“Long-tail keywords” are keyword searches that are three words are more. They typically happen less often than generic searches in insurance, but they can be valuable because they are specific. The use of long-tail keywords often shows higher intent to purchase than generic keywords. They are also easier to rank for in Google; this is important when you consider insurance competitiveness as a search category.
Collectively, long-tail searches make up a more significant percentage of what is searched in Google daily than simple searches like “insurance quotes.” As an insurance agent, think about the value of a customer that comes to your website through a specific search like “25-year term life quote married over 50 with hypertension” – you know what they want to buy almost immediately. Long-tail searches like this are how small insurance agencies can compete with big brands and carriers. Shorter searches are more generic and often informational in intent. They aren’t “buy” keyword searches.
How to Take Advantage of Long Tail Keywords
The easiest place to start is asking yourself, “How do my customers search?”
One of the easiest ways to answer this question for yourself is this. Think about the last five policies that you wrote – were they unique? What was special about it – the health, personal situation, or family situation? This helps you create a perfect long-tail keyword to describe that customer.
See the Value in Keywords with Low Volume
Most longer, descriptive phrases tend to get lower searches per month than their short, generic counterparts. However, this does not reflect on their value – it can mean the opposite. They have intent. Frequently, they are the more complicated cases. These can sometimes be hard to work, and not everyone’s preference. If you want to make it work and do, commissions can be significant.
Someone searching a specific phrase is not someone trying to understand life insurance – they are more than likely looking for life insurance and wondering how their condition or situation will affect their policy.
How to Compete with the Big Dogs
Since this seems to be such a high yield strategy, you might wonder how the established, large agencies haven’t caught on. The kicker is, they have. However, this spot remains extra competitive for small, young insurance agencies because there are just too many terms for any agency to target all of them.
By nature, long-tail terms tend to grow more and more as one searches and look more. Even an agency with thousands of pages cannot keep up with that. Also, on top of new keywords, your rank can change for keywords you rank for already. It is crucial to keep old pages updated with further information and adapt to what people are looking for.
If you can do this quicker than your competition, you can maintain your rankings and take theirs. Keep adding and updating articles on your website to produce value for readers, leading to a higher conversion rate. While you might not rank for the most popular keywords, you will still be able to rank for long-tail searches and get quality insurance leads. The key is to understand what people are searching for and stay on top of it to drive conversion.
To learn more about how you can stay on top of the game with SEO and all other types of marketing – contact the pros at Agent Pipeline. Call us at 800.962.4693 today!
