Revamping Your Web Site: Part One
You're about to embark on a recap of Revamping Your Web Site: Dog Food, Welcome Mats, and More, as published in the January issue of the TAAR Report. This is part a series of posts recapping my TAAR articles. (Or, as Jeb likes to call them—and me too— the "TAarticles.")
The good news: you have a web site for your agency or business. The bad news: it hasn’t been updated since Dolly the sheep was cloned.
It’s not uncommon knowledge that the insurance industry as a whole has room for online improvement. The latest Internet Standards Assessment Report (ISAR) found insurance web sites to consistently “underperform.”
But aside from the industry’s “conservative nature” and “lack of innovation” (cited in the ISAR), it seems as if many site owners treat their web sites like a novel or film—ignoring the fact that a revenue-earning web site has no definitive end and should be in a near-constant state of evolution.
But your web site matters. Here's five reasons why.
Your Site Matters: 5 Reasons Why
In the hustle and bustle of every day business, it's easy to overlook the importance of your site. Here are five reasons why you should take it off the backburner:
- Prospects assume you’re on the web
- Competitors hope you’re not
- A web site ensures that you’re open for business 24 hours a day, seven days a week
- Combined with targeted online marketing campaigns, you can drastically reduce prospecting efforts while bringing in more clients
- You can better establish yourself as a trusted, knowledgeable insurance source
And while all of those are grounds for web site improvements, item number one on that list should have you standing at attention: Prospects assume you’re on the web.
In fact, a recent study by Keynote Systems found that 72 percent of auto insurance shoppers use the web to shop for a policy. That’s a five percent increase from last year. Furthermore, the study found that people using the phone to shop for auto insurance dropped from 55 percent to 49 percent.
The Keynote study also found that web site features and ease of use are gaining traction with consumers: 64 percent of shoppers said that a site’s ease of use was “extremely” or “very important” in their selection of an auto insurance policy.
So how can you improve your web site to enhance your competitively priced products and superb customer service?
First, you’re going to have to eat your own dog food.
“Eating Your Own Dog Food”
Recently, the author of one of my favorite technology/design blogs (Wisdump.com) wrote about the importance of web site improvements in a post entitled, “Eating Your Own Dog Food.”
I’m sure most of you have heard the expression before (which shares familial ties with “You’ve made your bed, now you have to lie in it,”), but the gist of the post was this:
How often do you use your own site? Is it easy to use? Does it have valuable, educational information to help visitors answer the burning questions that that keep them up at night?
Wisdump’s head blogger challenged his readers to use their own sites for a few days.
“Follow up on old comments if you have them, go looking for old content and just see where the site takes you,” he advised.
If using your site for 15 minutes makes you want to tear your hair out, he said, it’s time for some improvements. And with over 8 billion web pages floating around cyberspace (this according to recent B2B Marketing estimates), you’re going to have to find away to make sure those improvements differentiate you from the pack.
Once you’ve eaten your own dog food (and spit it out in your napkin), you may feel overwhelmed, not knowing what to improve on your site or how to start. This is normal. So before panic sets in, breathe deep, take a look at these following three suggested areas of improvement, and go from there.
Now that you know why web site improvements are important, stay tuned for part two of Revamping Your Web Site to learn how and where to begin!
