Unique, relevant content that is written with your target audience in mind should be the cornerstone of any insurance agency’s SEO strategy, but we see so many websites that have duplicate content used all over them.
*Note: Typically, the phrase “duplicate content” refers to content that has been duplicated across your own website. For the purposes of this blog post though, when we refer to duplicate content, we’re talking about the same content being published across multiple websites.
Why do we see so many insurance agency websites filled with duplicate content? It’s normally one of two reasons:
- The agency thought that it was easier and more efficient to reuse content that they’ve found on some other website – like a carrier’s website, for example.
- The insurance agency’s website provider is using the same (or very, very similar) content on all of their clients’ websites.
Regardless of the reason, filling your website with content that isn’t unique to your insurance agency is a bad idea for a number of reasons. Here are just a few.
It Confuses Google
…and all of the other search engines. If you’re using content on your website that is already being used on a bunch of other websites, you’re making Google’s job of figuring out which is the most valuable version more difficult. The search engines will often simply default to declaring whichever website published the content first as the “winner,” or if you’re properly using your canonical tags, they’ll use that information. One of the key things that the search engines like Google care about is the uniqueness of content and the easier that you can make their job, the happier they typically are. A website packed with high quality, unique, and relevant content will almost always out perform a website with plagiarized content.
It Confuses Your Audience
When you use plagiarized or “canned” content, you’ll likely alienate your audience. How often have you seen websites belonging to insurance agencies in the deep south with blog posts that have titles like “Blizzard Preparedness Tips”? I know that we’ve seen it far too often. When you don’t take the time to create unique content, you end up creating content that isn’t relevant to your audience. If your audience can’t relate to your brand and the search engines can’t give you the “credit” the for the content, what good is it doing? All of the content on your website should be written with your ideal customer in mind – it should answer their questions, address their unique concerns, and give them the all of the information that they need to help them come to the conclusion that your insurance agency is the one that can help them the best.
How to Check For Duplicate Content
Okay, at this point you understand why using duplicate or plagiarized content is bad – but how do you check your website to find out if you’re website using it? You have a couple of options.
- Copy and paste a couple of lines of text from one of your more common product pages, like your Auto Insurance or Home Insurance pages, into Google and see what pops up. If you see a bunch of other insurance agency websites that contain the same content – your website is probably using duplicate content.
- Use a tool like Copyscape. Copyscape will search the web for plagiarized of duplicative content for you.
- Ask us! If you’re unsure, our team will be happy to spend a few minutes checking over your insurance agency’s website for duplicative content.
Eddy DeMelo is the Co-Founder of Agency Appeal and President of Beyond The Bots.