Insurance agents may be confused about the differences and relative efficacy of organic insurance agency SEO versus Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns. When speaking about both organic SEO and PPC, one would refer to these collectively as insurance agency search engine marketing. According to Wikipedia “Search engine marketing, or SEM, is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of search engine optimization, paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion.” Thus organic SEO is actually a narrower subset of the broader insurance agency search engine marketing (SEM) definition, one which does not required paid inclusion.
Organic SEO is based purely on relevancy as opposed to a paid ad placement. Pay Per Click campaigns focus on a bid and placement strategy whereby an insurance agency selects keywords germane to their book of business and then pays each time a prospect clicks on their PPC advertisement. These ads appear on the top and sides of the organic search results page (SERP). Today, agency web marketers are mainly concerned with Google and Bing, in that order, when determining their search engine marketing strategy. This is because Google and Bing comprise, by far, the largest search engine market share.
The advantage to organic search engine marketing campaigns is based upon the concept that there are no recurring PPC fees. Agents are sometimes surprised at how high these fees can run. For example, as of this writing, Google’s keyword tools estimate there are approximately 2,900 monthly searches for the long tail keyword phrase, “Florida business insurance”. It is also estimated that a PPC click related to this search would cost on average about $2.25. Obviously, if an agency were willing, they could monopolize many of these clicks, but at a potentially hefty monthly price tag. With an organic campaign, however, there are no per click fees.
Insurance agency social media marketing adds a new element to the search engine marketing campaigns. Content on YouTube, Twitter, Stumble Upon and article directories is extremely important to agent and broker website traffic, exposure and relevance. These are now key building blocks for organic campaigns, particularly pertaining to insurance agency SEO, though they are not a necessity for insurance agency PPC campaigns. If we boil down the ocean and come to a single conclusion, best practices for insurance agency search engine marketing campaigns necessitate a savvy organic SEO strategy, including a cohesive social media marketing strategy, whereas a PPC campaign can be optional, and if selected, must be monitored very closely for return on investment. Ultimately, the goal of any web marketing strategy is to drive qualified insurance agent leads into the agency sales funnel.
