Online insurance services and searches are without a doubt growing well in the UK.
Recent statistics from various sources echo this:-
- 93% of Brits are making major financial cutbacks in the home to survive the economic turmoil and 32% are 'shopping around for cheaper home insurance'. (Legal & General Report, November 2008)
- UK Internet visits to the Insurance category increased by 43% over the quarter. (Hitwise, January - March 2009)
- Moneysupermarket.com received the most traffic from searches in 6 out of our 8 featured insurance and finance product ranges over the quarter. (Hitwise, January - March 2009)
- Searches for health insurance increased by 165% over the quarter. (Hitwise, January - March 2009)
Insurance sector more dependent on paid search
Traffic to insurance sites is however highly competitive and very reliant on paid advertising. Research by Hitwise shows that as much as 33.0% of traffic to insurance sites is driven by paid search compared to the UK average of 8.6%.
Gaining a good internet presence is expensive as the mainstream keywords used by insurance advertisers are in high demand.
Start using long tail SEO – look to build more organic traffic
Long tail SEO (LTaS) helps drive traffic to sites by moving away from the “vanity” or highly competitive keywords which are expensive to use and can eat up huge advertising budgets.
LTaS looks to use longer keywords that can draw visitors otherwise not picked up. The process works well as internet users are becoming more and more astute, they use longer keywords and know what to look.
Information and content are the kings
Research also shows that internet shoppers are increasingly using the internet to research products. Insurance is a sector that fits in very well with product comparison. Key to ensuring high visitor traffic and subsequent conversion is making sure that all questions are answered and that visitors have a wealth of information readily available.
Have good contact channels in place
Surveys also show that people looking to purchase financial products actively seek sites that provide a human interface, preferably onshore, as they like to discuss package options.
Equally visitors also want to have the anonymity and lack of hard sale follow up calls. Visitors want to be able to ask questions and receive non-pressured responses.
Striking the balance between all your calls to action is therefore imperative.
Test different options
If you are already receiving good traffic, either through organic or paid search, multivariate analysis M-VAP is an excellent process to test subtle website design tweaks.
Here at The WebMarketing Group we can run M-VAP on a portion of your live traffic and analyse what changes could be made to your existing design and suggest ways to improve your overall conversion rates.
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