Insurance Journal’s Web Site Sees Increased Traffic, More Unique Users

Insurance Journal’s Web site, www.insurancejournal.com, has come a long way since its inception back in 1998. Today’s site is an invaluable resource for independent agents and brokers, evident by the thousands of new visitors to the site each month.

The site’s main purpose is to keep agents and brokers updated with important news pertaining exclusively to the insurance industry. “The news is definitely the heart and soul of the Web site, with the daily updates, it enables people to keep up,” said Web site manager Josh Carlson.

The news is broken up into several regions: national, west, south/central, southeast, midwest, east and international. “I think that’s the biggest draw. Having the daily news on our homepage and pushing that out to subscribers via our daily e-mail news is probably the biggest benefit to our subscribers,” added Mitch Dunford, IJ’s vice president of sales and marketing.

The Web site offers far more than just the daily insurance news, however. It also offers online directories that enable an agent or broker to find a market for a particular coverage they are seeking, a forums page that allows agents and brokers to post a query for other industry professionals to answer, a library, classifieds and sales tools page, and much more. Occasionally, exclusive audio interviews are also offered online. And of course, pdf editions of the most current print editions of Insurance Journal West and Texas/South Central are available as well.

“We have four different online directories,” said Dunford. “[They include] an E&S directory, a program directory, a workers’ comp directory, and a technology directory. Agents can access these directories to research different markets.” Carlson added, “We’ve put an exceptional amount of effort into the directories, and making them quick and easy to use.”

If agents and brokers can’t find what they are looking for in the online directories, they can visit the forums page. “We have one section in there titled ‘Hard-to-place Accounts.’ An agent can go [there] when they’re having a hard time finding a market for a coverage and post it on the Web site, and then other agents respond and give them leads as to where they can find a market for it. It’s become pretty popular,” added Dunford.

Carlson noted the definitive increase in Web traffic across the site. “Over the past year the Web traffic has grown continuously. We’ve seen usage growth as large as 30 percent during several months. Not only are people using the site more and looking at more articles, but also we’re having an increased usage in the total number of visitors to the Web site, which would indicate that our newsletter is getting around and that people are coming across us for whatever reason.

“Currently we have about 62,000 unique visitors each month. Page views have increased to about 830,000 per month,” said Carlson.

He attributed the heavy traffic to the daily e-mail newsletter, which Carlson said is passed on to others by the original subscriber. “It’s an excellent viral tool.” Another way users find the site is through popular search engines. “Because of the mass amount of content that we have on the Web site, we get indexed by search engines and people are finding direct links to certain topics via search engines. Someone might type “mold” and “California” on Google, and it would bring up one of our articles,” added Carlson.

“[It] continues to grow every month,” said Dunford. “A lot of agents are downloading pdf’s of our magazine, which is very interesting. It’s staggering. It’s an added benefit for our advertisers because in addition to the content and the stories; they’re also downloading the ads.”

So what’s in store for the IJ Web site in the future? “I think the directories and some of the other tools that we’re exploring are going to be a powerful resource for agents and brokers,” said Carlson. “We have a number of changes in store. We’re paying a lot of attention to the ease of use for certain projects such as the directories, and also working on optimizing the pages so they download faster. [We will be] adding different sections to the Web site that will be valuable tools for agents and brokers, such as the job section.”

Carlson anticipates these changes to occur in the coming months. He also hopes to have more printer-friendly articles available to users. Carlson urged users to explore the forums on the Web site. “The forums are way under-used. Information is power and the Internet opens the door for you to share that easily and quickly.”

Dunford added, “We’re looking to provide agents with a streamlined access to those directories from their desktops. We’re also looking to expand our library with recommended materials for agents, such as marketing tips, how to build their business, agency management, a variety of white papers, books or reports that they can purchase.”