How Users Search For Home Insurance Quotes

According to a recent study, 75% of consumers have a specific provider or comparison site in mind when going online to buy home insurance.

WhatUsersDo.com, a customer insight agency specialising in digital experiences, recently released a study on “How users search for home insurance quotes”.

The WhatUsersDo’s report was based on a study of real customers who were tasked with obtaining two home insurance quotes online. Given that there are about 20 million UK households spending an average of £400 annually on buildings and content insurance, the stakes are high in this competitive market.

AXA’s marketing agency Ignition, look at four lessons every insurance brokers can learn (not just those involved in home insurance) from the buyer behaviour highlighted in this report:

The “so what”;

• Google dominates – so get google friendly
• Unless you are in the top 5 on Google rankings for the specific search term – you are arguably in the digital wilderness
• If you can’t influence this – the battle is probably over so look elsewhere…as the ‘deep pockets’ have the resources (skills & money) to compete
• Get specific. Create a strong & memorable brand name/identity (& ideally make this unique) – it will probably be the most cost effective way of driving traffic directly to your site
• Secure your “brand” searches – otherwise your competitors will
• Focus on low volume search terms if your online marketing budget is limited, but don’t forget that non-digital marketing spend also works
• Driving traffic to your site and securing sales are two very different things

1. Google dominates – but specific “brand” searches are more common than you may think

The WhatUsersDo study found, whether a buyer is looking for alternative providers or already has a brand in mind, online buying usually starts on a search engine. For those looking for “home Insurance”:

• 86% of searches for were run on Google
• 8% queried Yahoo
• Others (6%)

These buyers weren’t just performing general search queries like “Home Insurance”; 55% of searchers had a specific provider or comparison site in mind:

• 16% searched for a specific comparison site
• 39% searched for a specific provider.

Ignition comment:
Traffic sources on broker websites analysed by Ignition confirms Google’s complete dominance, although we also observe Microsoft’s Bing being used more than Yahoo.

Making your site visible on search engines is key and achieved through effective Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and providing quality content. What these statistics also demonstrate is that it’s vital that your site appears in search engine listings when users search for your brand name. If you haven’t invested in SEO, then some low cost Pay Per Click (PPC) spend for your brand would be sensible to fast track getting your website listed higher on Google. But, spend wisely – see below.

 

2. When searching for a provider, brand matters to customers.

Combined data from search engines queries and direct website entry shows that brand reputation matters. 75% of users had a specific home insurance provider or comparison site in mind:

• 46% went straight to a named comparison site
• 29% went straight to a provider’s site

Ignition comment:
To achieve brand recognition requires spend. All of the volume players for home insurance (comparison sites and direct insurers) also advertise heavily on TV and in the press. An example being MoneySupermarket, who spent £52.1 million in the first half of 2014.

Clearly, building a recognisable brand within a competitive market like home insurance requires time and big marketing budgets. It also demonstrates that even in this digital age, offline marketing is still an essential way of building awareness and driving potential customers to your website.

 

3. Key Search terms are highly competitive, so focus on the long-tail.

46% search engine queries were general terms:

• “Home Insurance” appeared in 58% of searches
• “Quote or quotes” appeared in 8% of searches
• “cheap” appeared in 4% of searches.

If you run a search on Google for “home insurance” you’ll see all the big brands appear on page one of the organic listings. This is thanks to the armies of Search Engine Optimisation experts employed to ensure they maintain their position. It wasn’t until page four or five of Google’s listings that the less well-known brands got a look in for “home insurance”.

And search engine positions really matter. A Slingshot study of Google search position vs Click Through Rate (CTR) demonstrates the gulf between the traffic going to 1st position (17.16%) and 10th (0.51%).

(Source www.catalystsearchmarketing.com)

You guess what happens if you’re on page four or five!

But this doesn’t mean you should give up trying to get your site on Google. Half the participants using search engines in the WhatUsersDo study spent time trying two or more different search queries if the first query proved too general – Long-tail searches.

Ignition comment:
Long-tail searches make up the vast majority of online searches and are the real battle ground for the majority of brokers with smaller budgets who want their content to rank in organic searches. Long-tail searches are highly focused, but benefit from having lower levels of competition.

The best way to benefit from long-tail search traffic is produce good website content.

 

4. Pay per click buys position, and burns budgets

Of all searches, 44% of users chose to click on the paid Ad listings on Search Engines. The term “home insurance” is highly competitive and very pricey; currently it has a suggested bid of £18.75 per click through. As a result of these high costs, it will come of no great surprise to see who again dominates:

Ignition comment:
Pay per Click campaigns are a good way of buying search engine position, but they can burn through budgets quickly too. Indeed, the finance and insurance sector worldwide is one of the biggest contributors to Google’s revenues, generating $4 billion back in 2011.

Moreover, mistakes can be costly. Brokers can potentially waste hundreds of thousands of pounds on Pay per Click (PPC) spend because they set up their campaigns incorrectly or even forgot to turn ads off. Pay per click does what it says on the tin. If you do use PPC then we would recommend you fully understand and evolve your customer experience once they land online to maximise the spend to get them to your site.

Ignition can assist with a web review using our bespoke Google analytics broker dashboard. Interested? Speak to your AXA relationship manager in the first instance.

 

The Ignition “so what” summary;

• Google dominates – so get google friendly
• Unless you are in the top 5 on Google rankings for a target search term – you are arguably in the digital wilderness
• If you can’t influence this – the battle is probably over so look elsewhere…as the ‘deep pockets’ have the resources (skills & money) to compete
• Get specific. Create a strong & memorable brand name/identity (& ideally make this unique) – it will probably be the most cost effective way of driving traffic directly to your site
• Secure your “brand” searches – otherwise your competitors will
• Focus on low volume search terms if your online marketing budget is limited, but don’t forget that non-digital marketing spend also works
• There are plenty of niche search terms out there – but volumes will be low, so you need to be sure of the effort v. reward
• Driving traffic to your site and securing sales are two very different things…be wary of anyone over-promising driving web traffic to your site – and remember only sales conversions pays the bills
• Ignition (AXA) can help – the first step being to undertake a web review to understand who and how customers currently find you and importantly what they then do on your site.