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5 Design Tips for Working with Clients in the Insurance Industry
Working with clients in any niche industry requires careful thought before committing to any specific website design or layout. For example, some industries require contact information to be included in the header that remains visible as visitors scroll. Other industries can afford linking to a contact page from the main menu.
Other industries, like the insurance quote aggregation industry, require a specific type of layout to accommodate a very specific type of content. If you’re designing an insurance aggregation website, here are several tips to create a website that truly serves your client.
Content above the fold should always be created intentionally because that’s the first thing visitors see. That is your opportunity to capture a visitor’s attention and get them to act. If you’re capturing leads, it’s also the ideal place to ask people to sign up for your newsletter.
Aside from an email signup form or something like a critical video, your first section of content doesn’t always need to be above the fold. It can be below the fold if it’s the first thing a visitor sees as they scroll.
A great example of this in action is the Insuranks website, which features a comparison table for business insurance companies at the top of the page before the copy. Having a comparison table at the top of the page helps people who are just looking for a quick idea of what they can expect to pay for the given service. This quote aggregate website also duplicates the “get quotes” button throughout the page, which brings up the next tip regarding call-to-action buttons.
Your client’s call-to-action buttons are the lifeblood of their landing pages. When designing pages, make sure to include their CTA button throughout the text. Most people don’t read full articles or even full sentences, but rather, quickly scan the page for headings as they scroll. You’ll need to design each page specifically for scanners.
Part of writing scannable content requires adding CTA buttons between chunks of information to capture the attention of visitors who scan and scroll. CTA buttons don’t need to be placed after every paragraph of text, but they should be placed where it makes the most sense given the published content.
CTA buttons should display minimal text with as few words as possible. The words should be short and to the point. For example, most insurance aggregate sites will use the phrase “get quotes” because it’s short and moves people into action. People come to the site for quotes and they’ll know that’s what they’re going to get by clicking the button.
You want a theme that can accommodate quotes in neatly formatted tables. While those tables can be created using HTML, that’s not the best solution for clients who want to maintain their own websites. When a client wants to manage their own site, they need a theme with built-in table designs that can be automatically generated and displayed with short codes.
Remember that most comparison sites are designed to generate leads – that is the sole purpose of these sites. Any and all content needs to be designed and formatted for the purpose of generating leads first.
With this in mind, take care to select or create a theme that supports common lead generation efforts like landing pages, squeeze pages, and sidebars that can accommodate an email signup form.
Not all themes will work for lead generation
When building a new website for any client, you’re faced with the monumental task of choosing a theme. There are more themes to choose from than you can ever preview in a reasonable amount of time. For example, on Themeforest.net, there are more than 51,900 website templates to choose from, and that’s just one resource. That doesn’t include TemplateMonster, Wordpress.org, or proprietary platforms like Squarespace and Shopify.
When selecting a theme to customize for an insurance quote aggregation site, make sure that theme’s design supports sidebar elements and pre-designed comparison tables to make your job easier.
As with every design project, ask your client plenty of questions to understand their particular needs. Each industry is different, and the insurance industry has some pretty specific needs. Find out how similar sites are marketed and see if you can use an existing, successful site for a general template. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel as long as you abide by all copyright laws.
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