Ben Bendall, Digital Marketing Manager at Reassured Ltd
Ben has been working within digital content marketing since 2001 and he joined the UK’s largest life insurance broker Reassured as SEO manager in September 2017.
His number #1 objective was to grow organic search traffic to the company website https://www.reassured.co.uk/, informing both existing and potential customers on the benefits of life insurance cover.
Since 2018, organic search traffic has increased a staggering 1781% on the Reassured website with policy inquiries rising 781% during this period.
We asked Ben to talk us through how he and his content team were able to deliver this business growth and what he believes the key considerations are.
Always write for the user (not an algorithm)
Search engines are constantly tweaking their algorithms and what they look for from a webpage. It is very easy to tie yourself up in knots trying to write content that you think the search engines what to see.
Our approach at Reassured, is always to focus on writing for the end user; putting ourselves in their shoes and trying to understand what it is they want/need to know.
Within our sector this means answering key questions such as;
Do I need life insurance cover?
Will I be able to secure affordable cover?
How much cover will I need?
How long should the policy term be?
How can I best save money on my monthly premiums?
We firmly believe that whatever sector you operate in, by writing specially for the end user and meeting their search intent, in turn helps search ranking. Also writing naturally and with the necessary care and attention can help generate leads because your message is much more likely to resonate.
Continually review existing website content
It is very easy to build a webpage to meet a particular user need, push it live and never touch it again. At Reassured, we believe that when you publish a piece of digital content that is actually the start of the journey and not the end point.
Every 6 months our dedicated content team will audit existing content and question whether it is still fit for purpose or if there are necessary improvements that need to be made to aid the user.
If the last few years have taught us anything it is that you never quite know what is around the corner. An example of this would be the recent unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic.
As a result of this global outbreak our website visitors naturally had different requirements and different questions that needed answering. For example;
Can a claim be made if a policyholder passes away as a result of COVID?
Can I take out a new policy if I have or have had COVID-19?
Will more premiums increase if I have COVID?
Do I have to inform the insurer of a previous COVID-19 diagnosis?
Online content rarely benefits from being left for years on end, because things change and therefore what the user needs/wants changes too. As content marketing specialists we need to be regularly review/update our webpages accordingly to ensure they provide the best possible user experience.
Evaluate the competition
The life insurance sector is extremely competitive and quite rightly highly regulated. There are household insurers, like AIG, Legal & General and LV= who are huge brands with great brand awareness and national TV campaigns.
For us at Reassured this makes competing for ‘the click’ in search results extremely tough, as users naturally click on what they know and trust. As a result, we work extremely hard to ensure that our content is stronger than the competition to help bridge this gap.
To do this we regularly review competing pages, asking are there any learnings? Why would a user benefit more from visiting our website vs a competitor? This can even result in picking up on something they are doing particularly well and which we could benefit from too.
Harness the power of online customer reviews
Although Reassured are a huge player in the UK life insurance market, we do not have huge brand awareness and the majority of online users probably won’t have heard of us. This poses a potential problem as this can have a negative effect on earning the click and subsequently converting leads.
To counter this we harness the power of strong online customer review from the likes of Trustpilot and Google reviews.
At the time of writing this article Reassured have acquired an impressive 69,618 customer reviews on Trustpilot was over 90% of reviews rated at “Excellent”.
This is a strong and compelling marketing message which we are very proud of, which we utilise to create trust and credibility.
Even the small number of negative reviews we receive presents an opportunity to improve our offering. If something wasn’t up to scratch, how can we acknowledge this and improve in the future?
Don’t forget about internal links
Within search marketing circles everyone is obsessed with link building. Acquiring credible links from 3rd party websites improves domain authority and over time increases the chance of ranking in search.
However, often the power of internal linking is overlooked. Internal linking, associating related content, helps provide greater context around certain topics. Even more importantly it can benefit the user.
For example, if you have recently got married you may want to establish what your policy options are. A great option for newlyweds is a joint policy, which is approximately 25% cheaper compared with two separate policy.
Therefore, this presents a good opportunity to link to your joint cover page. If your budget is particularly tight, it may benefit the user to link to your top 10 ways to lower your monthly premiums too.
All of these elements will increase engagement and hopefully provider users with everything that they need.
I hope this post has been helpful and that I have identified at least one top tip by which you can improve your digital content in 2023.
