Principles of Insurance Website Design
A great website is one of the most important things that a business in any industry can have. These days, online marketing is non-negotiable! A key part of a digital marketing plan for insurance agents is their website design. But when it comes to the important principles of your insurance website design, there are a few vital things that you should know.
The right design can spell the difference between generating new business and going unnoticed on the World Wide Web. Here are the top most important principles of your insurance website design that you need to know!
1. Have a Goal for Your Website Design
Before you even embark on the journey of your insurance agency website design, decide on a goal for your site. This goal will shape all the design choices you make throughout the process, including the look of your website and the information it contains. Goals for your site might be generating leads, providing quick quotes for customers, or something else.
Having a defined goal will also help you measure how successful your finished website is — are customers accessing your site and achieving the goal that you set? In other words, are you generating leads, getting quote requests, or something else?
2. Mobile Friendly Website Design
Not all of your customers are going to be accessing your website on their computers. In fact, most of them will probably be using a mobile phone. It wasn’t always considered so, but these days, having a mobile-friendly insurance agency website design is a must.
This ensures that all the elements of your site load properly and are easy to use on a mobile phone, ensuring that all your customers can access the information that they need.
More than 85 percent of Americans use smartphones, and almost three-quarters of these exclusively use mobile phones to access the internet.
3. Consistent Branding and Design
Every company has a brand, and this sends a message of what they are all “about”, so to speak. When you’re considering your insurance website design principles, you will need to think of your company’s brand and the message that it sends — trustworthy, traditional, family-friendly, modern, and progressive?
Consistent reinforcement of this brand in all your marketing materials and designs is vital, sending the message to your customers that you are familiar, trustworthy, and reliable. You want your company to come across as a tried and true friend that has proved its quality and reliability, rather than a stranger.
4. Follows a Sales Funnel/Easy to Navigate
A sales funnel is a marketing strategy where information is presented in a way that naturally follows the customer’s journey from searching for the content that they need to choosing your services and getting in contact.
In insurance website design principles, this means that all the information is presented in a natural and easy-to-follow way: customers log on, get the information they need, are told why your services are right for them and encouraged to get in contact. The pages on your website should follow a logical order from grabbing their attention to convincing them to buy your services.
If you look at some of the most successful companies and the way they have their site laid out they almost all follow some sort of conversion funnel because that’s the whole purpose of the site is to convert customers. A customer needs to get on your website and instantly be taken down this funnel to where they either buy your product or generate you a lead.
5. Easy to Read Content
When it comes to writing the content of your website, it is important to write in an accessible, friendly voice. This will not only help people feel like they’re getting information from someone who is like them — accessible and trustworthy. Don’t write in a formal voice.
The average American reads at seventh or with grade level and the principles of your insurance website design should reflect that. This doesn’t mean that you need to “dumb it down”, but you do need to make sure that this information is accessible to everyone looking for your services, no matter what their background is.
You can see in this example the bad example is a long run-on sentence, with no flow to it, industry jargon, and no spacing. The good example shares the share information but the way it was written and displayed makes it that much easier to understand.
6. Use of Negative Space
The use of negative space is one of the most important principles of your insurance website design. A cluttered website isn’t just irritating to look at, but it will also drive potential customers away.
When there are too many elements on a webpage, users feel like they can’t find the information they need amidst the visual clutter. Use negative space to separate text and pictures into shorter, easy-to-read sections.
This helps people’s eyes move easily and naturally from one part to another. Give the information in short, bite-sized pieces, without relying on large blocks of text, to help improve readability.
Apple.com one of the largest and most successful companies to ever be created is the perfect example of the use of negative space. If you look through their website it is such a simple design because of how much negative space they use. If Apple is doing it, should we?
7. Engaging Call-to-Actions
A call to action is the final part of your advertising message. Now that your customers have the information that they need, what is the next step? This isn’t just a vital part of the principles of your insurance website design, but of all your marketing content.
Of course, not all calls to action are created equal. Encourage your customers to get in touch or take advantage of your services in an engaging, unique way, without being pushy or obnoxious.
This can be a big challenge to find the line between encouragement and bossiness, but it is vital for quality insurance agency website design.
8. Visual Hierarchy
People naturally read by skimming, which means that one of your insurance website design principles should be a visual hierarchy. In other words, the most important information is at the top of the page. Research by Nielsen showed that advertisers have 15 seconds to grab a reader’s attention before they decide to stay or leave.
When you’re deciding on your insurance agency website design, you’ll need to make sure that readers can get all the most important info as quickly as possible to convince them that your services are right for them. If they can’t get the info in 15 seconds, there is too much of it!
9. Use of Movement in the Design
Movement in design is a complicated topic, and it’s one that an experienced marketing agency may be able to guide you through. Movement in design refers to the way that the elements on a webpage flow, guiding the user’s eyes through the natural progression of the page.
There are many ways to achieve this, usually through a combination of text, images, and empty space. The goal is eventually to get them to the end result: the call to action and making the choice to get in contact.
This can be a big challenge to achieve, which is why you may want to hire a graphic designer.
10. Industry-Related Imagery
Don’t think that pictures are just for kids’ books! They are actually important principles of your insurance website design. Industry-related imagery not only breaks up text blocks and allows for better visual movement, but also establishes credibility.
It seems silly to say that pictures help customers trust you, but that is exactly how it works. On a car repair site, for example, a customer expects to see pictures of cars, garages, tools, and car parts as a visual indication that the company knows what it is doing. You should apply the same concept to your insurance agency website design.
11. Follow Design Laws like Hicks’ or Fitts’
Graphic design has been extensively studied, and you’ll find several principles that can help guide you while putting your website together. Hicks’ design law, for example, teaches that the more options you have, the longer it takes to make a choice — in other words, stick to the basic information to avoid overwhelming your customer.
Fitts’ design law is more specific, contrasting the size of objects on a webpage to the amount of time it takes to move a cursor. You don’t have to implement every single design principle, but they are a helpful guide when designing your website.
12. User Experience-Centered Design
“Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.”
Steve Jobs
When you are considering the principles of your insurance website design, all your choices should come back to the user. Think about how someone looking for information on your website will navigate through the information.
The user-friendly design includes easy navigation, readily available information, contact information, and other elements, all presented in a visually pleasing and engaging manner. This can be a huge challenge, but it is vital for ensuring that potential customers click on your site, stay there, and hopefully get in touch. Make sure the design is user-friendly on both desktop and mobile devices!
Conclusion: Following the Principles of Your Insurance Website Design
Designing a great website will help you generate leads and establish your brand as a trustworthy, high-quality company. Marketing in the 21st century means having a strong online presence. The right website is the most essential tool to get started. These are great tools for learning how to market a new insurance agency but also if you are trying to take your agency to the next level.
