How Many Quote Requests to Expect from Decent Website

For $1,500 a month your money would be much better spent on Pay-Per-Click advertising, at least then you will actually be bringing in traffic. Paying for SEO is the hope that you may some day get free traffic which in this day and age just isn't worth it.

Look into Facebook advertising. You can target specific behaviors that may be connected with an insurance purchase like "likely to move", "new home buyer", "recent mortgage borrower", "new vehicle purchase" (even down to the category of vehicle) and lots more. If you spend some time really targeting your ads you can see good results. For example, if targeting hybrid car owners, show a picture of a hybrid car and have text like "You're saving the environment - now save some money!"
 
The problem is I cannot pin any one down for what would be considered a realistic goal. Everyone seems very illusive including the web designer and SEO personnel.

I'd be more suspect of anyone telling you what to expect.

It's not as simple as paying someone for traffic and then getting leads. PPC is going to get you leads, but no guarantees on the ROI. Organic SEO can take time, money, and can produce lackluster results.
 
The realist in me says:

If throwing up a half way decent looking website, by itself, would result in 50 leads a month, every P&C agent would use this as their marketing method.

Putting up a website, by itself, is a bit like either buying a roll of stamps but not mailing anything, or having a telephone and not calling anyone.

You have to have a plan to get traffic to the site. You can buy clicks, you can advertise, you can do a lot of things, but till you have a marketing method to get your website noticed, then it will sit there pretty idle.

Still being a realist, you will find a good, decent website will help you close business. It makes you look more professional to your prospects, which helps build confidence and trust in you. For this reason alone, a good website is worth it.

To get traffic to your site requires a marketing plan, similar to getting people in your office door. A few simple things to do:
- Get listed on google local. These are really your key prospects anyway and your placement will be better.

- Make sure you have articles on your website. These can be things like 'Am I covered if I rent a car?' to 'Why do I need UMBI insurance coverage?'. Write a few articles on basic questions and have them available on your site. Make them about things that people search for. No ideas? Add a recipe or something to do with your kids.

- Market your site. Post on forums, include a link in your signature. Don't spam places, but every little bit of exposure helps. Get to be known as an insurance internet guru.

Despite the advertisements, web marketing is NOT PASSIVE. You have to actively work it.

Dan
 
The realist in me says:

If throwing up a half way decent looking website, by itself, would result in 50 leads a month, every P&C agent would use this as their marketing method.

Putting up a website, by itself, is a bit like either buying a roll of stamps but not mailing anything, or having a telephone and not calling anyone.

You have to have a plan to get traffic to the site. You can buy clicks, you can advertise, you can do a lot of things, but till you have a marketing method to get your website noticed, then it will sit there pretty idle.

AMEN!

I love the telephone analogy. Buying the best phone in the world is not going to make it ring. The same with your website.

We've got some free resources available on our website that shows you how to drive traffic and generate leads from your insurance website. You can access them at:

Insurance Website Resources | AgentMethods

(CAUTION: Some resources in the above link require you to give us your email address, which may result in us sending you the occasional email with ways to increase sales and make more money.)

Aaron
 
The goal of my site is to make me money...lots of it. I could have the ugliest site in the world and if it made me rich I could care less that I had any ugly site. My dream would be to have a site that generated 50 quality leads per month. The problem is I cannot pin any one down for what would be considered a realistic goal. Everyone seems very illusive including the web designer and SEO personnel.

50 leads per month is a realistic goal. Write high quality specific content that addresses the concerns of your target market. It will work.
 
I am having a new website professionally designed for my P & C Agency. The traffic from my old site, which I did myself with no web design experience, brought in about one quote request every two months or so. I hope to have much better results with my new professional site, but am wondering what, realistically, I should expect.

Unless your previous design was so horrible it was discouraging traffic, it will probably make little difference, as design is only one factor of many in driving traffic to your site. From what you posted, it sounds the goal of your website and thus the standard by which you measure it is the action of a potential customer doing something, i.e. filling out a quote form.

As with all business endeavors, the bottom line is your rate of return on time and investment. Driving traffic to your site actually takes a lot of work. You will have to work through such issues as updating your content, search engine optimization, performing on-going data measurement that will enable you to understand what on your website is working, conducting "A/B testing to determine what changes to your pages work, how your site interacts with social media (Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, etc).

Simply offering on line quotes does practically nothing to distinguish you from a million other producers doing the same thing. Your website should be thought of as one aspect of a digital marketing program that works as a unit. Often, and sadly, web designers, really know little or nothing about marketing and what it really takes to drive sales. A pretty looking site is fine, but really has less to do with overall success than other factors I have listed. You should be prepared to act as a web master on an on going basis. This is NOT simply a matter of turning it on a having it work as some kind of perpetual motion machine. That is a fallacy idea.

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The realist in me says:

I
- Make sure you have articles on your website. These can be things like 'Am I covered if I rent a car?' to 'Why do I need UMBI insurance coverage?'. Write a few articles on basic questions and have them available on your site. Make them about things that people search for. No ideas? Add a recipe or something to do with your kids.

It is a pretty well known fact that people generally don't read articles, at best they scan them.

Pay per click ads are not without risk, as you can obtain a lot of junk traffic.

Getting "listed" on goggle, is simple, but achieving a high ranking is based upon the number of hits you get and your bid price, as it is done through competitive bidding.

A Facebook business page, not a personal one might work, but you have to constantly monitor your reputation, i.e. you might receive negative feedback to which you must respond in a timely way.

Perhaps a less risk, less costly approach would be to build your own email list, to which you could mail short notes, not junk. What determines if it will be read is mainly your headline/topic line, and avoidance of keywords that will flag it as junk.

Thus marketing internet web hosting services are going to promote their solutions often without mentioning the risks and leaving out less costly solutions. If you do go ahead and pay a substantial amount of money to design and promote it, you should think in terms of renewals, just like you do in the insurance business. You want to build a base of repeat visitors, otherwise you are back in the front loaded commission business, having to attract all new visitors each month. You should try to induce all visitors to register somehow, by asking just a few questions initially, and obtaining their email address.
 
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