Beyond search engines: 3 strategies to drive traffic to your Web site

Insurance agents are constantly clamoring for ways to drive traffic to their Web site. While search engines can be a tremendously powerful vehicle for driving prospects to an agent’s Web site, they are by no means the only (or best) way. Optimizing your site for search engines takes time, significant effort, and results are never guaranteed.

What other options do you have to drive qualified prospects to your agency wWeb site? Web sites are, by definition, meant to be connected to each other. Here are three strategies to get your site better connected to the Web and, as a result, drive traffic in your direction.

Strategy 1 - Follow the golden rule of the Web, “Link unto others as you would like them to link unto you.” Create a page on your site called “Useful Resources” or something similar and link from it to as many other trusted professionals and services as you can. This can be anyone from a realtor to a lawn care service. Keep the quality high and make it useful. Once the page is up, personally call each of the businesses you have listed to tell them about the page and ask if they can link back to you.

Strategy 2 – Content is king. Set a goal to add a new piece of educational content to your site on a regular basis that answers a question asked by a prospect. This can be as simple as explaining the different types of life insurance – just make sure it’s educational and addresses a real-world question. Once you create the content, send an e-mail to all of your contacts letting them know about it. As an added bonus, contact the people you linked to in Strategy 1 and offer to let them add the content to their newsletter or Web site.