So, content marketing is the new catch-all buzz word for link building, social media posting and blogging. There really is no easy way around this. No short cuts. If the objective is to generate traffic to your website and to be perceived as relevant in the insurance business, the creating quality, sharable, helpful content that will build quality links while increasing your authority on a subject is paramount.
Here is how it works. You use your wealth of business and insurance knowledge and share it…in writing…for FREE. Within the content you brand your agency and build in keyword links (anchor text) back to the relevant page on your website. The objective is to create content that people will actually read and share. Content that is valuable to the reader who is hopefully a 
potential client.
1. The first step is to create exceptional content directed toward the targeted persona that answers the questions you think they are asking.
Take off your insurance broker hat for a minute and think of yourself as that homeowner or business owner concerned about risk and exposure. What are the questions. Who are the people asking the questions? And what are the questions they are asking?
2. By answering these two questions you’ve answered the question most often asked by new content creators…what do I write about?
By the way, writing to more than one persona in your blog is ok as long as they are related. for example writing a personal lines article on Umbrellas, and then writing a business interruption article is fine. It’s also ok to outsource some content creation. Increased content equals increased traffic equals increased leads.
3. If you’re going to write, plan it.
Can you write once a week or once a month. Whatever your schedule allows, get on your calendar. It’s Saturday morning. I started this blog yesterday. I planned to write four blogs in February and this number two. Not sure I’m going to make it but I do have them scheduled. It takes me a couple of hours to research subject and to write the blog. Write out the questions and you have the topics. Then schedule the blogs.
4. Leverage content.
I am writing a series of blogs on content marketing which can easily be compiled into a 10-page white paper on content marketing for the insurance business.
5. Optimize the article.
According to Jacquelyn Smith of Forbes When writing a blog, the key idea is to create content that other people will want to read and spread. Don’t talk about yourself. Talk instead about your industry or area of expertise.”. Make sure people associate your business with the content. Brand it! Make sure your blog is article optimized for search. Build in anchor text. DO NOT force keyword anchor text. At the end of the day it’s still about links. What’s changed is value and quality of the content required to obtain or earn those links. The most important factor as far as Google is concerned, is the number and authority of the inbound links.