Over the last few days, I noticed more and more insurance agencies in strip plazas and hot spots where convenient stores used to occupy.

During my drive around the city, I wrote a list of seven agencies I had never heard of. I looked up their company websites and here are the results I got:

• Three out of seven websites could not be found in Google.
• The four that had websites all looked the same with the same boring message.
• One of them said that they were out of business on Yelp.

Whether they have a single location or shops on every block, they all hold the same objective.

Get clients in the door and retain them until hell freezes over.

It all Starts with your Website

Within three seconds of visiting your website, would-be customers have already placed judgements on the identity of your company.

It doesn’t sound fair, but the sad truth is that choices signal identity.

Let me show you exactly what I mean.

Take a second to play a fun little game with me.

My colleague Jennie drives a minivan. I could tell you a lot of different great traits about her, but I’ll let you figure out what kind of person she is.

If you were to guess how old Jennie is, how old would you think? Is she twenty-one? Thirty-five? Sixty-four? It’s impossible to know for sure, but try your best to guess.

Do you think Jennie has kids? If so, do they play sports? Any idea what sports they play?

If you’re anything like me, you would have probably guessed that Jennie is between thirty and forty-five years old, has kids and her kids play soccer.

The fact is, she might be twenty-one, can’t stand being around children and not know a single lyric to twinkle-twinkle.

When I first heard about this analogy from Professor Berger at UPenn, it shocked me to see how an idea as simple as driving a minivan could signal what I understood about a person.

The same principle applies to your website.

When a would-be customer lands on your page, do they see the same red on gray, family oriented website with a giant “Free Quote” smack dab in the middle of your page?

What makes your agency different from others? What is it about your website that would make a lead want to be 15 minutes early instead of 15 minutes late?

Three Keys to a Perfectly Optimized Website

First, there’s nothing wrong if the colors you chose are red and gray.

If you haven’t made a website yet, follow this simple tutorial on creating a website (no coding required).

There are three keys to a perfectly optimized website.

1. A clear call to action

Unfortunately, websites can’t answer calls for you. What they can do is attract leads and entice them to dial 10 numbers to reach your office.

A call to action is an instruction to your visitor to cause an immediate response. Some examples of this would be “Call now” or “Read more”.

Hubspot gives 17 examples of calls to action that you can’t help but click.

If your goal is to physically get people through your doors, a call to action that you should have is to make your phone number accessible on every single page of your website.

Why? Because there is a clear call to action no matter how your visitor finds your website.

2. Don’t skip the research

Quality research drives every company through the gates to success or down the slide to another failed business.

If you’re advertising in the Yellow Pages, what caused you to pay to have your company name listed in their directory?

How do you know if the page itself is driving leads?

How did your customers find you?

When it comes to online marketing, keyword research is crucial for both your visitors and search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing.

By targeting specific keyword phrases that are backed with hard data, you can begin optimizing your website to be found in organic search results.

You can use Google’s Keyword Planner tool to see exactly what potential customers are searching for in your niche.

3. Always build a list of emails

Emails are better than phone numbers. When outreaching by phone, you can only reach one person at a time. When you send emails, you can reach an infinite number of people in seconds.

Every website should be designed in some way, shape or form to build a list of subscribers. Even if you have no idea what to do with your list, it will come in handy one day when you’ve figured out the most brilliant email marketing plan.

One great way to start building a list is by sending a beautified PDF quote to their email address. After you’ve sent the quote, don’t throw the email address away.

Use it to nurture an audience that has shown interest in your services.

People may ignore your calls, but they won’t ignore receiving an email.

Referrals aren’t enough

Consumers are interested in what you have to offer. You may be the local agency that has been around for 50 years and have gotten generations of referral clientele.

Don’t get me wrong, referrals are the highest converting source of lead generation.

But when referrals slow down, so does your business.

All thriving businesses have mastered lead generation. The goal is to turn these leads into customers who will then become your evangelists for more high converting referrals.

It’s time to take action

Here are three practical steps you can take to optimize your website right now.

1. Look through your pages and ask yourself if it serves a purpose for your greater goal.
2. If you haven’t done any keyword research, start today. You’ll be shocked at the kinds of keyword terms people are searching for.
3. Start looking through your current customers and those that have requested a quote. Compile the email addresses together and send a non-promotional email to them sometime this week.

Set a memorable first impression when your visitors find your website, make it easy for them to contact you and grab an email address whenever you can.

Most importantly, connect with your audience and grow with them.