Your website is complicated mix of technology and marketing. It’s an intersection of many of your agency’s services, helping you gain new customers and keep the ones you have. Because of the important role of your website, it’s important that you invest in it and make sure it is up-to-date. You need to consider the different roles your site plays to make the right investments in it.
Digital Storefront
You know to make sure your storefront or office looks nice because potential and current customers will consider your storefront to reflect the kind of business you run. No matter how simple it is, your storefront is an expression of your brand.
Think of your website as your “digital storefront.” It will form important first impressions for potential customers, and your current customers will see it as a reflection of the service you offer. You want to make sure your website – from how fast it loads to what it looks like – reflects the business you run. It should match the brand you want to convey and provide functionality to help you gain new customers and keep the ones you have.
Inbound Lead Generation
Your website should be built in a way that helps it earn new business for you. There are two components to building a site that will do this for you: an effective search engine optimization (SEO) strategy and the ability to collect website visitor information via website forms.
Improving your SEO will cause you to be found more for searches on Google and other search engines. The best SEO strategies are built into websites from the ground-up, beginning with when the website is first being conceived. Your SEO strategy should target specific local searches in your area. For instance, if you’re in Columbus, Ohio, you’ll want to specifically target searches like “auto insurance in Columbus.”
Once you get prospects on your site, you want to make sure they contact you to buy insurance or learn more about your services. Your site should include effective calls to action (like “Request a quote”) with website forms that allow prospects to easily contact you.
Self-Service
If your site doesn’t include self-service functionality yet, you should begin thinking about if this kind of functionality would be a good fit for your business. “Self-service” refers to the ability for customers to take care of some services on your site without needing to take up your time or the time of those in your office.
You might want to think about allowing customers to print off auto-ID cards, for instance. There are other self-service capabilities your customers may be interested, too. If you talk to them you’re likely to find more. Allowing your customers to take care of these services automatically through your site frees up the people in your office to take on more important tasks.
Your website is a hub of activity for your agency. It’s important to keep it up-to-date to help you gain new customers and keep your current customers impressed with your service.
