Answer: start working on your search engine optimization. After all, you want to get your website ranked near the top of all the relevant search terms so people can find you.

One way to build a solid SEO strategy is to associate your website with as many keywords relevant to the kinds of insurance you sell as possible. A great way to do this is to write a blog using all the important insurance keywords that show up in searches. It’s a lot of work, but it pays off.

Another simple and very effective way to increase your search engine rankings is to get your website listed with as many directories as you can. You want to get listed with Google+, Facebook, etc. of course, but don’t ignore providers of local directories, such as yellowpages.com, Yelp! and others that can drive insurance business to you.

Want to know which directories you should get listed on? https://getlisted.org/ is a great resource. Just enter your business name and ZIP code and in seconds you’ll get a complete rundown on the found, missing and unclaimed listings for your business. You will also find links next to each listing source, which you can click on to create listings for yourself.

The more listings or “citations” you have, the greater your chances are of being top-ranked in the search engines. Getlist.org did a study to determine which citation sources are best for different businesses. For insurance agencies, yellowpages.com, superpages.com and statefarm.com got the top three rankings. Of course unless you’re a State Farm agent, that source will do you no good, but you’ll want to take a look at the rest of the list for tips on which sources to list your new website with, and start driving traffic to your site: https://getlisted.org/static/resources/local-citations-by-category.html#InsuranceAgencies.

By the way, as you progress in your efforts to increase your listings you’ll want to check the Listing Score posted for you on getlisted.org, which is located in the upper right corner above your results.

And one more thing, if you’re using a domain name that’s not the same as your agency name, Google, Bing and Yahoo probably won’t know who you are, which means it’s going to be hard to get these directories to even recognize you. If this is your situation, the first thing you need to do is submit your new website directly to Google (http://www.google.com/submityourcontent/), Bing (http://www.bing.com/toolbox/submit-site-url) and Yahoo (http://www.ehow.com/how_4770781_submit-website-yahoo.html).

Last time I wrote about the importance of using Google Places to improve your insurance agency’s chances of being found on the Internet.  Even if you don’t have a website, you can still use these search tools to optimize your Google Places listing.

Get good reviews. Once you’ve set up your Google Places listing, when someone finds you, they will also see a “Place page” under your firm name.  This is where clients can write a review of your services.  I highly recommend agents take the opportunity to ask for a review whenever a client makes a favorable remark or expresses satisfaction with something you’ve done. This high visibility venue is the perfect place for it. (If you’ve got a website, why not post it there, too?)

In addition to writing about your service, reviewers can rate it with stars; five stars are max.  Frankly, I haven’t seen a review yet that wasn’t five stars!  By the way, once someone has written a review for your Google Places listing, the words “Place page” are replaced with “n Google review(s)” (where n equals the number of reviews posted). Besides helping your rankings, shoppers are obviously going to be more attracted to listings with reviews, so the more the better.

Get listed in as many other directories as you can. This is the other really important thing you should do. Google likes to see that other, well-visited websites have also listed your business. This validates you as important and Google awards your agency with a higher ranking. Here are some of the directories you want to be sure you’re listed in:

• Yahoo Local.  (http://listings.local.yahoo.com)  You’ll provide much of the same information here as at Google Places.  This listing is free, but for $9.95 per month you can get Yahoo’s Enhanced service, featuring more room for your company description and tagline, more photos, and analystics on the number of times your listings are viewed and clicked.  You also get “Maximum Exposure Placement,” which makes “your listing more discoverable to web searchers.”  Even though only about 15% of searches are done on Yahoo (as compared to about 72% for Google), Enhanced service might be something to try out at some point.
• Angie’s List.  (http://angieslist.com) Another aggregator of consumer service reviews, Angie’s reviews also get posted to Google Places.   Currently 1.5 million people subscribe to Angie’s List and they post about 45,000 reviews per month.  Compared to Google and Yahoo, these aren’t big numbers.  But since subscribers pay to belong, they probably consider what they say in their reviews a little more seriously than those found on free sites.  In other words, they matter. The cost to businesses is nothing, so it can’t hurt to join.

Here are some more free listings:

• Ibegin:  (http://www.ibegin.com/business-center/submit/) Focus is on business listings.  They claim over 1 million searches per month in US and Canada.
• InfoUSA:  (http://lp.infousa.com/)  Vendor claims 85% of online directories are powered by InfoUSA, including MSN and AOL brands and 90% of in-car navigation.
• Insider Pages:  (https://signup.citygrid.com/) Like Yelp and those that follow in this list, an aggregator of consumer reviews.  Ranks agents by number of stars assigned by reviewers.
• Local.com:  (https://advertise.local.com/)  Free, but like many directories here, “enhanced listings” (that is, paid listings) get preferred placement.
• Merchant Circle:  (http://www.merchantcircle.com/signup)  My search experience on this site is that they are heavily weighted with ads and search results are minimal.  But, hey, it’s free.
• Yelp:  (https://biz.yelp.com/support/unlocking) Fastest growing website of its kind; has more than 54 million unique visitors.

Universal Business Listing service. There are many more social networks, yellow page services, portals and guides, free and paid out there — in addition to mobile search engines on Andriod, iPhone and Blackberry devices.  You may want to buy services from Universal Business Listing.  Depending on the level of service you want, you’ll pay between $39 and $599 a year and get listed virtually everywhere that’s digital.  (http://ubl.org)

You can have the best website, the best service and products, but if people can’t find you in today’s electronic version of the Yellow Pages, you’re losing a lot of potential business.  Website-ready or not, you owe it to your success to get into these directories, especially Google Places.

1. You probably want to pick a domain name that ends in .com.  People just put more trust in a .com name than any of the other extensions like .biz, .info, .net, .pro and so on.  And even though some of the “hacked” domain names that use extensions from other countries may be ingenious, they just come off as odd.  For instance, consider bestlifeinsurancepo.li/cies, which uses the extension “li” from Liechtenstein.   Clever, but you probably don’t want people wondering why there’s no .com in your name or thinking you’re based out of Liechtenstein.  Other interesting but dubious possibilities might be insure.me/now (Montenegro) or  insure.it (Italy).  (If you want to play around with “domain hacks” for fun, check out DomainTyper:  http://domaintyper.com/)
2. Some experts discourage using dashes in domain names, as in insurance-for-homeowners.com.  They say that names with hyphens are hard to remember, hard to type and hard to verbalize when you tell people the name of your website.  But hyphenated domain names are abundant and the good news is that search engines have no problem with them.  They don’t even pay attention to the dashes.



3. To see if a name is available, go to any of the domain name registrars such as GoDaddy or 1&1.  Many other websites will do searches and help you create a domain name.  One site I like is called DOM!ZE  (https://domize.com/).   When you  type in a domain name, you instantly see the availability status of what you’re typing and which of the most popular extensions (or TLDs, top level domains, as they are also called) are available:  com, net, org, biz, us.  Also, when you hover over the extension names (TLDs), you will see a quote balloon that gives you the prices for that domain as offered by several of the leading domain name registrars (GoDaddy, 1&1, dotster and networksolutions).
4. If you feel you must have a certain name that is already taken, you might be able to purchase it.  Domainr (http://domai.nr/), among others, will tell you if a name is taken and put you in touch with a broker who will help you negotiate with the domain owner.  If the name is being actively used by an entity, they are likely to want a lot of money for it.   On the other hand, if a domain name is registered but not in use, you can backorder it and if the owner does not renew the name, it’s yours.
5. When  creating the rest of your website, make sure it’s friendly to search engines by keeping the language simple.  For instance,  use “centralcitylifeinsurance.com/coverages/life/quotes” and not “centralcitylifeinsurance.com/17/bin/aprsd12/qte32.php.”   The search spiders cannot help you if your site is organized with this kind of language.
6. Keep in mind that once you’ve purchased a domain name, you are not locked into to using the provider who sold it to you.  You own your domain and can transfer the hosting to any provider you wish.  Your domain name is sort like your trademark.  It’s yours to delegate as you see fit.