A Google Business Profile for your Independent Insurance Agency is an often overlooked but crucial tool for any independent insurance agent. Considering over half of Google Business Profile interactions end in website visits, this free resource has unlimited potential to boost your business.
Here at Valley Insurance Agency Alliance, we’ve personally seen a positive impact on our business from our Google Business Profile. However, we don’t want to keep the secrets of success to ourselves.
Keep reading below for more information on why a regularly updated Google Business Profile is vital for your independent insurance agency.
What is a Google Business Profile?
A Google Business Profile is a free tool to display your business, services, images, contact details and reviews to attract more customers. In addition, information from your profile is shown in Google searches to help you get your business in front of the right people.
Your Google Business Profile lets you update your hours, add photos of your business, and keep customers informed about any upcoming events or sales. There have been some changes to Google Business Profile recently, making it more accessible and easier to use. So, there’s no excuse not to have a profile set up!
With this in mind, let’s examine why a regularly updated Google Business Profile is necessary for your independent insurance agency.
Why you need a Google Business Profile
As we know, a Google Business Profile is essential for your agency. Three main reasons for a consistently updated profile are:
1) First, to rank highly in Google Search and Google Maps.
84% of Google searches are ‘discovery searches’, where users search for nearby businesses that can provide what they’re looking for. For example, to find your business, a person will search for an “insurance agency near me”, and your business will appear in their search. You will appear in the results if you have a fully optimized Google Business Profile.
2) To have regular, up-to-date, accurate information.
With a Google Business Profile, you can control what information about your business is online. For example, you can update opening hours, offers, consultation times and more through your profile. As a partner with Google, any information you share will automatically outrank other third-party details from other sites.
3) To get reviews for trust-building.
Google reviews are essential to build trust with potential customers. Google Business Profile has a section for customers to leave thoughts about their experience with you for others to decide whether they want to do business with you. It can take time to build authentic reviews, so the faster you set up a profile, the better.
How to set up a Google Business Profile
Google Business Profiles are free to use and easy to set up. Think of it like any other social media site and fill out the required fields. Of course, the more complete your profile is, the easier it will be to be found in Google Search.
Google gives you several options for adding photos, videos, text information, and more to your Google Business Profile. Simply sign into your Google account, click ‘create a profile’ and enter the name of your business.
Here are a few things to consider when you’re getting started on your Google Business Profile:
● Business details:
○ Your business name – you must make sure you’ve registered your business name for this. Look at this blog post here for more help choosing and registering your business.
○ The address
○ Contact details
● Include a link to your website
● Include links to social media profiles
● Opening hours
● At least nine images
● Your services
Remember, complete listings are 7x more likely to get clicks than unfinished ones, so you must ensure you fully optimize your profile. Also, using images increases the revenue per customer by 17%. Therefore, you need high-quality photos in your profile to build trust and give your insurance agency legitimacy online.
What to post on your Google Business Profile
If you’re unsure what to post, think of a Google Business Profile as a social media platform. Keep potential customers updated with offers, updates and events they might be interested in. You can also post reviews on your page that share positive experiences with your team.
A properly optimized Google Business Profile can attract customers to an independent insurance agency through inbound marketing. When you create content, Google Search notices and promotes your active business. The more active you are and the more content you post, the easier it is for customers to find you.
You can post anything you want on your Google Business Profile. However, if you’re struggling with ideas, here are a few ideas to get you started:
● Essential updates include closing periods, reopening’s, changes to processes or new services. In addition, it would help if you shared anything new to your business with potential customers.
● Share pictures of your team members for a more personal feel, or keep customers updated with your team’s exciting work. The more images you use, the more trustworthy you become. Posts with photos get 650x more engagement than text-only posts, so ensure you’re utilizing images.
● Reviews are social proof that you’re doing a good job. The more you show what you’re doing for people, the more likely you’ll attract new business.
● People love an offer. If you’re offering free consultations for a limited time or you have an attractive new customer offer, you’d like people to know about, write a post about it!
● If you’ve got several questions that keep coming up in enquiries, consider posting the answer to your Google Business Profile.
Why you need to post regularly on your Google Business Profile
Google is head and shoulders above other search engines, monopolizing 92% of the U.S. search engine market share, with around 3.5 billion searches per day. If you want to get your business found, optimizing your presence on Google is the way to do it.
With social media as prominent as it is, it’s vital to become a ‘social business’ that has a solid online presence. Your Google Business Profile is the first thing potential customers see when searching for your business. Google and other search engines will use the information you provide here to help people find you, so it’s crucial to optimize your profile with straightforward, relevant content that will make visitors want to click through and visit your website.
A Google Business Profile is an opportunity for you to tell your story, show off your brand, and create trust with potential customers who want to do business with you.
Set up a profile today!
As an independent insurance agency, it’s crucial to have a regularly updated Google Business Profile. The first step is signing up for a Google account and registering your business.
Be sure to post regularly with some of the ideas discussed in this article to boost website traffic and generate interest in your business.
About VIAA
Founded in 2006, VIAA generates more than $530 million in written premium and is the regional founding member for the Strategic Insurance Agency Alliance (SIAA), a $10 billion national alliance.
