advertising in real-time 24/7. Keep track of what's working and not working on social media. Easy-to-read reports sent by email every month that will show you exactly what is being doing for you.
Client Document Library - Save time and impress your clients with a customizable document library on your website. They allow you to share important documents with clients and offer several notable features which is a huge benefit you can allow your clients to download documents anytime, anywhere they are available, which makes it easier for them to get access to what they need
SSL Website Security - Gain trust and credibility with an SSL certificate that helps increase lead generation. Keep internet connections secure and prevent criminals from reading or modifying information transferred between you and your clients. When you see a padlock icon next to the URL in the address bar, that means SSL protects the website you are visiting.
Alleviate Service Work and Generate Huge Commissions
Advisor Evolved® helps time-strapped, non-techy independent agencies acquire and retain more clients with easy-to-use marketing tools, and a gorgeous, conversion-optimized website that will never be mistaken for an out-dated, online brochure site.
Conversion Focused, Results Driven Insurance Agency Websites
Flexible design that future-proofs your agency website – Their goal is to build each client a website that is unique to them and their agency, and with our flexible design system built on top of WordPress core, we can do just that. What’s more, our system allows agencies to do so many different things. From point-and-click landing pages, to drag-anddrop page designs, your website is a Swiss Army knife of features and control.
Stunning, mobile-first design with unmatched features and usability - Did you know Googles’ index is now “mobilefirst”? This means Google puts a higher priority on the functionality and compatibility of websites at the mobile level. With more than 60% of all web traffic coming from mobile devices, having a mobile responsive website is non-negotiable. With Advisor Evolved, your website will be highly optimized for the mobile experience.
Unmatched Code Quality - With the introduction of Google Core Web Vitals, code quality & page speed matter more than ever before. Many websites may look good on the surface, but a vast majority aren’t built well under the hood. Our advanced code architecture means that your website will be lean, mean, and perform like a well-oiled machine, helping you rank higher in Google faster.
Conversion Rate Optimized - Most of our clients report an immediate increase in lead volume after we build & launch their sites. With a design process based on user & visitor data across thousands of websites, your website will be a conversion machine as long as traffic is flowing to it. Unlike some of our competitors, we build websites based on what works, not what looks flashy or gimmicky.
Google & SEO Compliant - There’s not another agency website developer who knows more about SEO than we do period. We teach SEO to other SEOs. We are extremely in tune with what Google deems to be best practices for website development, SEO, and CRO (conversion rate optimization). With Advisor Evolved, your website will rank higher, and faster.
Custom Designed Insurance Websites
BrightFire® is one of the leading insurance website design and digital marketing providers in the United States. They are committed to providing agencies with customer service they love and solutions that deliver results. BrightFire delivers complete digital marketing solutions tailored for independent insurance agencies of all sizes.
Why a BrightFire website is the right choice for insurance agents.
Custom Designed for Your Agency
Web designers collaborate closely with you to capture your vision. You only have one chance to make a first impression. That’s why the BrightFire team will tailor your design to capture your agency’s personality to help you stand out. No matter what your dream for your website may be, they can make it a reality.
Empower Your Sales Team
Sales tools built for insurance agents to engage and close deals. BrightFire has worked with thousands of insurance agents and knows what you need to succeed. They provide a suite of sales tools that help agents close deals and build stronger relationships with clients without leaving their desks.
Enhance Your Policyholder Experience
Support tools built to save you time and provide convenience to your policyholders. BrightFire has worked with thousands of insurance agents and understands the needs of your customers. They provide a suite of support tools to improve your policyholders’ customer experience all while streamlining your agency’s support processes.
Engage Your Customers with New Content Every Week
BrightFire provides helpful insurance blog content, so you don’t have to. We understand that not everyone is a professional writer, so they go the extra mile by providing ongoing blog content covering personal, business, life, health, group benefits, Medicare, and diversity & inclusivity. Simply choose the categories your agency offers, and they manage the rest.
Rest Easy, they’ve Got This
BrightFire manages all the technical aspects so you can focus on your clients. Hosting and managing a website can be tricky business if you aren’t familiar with the process, but BrightFire has your back. They manage your website’s security, updates, web hosting, daily backups, domain name registration, and everything else to keep your site running smoothly.
BrightFire Plays Well with Others, Really
Take your website even further with a host of third-party integrations. Our platform integrates with numerous comparative raters, customer service tools, email marketing solutions, agency management systems, live chat, chatbots, and call scheduling services. With these and future integrations, your agency can automate tasks and sell more efficiently.
Websites Built for you.
Forge™ website platform is flexible enough to meet your agency’s unique goals and vision while looking amazing. Capture leads and service your existing clients in style with a website that best represents your agency. Forge lets you tell your agency’s story, leverage lead generation, integrate with real-time analytics, and engage and educate with built-in tools. Build and grow your online presence with easy-to-navigate websites.
Key Forge Add-Ons to Enhance Your Experience
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Get access to the most advanced and proven tools in the industry with a streamlined insurance agency website platform. Show up in directory listings, build your reputation, and stand out on social media with advanced and proven tools that go beyond the website and make an impact.
Business Texting - Send, receive, automate text messages, connect over text message, and send automated messages to reach people where they are.
Connect or generate a phone number.
Get notifications and reminders.
Integrate Web Chat to your Forge website.
Automate text messaging for campaigns.
Local Listings - Keep your business info accurate and Capture more traffic by showing up across 50+ directory listings with accurate info.
Appear in local searches effortlessly.
Ensure your agency is visible online.
Get listed across 50+ directories.
Connect with clients searching for insurance near them.
Reputation Management - Manage your online reputation and grow your reputation by highlighting, tracking, and following up on client feedback.
Showcase your hard-earned reviews.
Build upon your credibility.
Ask your loyal clients for their feedback.
Gauge client satisfaction.
Social Media - Automatically post to socials and Access a library of social content, automated posts, and customizable options to post.
Connect your agency’s social accounts.
Use our ready-made social posts.
Create and publish custom content.
Set it and forget it content options.
Forge Dashboard - Access a central hub to view form submissions, unlock sales tools, and reach our dedicated support team.
Track quote and service form submissions.
Update pop-ups and website banners.
Publish your agency’s blog posts.
Contact our team for help with bigger site changes.
Interactive Graphics - Forge comes with 50+ exclusive interactive graphics that engage and educate your clients and prospects alike on insurance in a simple, easy-tounderstand way.
Educate in a click to learn format.
Inform about insurance and risk factors.
Engage with visual, interactive content. Encourage exploration of coverage options.
You simply click the yellow hotspots and flip through the different graphics to use it!
Everything You Need At a Fraction of the Cost
A feature-rich website platform that doesn’t break the bank.
Agent-Friendly Insurance Websites
InsuranceSplash is the #1 Insurance Marketing Website for Agents. It is the most important part of your online marketing strategy, and the first thing people see when they look you up. Most of your clients, prospects, and others you connect with daily will visit your website before ever interacting with you or your staff.
Here is what you can get with
InsuranceSplash.
An Amazing Insurance Agency Website
• Clean & modern designs that are highly customizable.
• Site built for you, and they make updates if you want them to.
• Easy drag-and-drop backend system to update site yourself.
Search Engine optimization!
• Setup, manage and optimize all important online business listings.
• On-Site original content creation and publication (original blog articles).
• Off-Site content publication for linkbuilding (videos, press releases, etc.).
Social Media Management
• Professional branding design layout for all your agency profiles.
• Updates made on your agency's behalf each week.
• Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, and more social networks.
Email Newsletters
• Monthly Email with all your online content for the month.
• Will send it to you to send or we will send up to 2,500 contacts for you.
• Add subscribers through your website and other social channels.
• Generate leads, referrals, cross-sales and improve retention.
Online Advertising
• $150 Monthly Ad Budget for Search & Display Media Campaigns.
• Guaranteed to drive active shoppers from your market on your website.
• We'll setup and run everything for you and report the results.
Online Marketing Dashboard
• Dashboard tracking of traffic, clicks, rankings, opens and more.
• See the results of our marketing efforts in real-time 24/7.
• Monitor your search engine rankings, website traffic, and advertising.
• Keep track of what is working and not working on social media.
Customer Support
• 24/7 Website support system so you can request help at any time.
• Phone support during regular office hours to ask questions.
• Online tutorials for the most common website edits to it yourself.
• 3 Hours/month of website customization, so you do not it.
Copyright © 2019 by Mike Haller
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means or manner whatsoever, without the express written permission of the Author. For permission requests, write to the author, addressed “Attention: Administration Officer,” at the address provided.
NOTE: All information contained in this document was obtained from the internet, or directly from the Vendors and is subject to change.
