Search engine optimization isn’t what it used to be, so discover the keywords to use and how.
Now that you know how to write insurance news (from last week’s part 3 in this series), it’s time to learn local SEO basics. This will help to make sure your content is speaking to search engine algorithms to be sure it will be seen by your target audience.
This practice used to mean jamming keywords into the content as much as possible…times have changed.
As the top search engine, ranking well on Google is your main goal. That said, the search engine has never released the specific details regarding its indexing and ranking algorithms. Moreover, the factors involved, and their importance are continually evolving. Therefore, many small businesses choose to create a balance between using solid local SEO basics and making sure their content is as appealing and relevant to target readers as possible.
Use the following local SEO basics to make sure your insurance news gets seen and read.
- Create a Google My Business (GMB) account and update it – If you haven’t already created this account, do it right now. If you already have one, log in and confirm that all the information is correct. Make your listing appealing, including contact information, a link to your website, hours of operation, a friendly professional description, your logo (as the avatar/profile picture), as well as some interior and exterior photos. This makes your business much more locally searchable on Google, and also helps keep all your information conveniently available to searchers on Google and Google Maps.
- Add location-specific pages to your website – Even simply updating your “About Us” and “Contact Us” to include relevant location information can make a difference in telling Google just where you are in the world and, therefore, who would want to find you.
- Focus on local insurance news content – When you do start writing your insurance news articles, focus on the local perspective. If you can write about topics that are geographically specific, that’s terrific. If the news you want to cover is more general, write it from the perspective of how it impacts your region. Remember that you’re not a global or national newspaper. You’re a resource for your target readers who live in your community.
- Use the Google AdWords Keyword Planner – This fantastic free tool comes with your Google AdWords account. That account is also free, and you don’t need to pay for ads to use the associated tools. It will help you to find out which keywords are the most searched for and where the lowest competition will be. That way, you can organically ease those words and phrases – for instance, Canyon County insurance agent – into your news content for better search engine optimization.
- Get some backlinks – When other sites link to your website, blog or insurance news article, it tells Google that your content is relevant. Therefore, use resources such as the Live Insurance News Press Release Submission tool to post quality content containing strategy components from your local SEO basics such as keywords, and include a link to your own site or blog to increase its search engine value.
- Use social media – When you post an article – whether it’s on your site or Live Insurance News, share it across all your social media accounts. This will also boost its appeal to Google while actively making sure what you write will be seen by people who are already following you. Keeping your content in front of your target audience means they are more likely to become and remain your customers (more about that in Part 5, next week).
Don’t miss the next step in this series, Local Search SEO for Agents Part 5: How to Reader Optimize Your Insurance News, which will be published next Monday. You’ve learned about how to make your news appealing to search engines this week. Next week, you’ll find out how to make sure actual human readers will find it just as interesting and relevant. Bookmark this site, follow us on our social media, or 
– easiest of all – use the “Get More Stuff” form below to sign up for our completely spam-free mailing list, including a newsletter that will contain each part of this local insurance news series.
