Most agency websites target words nobody types. Keyword research fixes that: it tells you the exact searches and questions your prospects use, so every page has a job. Here's how to do it with free tools in an afternoon.
Key takeaways
An agency principal opens Google Search Console for the first time in a year. Her site gets found for exactly one thing: the agency's own name. Everyone who lands there already knew who she was.
Her homepage headline says "Comprehensive Risk Management Solutions." Her services page lists every line in one paragraph. Neither uses the words her prospects type: "home insurance agent near me," "insurance for a first rental property," "do I need umbrella insurance."
Nothing on her site is wrong, exactly. It's written in the language agencies use about themselves instead of the language clients use when they're looking. Keyword research is how you close that gap.
Keyword research for insurance agencies is the process of finding the specific searches and questions prospects in your market use when they need coverage help, then deciding which page on your site will answer each one.
A keyword is just a search, written the way a person types it. "Insurance agent near me" is a keyword. So is "what does a landlord policy cover" and "independent insurance agent vs captive agent." Some get searched thousands of times a month across the country; some a dozen times in your county. Both kinds matter.
The research has two halves. First, find the searches. Second, decide what to do with them: which ones deserve their own page, which belong as a section or FAQ on an existing page, and which to ignore because they'll never turn into a client.
Every page on your site is either written for a search someone makes or it isn't. Pages written for real searches can be found. Pages that aren't can only be reached by people who already know your name.
For an independent agency, that difference shows up in three places:
There's a practical stake for your time, too. A post takes hours to write. Five minutes of research before you start tells you whether anyone will ever search for it.
Almost every search that leads to a new client falls into one of four patterns. Sorting keywords this way tells you what kind of page each one needs.
Pattern | Examples | What the searcher wants | Best page type
Near me / local | "insurance agent near me," "independent insurance agency [town]" | An agent close by, now | Homepage, contact page, Google Business Profile
Line + place | "home insurance agent [town]," "business insurance [county]" | A specific kind of help, locally | One service page per line
Life event / problem | "insurance for a first rental property," "adding a teen driver," "insurance after buying a house" | Guidance for a situation they're in | Blog post or guide that links to the service page
Question / comparison | "do I need umbrella insurance," "independent vs captive agent" | An explanation before they choose | Blog post or FAQ section
Two notes from the agency side of the desk:
Life-event searches are underused. People search their situation, not the product. "Buying my first house what insurance do I need" comes before "homeowners insurance agent." An agency that answers the situation question clearly becomes the obvious call when the product search comes. [Lee's take: from your years as a licensed agent, one real example of a life-event call (a new house, a teen driver, a new business) that became a long-term, multi-policy client.]
Price searches need care. You'll see lots of volume for "cheap car insurance [town]" and "affordable home insurance." You can serve that intent, for example with a page on what affects premiums and how an independent agent shops multiple carriers, but you can't promise the cheapest price, and your page shouldn't imply it. Target the search, not the claim.
You don't need paid tools to start. Block two to three hours and work through these steps in order.
Write down two lists before you touch any tool:
Everything that follows is filtered through these two lists. A keyword outside them isn't worth a page, however much volume it has.
Search Console is free and shows the searches your site already appears for. Open the Performance report, look at the Queries tab, and set the date range to the last 12 months.
Look for three things:
Click any query to see which page it lands on. If one page is showing up for five unrelated searches, that's a sign it's trying to do too many jobs.
Keyword Planner is free with a Google Ads account, and you can set up the account without launching a campaign. Without active ad spend it shows search volume in broad ranges, like 10 to 100 or 1K to 10K a month. For an agency, ranges are enough: you're checking whether people search for something in your area at all, not planning to the decimal.
Two settings matter:
Google shows you its own data on how people ask, for free:
Paste the questions into your spreadsheet word for word. These become blog topics, FAQ entries, and the headings on your service pages.
Your customer service staff hear the real questions every day, in the words clients use. Spend ten minutes asking them: what do people call confused about? What do new clients ask on the first call? What do they misunderstand at renewal?
This is the step no tool can replace, and it's where an agency's lived experience turns into content that a generic marketing site can't match.
Open ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Mode and ask the way a prospect would: "I just bought a rental property in [town], what insurance do I need and who should I talk to?" Note two things: the questions the assistant anticipates in its answer, and which agencies it names. Both tell you what content is missing from your site.
A keyword map assigns one primary search to each page, so no two of your pages compete for the same term. It's a simple spreadsheet. Here's what a small part of one might look like for a fictional agency in Anytown:
Page | Primary keyword | Secondary keywords | Search pattern
Homepage | independent insurance agency Anytown | insurance agent near me, insurance agency Anytown | Near me / local
/home-insurance | home insurance agent Anytown | homeowners insurance Anytown, home insurance quote | Line + place
/business-insurance | business insurance Anytown | small business insurance agent, commercial insurance County | Line + place
Blog: first rental property | insurance for a rental property | landlord insurance questions, first rental property checklist | Life event
Blog: umbrella explained | do I need umbrella insurance | umbrella policy explained, personal liability | Question
Three rules keep a keyword map useful:
Your keyword map also tells you what to fix outside your website. Your Google Business Profile categories and services should use the same language as your service pages, so every source describing your agency says the same thing.
Keyword research used to be about Google alone. Now the same work feeds AI search, because the question-style keywords you collected in Step 4 are close to the prompts people type into ChatGPT and other assistants.
An assistant answering "who's a good independent agent near me for a small contracting business" pulls from pages that answer that question clearly, reviews that mention it, and listings that describe it. A site built from a keyword map, with a clear page for each line and answers to real questions, gives it much more to work with than a site built around slogans.
Google says there's no special trick for its AI features: its July 2026 guidance points site owners to unique, useful content and clear technical structure, and to Search Console's reporting on how pages appear in generative AI features. That's the work this post describes. Our plain-English guide to AEO for insurance agencies covers the rest of what makes AI assistants recommend an agency.
Keyword research pays off over months, not days. Set a reminder to check these at 30, 60, and 90 days after you publish or update a page:
If a page isn't moving after 90 days, check whether it's clearly about one line and one place, whether it answers the questions from Step 4, and whether another of your pages is competing for the same term.
Keyword research is how an agency stops writing in its own language and starts writing in its clients'. Pull what Search Console already knows, check volume in Keyword Planner, collect the questions people ask Google and your front desk, and give each important search a page with one clear job. Do it once properly and you'll know what to write for the next year, which pages to fix first, and why a page is or isn't pulling its weight. It's also the foundation the rest of your marketing sits on, as our 2026 guide to digital marketing for insurance agencies lays out.
Want to see which searches and AI questions your agency is missing? Our free AI Visibility Report shows how AI assistants describe your agency today and your top three fixes. Get your free report, or see how our SEO and AI search services build keyword maps and service pages for independent agencies.
Lee Boyer has been a licensed insurance agent for over seven years and founded Kusanku Marketing Solutions to help independent agencies get found online, including by AI search. About Lee · Kusanku on LinkedIn
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Start with the lines you most want to grow combined with the places you serve, such as "home insurance agent [town]." Then add the questions and life events people search before they need an agent, like "insurance for a first rental property." Choose one primary keyword per page.
Yes. It's free with a Google Ads account, and you can create the account without running a campaign. Without active ad spend it shows volume in ranges rather than exact numbers, which is enough to see whether people in your area search for a term.
Use Google Search Console's Performance report and open the Queries tab. It shows the searches your site appears for, with clicks, impressions, and average position. Queries at positions 8 to 20 are usually the quickest wins.
You can serve the intent without promising a price. A page explaining what affects premiums and how an independent agent compares carriers can meet that search fairly. Avoid claims of "cheapest" or guaranteed savings on the page.
It isn't very different. The question-style searches you find for Google are close to the prompts people type into ChatGPT, so pages that answer real questions clearly serve both. Google's July 2026 guidance says there's no special markup or trick needed for its AI features.
Bought leads are the only asset in your agency that disappears the month you stop paying for it. Everything else in this guide, you keep.
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