Brokers need to improve their websites or risk damaging their brand, reputation and income stream, according to a report by Speedie Consulting.
The marketing consultancy carried out a study of broker websites and found “17 fundamental problems with insurance broker websites that were pretty consistent across the board,” said Speedie Consulting's Jason Hulott.
Hulott added: “During the research we found websites that were good; some bad; and ones that were downright ugly.”
Among the website deficiencies were:
• capturing email addresses
• splash screens
• broken links
• page under construction messages
• no regulatory information
• no interactive, fresh content
• corporate blogs
• text built as images not used as simple text
• not using title and page tags correctly — if at all
• navigation issues.
Hulott said: “While they may ‘look' okay to the naked eye, a website should tick certain boxes in order for it to be a profit centre and not a cost centre. While these things are all easy to fix, they are not being done.
“Hopefully this report will drive companies to revisit their website and make important changes that will help put their Internet marketing strategy back on track."
