Local SEO for captive insurance agent website

[carltonrsmith]

Hi,
I have a potential client who is part of a large insurance company. He has a "captive" insurance agency website that consists of one page.
He has a Google Places page and some decent rankings for some of the local SEO terms, but I'm having trouble thinking of a strategy that can help him.
In all likelihood, we're not going to be able to do any sort of spinoff microsite AND to make things harder, he cannot add content to the corporate one page/business card website he has.
Any thoughts appreciated.

 

[carltonrsmith]

I have permission to post his Google + page URL:

https://plus.google.com/100787345328772147436/about

Thinking my best chance here is optimizing his Google Plus page, since it's the one thing I can control.

I just bought Places Scout and it pulled up no local citations, so thinking that is best strategy to start with

Thoughts?

 

[JoyHawkins]

I feel your pain. We have about 1,000 State Farm agents as clients. They all generally have NAP issues too. It looks like the guy you're working with does as well: Day Jr, James E - State Farm Insurance Agent in Gadsden, AL | 915 West Meighan Boulevard, Gadsden, AL

 

[carltonrsmith]

I feel your pain. We have about 1,000 State Farm agents as clients. They all generally have NAP issues too. It looks like the guy you're working with does as well: Day Jr, James E - State Farm Insurance Agent in Gadsden, AL | 915 West Meighan Boulevard, Gadsden, AL

Thanks Joy.
Can you share a little about your strategy for them? If you have 1,000 of them, you must be doing something right.

 

[JoyHawkins]

A lot of manual work basically. We focus a lot on citation building and getting NAP consistency along with helping them come up with strategies in their office to get reviews. State Farm agents aren't allowed business pages on G+ either so you won't be able to upgrade the page without the agent getting in trouble.

 

[Phil Rozek]

State Farm agents aren't allowed business pages on G+ either so you won't be able to upgrade the page without the agent getting in trouble.

Interesting. I've seen several State Farm agents who have use their personal names and "State Farm Insurance Agent" (or something like that) as the names of their Google+Local page. So that's not kosher?

 

[JoyHawkins]

Oh they're allowed local listings, just not any of the social features (that's what I meant by "business page" but I realize there are tons of different names for it). So they can't have the posts on their page at all or have people in their circles etc.

 

[Phil Rozek]

@Joy

Gotcha. Thanks for that. I'm assuming it's State Farm - rather than Google - that doesn't allow agents to have the social bells and whistles of Google+.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Oh yes, it is definitely not Google