Point/Counterpoint: Should Agents Make SEO a Marketing Priority?

Should agents make search engine optimization (SEO) a marketing priority?

YES.

Not making SEO a marketing priority is like trying to buy a house without having access to the MLS listings database.

Most home buyers have access to free search services, and they can always drive around their neighborhood to see what homes are for sale. But at the end of the day, MLS listings provide faster, more accurate and more reliable results.

Just like a real estate agent can use MLS listings to find a match for a home buyer’s specific criteria, independent agents can use SEO to target the type of business they want to attract.

Consider this: If you type “North Carolina Consent to Rate” in a search engine, a blog article I wrote on my agency website shows up first. It currently ranks above the websites for a national insurance journal, several other insurance agencies, the local news station and the North Carolina Rate Bureau—which is in charge of setting the consent to rate rules.

What does this mean for my agency? When I consult the Google Analytics for my agency’s website, there are some 30-day periods where that blog post outranks my home page. That means I am now the established authority on the subject, because Google says I am. For a prospect, I am the solution when they have a related problem, which makes them more likely to fill out a form online or call me to obtain a policy.

If I hadn’t made SEO a priority when I wrote that article, I would not be able to make that assumption. If you want to be relevant in 2017 and beyond, it should be on your radar, too.

—Joshua Lipstone, vice president, Lipstone Insurance Group

NO.

Answering no to this question is akin to a relationship counselor telling a client that buying flowers for their significant other is a bad idea. The message is all in the details.

SEO is an advanced marketing technique; it requires quite a bit of pre-work before you can even begin, and after that, significant time to bear fruit.

Here are three reasons why the average independent agent should leave SEO on the back burner.

1) Many agencies should focus on fine-tuning other more critical marketing priorities first, such as:

• Source-to-sale tracking to identify return on investment.
• Inbound selling techniques, such as routing calls to commissioned staff.
• Building a sales culture that provides 24/7 coverage and responds immediately to inquiries.
• Developing effective lead nurturing capabilities to cultivate longer term sales.

2) Agents must build a foundation of critical components prior to launching an SEO campaign, including writing specific content to support SEO activities, developing traffic generation strategies to improve SEO rank for keywords, and implementing web analytics to evaluate campaign efficacy.

3) Highly effective SEO is difficult and expensive to achieve. With the rising value of “page one” rankings, competition for highly trafficked keywords has intensified. Search algorithms that determine SEO rankings change frequently, making broad skill sets necessary for SEO success. And SEO isn’t instantaneous or easily measurable—success requires consistent effort over long periods.

In order to be successful with SEO, an agency must first maintain a fine-tuned sales and marketing culture—and be willing to invest in a solid foundation that’s part of a long-term plan.

—Marty Agather, senior vice president of client development, TrustedChoice.com