Grab a piece of paper and jot down a list of goals for your business website. Knowing what exactly you would like your site to accomplish will help you sort through the various directions you can go with your business website. Some goals you will want to accomplish are:

1. Attracting new business from public adjusting prospects at their time of need / loss.
2. Earning referrals from existing and past clients.
3. Educating my local area about what public adjusting is and when they could use the service.
4. Specializing in one (or several) lines of business such as fire, flood, hurricane, windstorm, marine or commercial

As you can see, it’s actually better to be very specific in the goals you set out to meet with your website. Above all else, consider proving (via your website) how you are unique in the public adjusting industry and show the value you can bring to a property owner.

In order to break down what you need to concentrate for each of the goals above use the SMART method. We use this to help clients define and meet their professional website goals and hope it can help you as well.

• Specific: Simply put – make your goal CLEAR. An example would be “I want to get 100 unique visitors per day to my website” not “I want more business.”
• Measurable: This means you can track your progress. You can’t improve something you can’t measure. SMART goals are quantitative rather than qualitative.
• Actionable: Actionable means that they’re action-oriented, not passive. At ClaimWizard we are really big on being proactive. The “Getting Things Done” book and process by David Allen is what we work by and recommend it for our clients as well.
• Realistic – This means that your goals are realistic and not wishful thinking. Going from 29 website visitors a month to 10,000 is unrealistic. So is going from 16 new claims a month to 239.
• Timely or Time-bound – This is your due date or time frame. This means that your goal has a deadline.

To get you started we’ve written out a goal for you to take and run with or just as inspiration:

In the next 90 days make a website for my public adjusting company designed to attract at least 10 new clients 3 months after launching the new site.

In order to secure your public adjusting company’s digital real estate of a website, you will need two things:

Domain Registration

Your domain is like your street address. It is the exact unique location that your website can be found at.

In our (very professional and experienced) opinion you DO need to have a custom domain. Imagine giving out your phone number, but when a prospect or client calls they are actually being connected to an unrelated business down the street. You then need to rely on that business transferring the call to you. Doesn’t it make more sense to just have a direct phone number of your own? Securing your own domain address is exactly the same thing.

Domain registration is cheap (prepaid accounts can get you prices as cheap as $10 a year.) There is no reason NOT to get a custom domain for your business. Besides, NOT having a custom domain quite honestly looks amateurish and lacks professionalism and trust.

While .com (standing for “commercial”) websites are still the most preferred Top Level Domain (TLD), sites ending in .net or .biz are very professional as well. If you can’t get your first choice in a .com version explore around for an alternative domain or TLD.

Here are some Domain Registrars we have used and recommend. Be sure to search for coupon discount codes before checkout!

• Network Solutions
• Google Domains
• NameCheap
• 1 and 1
• GoDaddy

Website Hosting

Website hosting is like your house, it’s where you put all the stuff that belongs to you. (Your domain just tells people how to get to your house.) In reality, all websites are “in the cloud” someplace located at huge data centers designed to hold and secure all the computers that hold the bits-and-bytes that make up your website. Companies like Apple, Facebook and Amazon have websites so large they actually need to distribute their sites over many thousands of dedicated computers all across the world. Small businesses like yours (and ours!) can get away with less expensive solutions where we actually rent space on a server, much like renting an apartment. The space is YOURS but the building is SHARED.

Picking a good website host is important. Things like speed, up-time, storage, bandwidth (up and down), database support, email hosting support, general support, customer reviews, scalability, security, hardware… WHOA overload. We get it. 

Some of our favorite website hosting platforms:

• SiteGround (our pick)
• MediaTemple
• BlueHost
• GoDaddy
• DreamHost
• …and a pretty big comparative list via PC Magazine

Connecting Your Domain & Website

There is a bit of setup and configuration involved with telling your Domain where your website is housed. Your Registrar should have instructions on how to complete this. Many domain registration services that also offer hosting services often offer cheap deals to combine both on one service.

In the next section “Design” there are two options that offer free website hosting AND design templates (just know you still have to purchase your own custom domain – there are NO free options for this.)

Nothing is more boring than plain black text on a plain white background. In order to give your public adjusting website some pizzaz and structure you are going to need to DESIGN it.

First impressions count! Think about this, when you walk into a Target, you KNOW you are in a Target. How? The consistency of the logo, colors, layout and helpful signage throughout the store (AND their website!) let you know exactly where you are and guide you to what you need. Consider what isn’t in your way… unneeded items blocking the aisle, loud music, outdated merchandise (information), trash-talkin’ WalMart, and people in your face as soon as you enter the building yelling BUY BUY BUY at you. Your website should look and behave the same way.

Some things to keep in mind when designing your website is that the most important information should be easily accessible at all times to readers and the site should look (and perform) well on all types of devices from mobile phones to tablets to desktop computers.

WordPress.com

Did you know that 25% of the world’s websites currently run on WordPress! Even the ClaimWizard Web Team uses the “.org” version of WordPress (that’s the version you need to host yourself but allows 100% customization, scalability and flexibility.

• Pro: Free hosting and amazing educational resources to learn the platform.
• Con: You will need to upgrade from the free version to a Paid Premium account if you want to use a custom domain (which we highly recommend.)

Wix

This is a website designer that allows you to drag and drop your way to creating a new website.

• Pro: Free hosting and solid educational resources to learn the platform. Wix hosts the site for you, so you don’t have to worry about finding a separate company.
• Con: You will need to upgrade from the free version to a paid VIP account (about $300 a year) if you want to use a custom domain and receive support.

Hubspot

This is a website designer that allows you to drag and drop your way to creating a new website, create lead funnels, maintain emailing lists, and much MUCH more.

• Pro: Hubspot hosts the site for you, so you don’t have to worry about finding a separate company.
• Con: It is not an easy setup for beginners, so you would really need to hire a Hubspot certified professional to configure and maintain it for you.

ThemeForest

ThemeForest is one of the most popular website and blog template directories today. You can find themes for multiple website framework types such as CSS, WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla to name a few. Don’t worry if you don’t know all these names – the deep dive on that is best left to professional website designers.

• Pro: The sky’s the limit on creativity. If you can dream up an idea for a website, chances are a designer has already created a template for it.
• Con: You need to acquire a website host and install and customize these templates yourself. Most professional website developers specialize in specific types of framework which makes it difficult to hire “just anyone” to come and fix your website (cheaply anyhow) if you get into a bind.

Once you get a website setup and designed you will need to put something in it! The purpose of professional website content (called “copy” to professionals) is to attract prospects to your business, convert visitors to your website into leads, close those leads into customers, and delight existing clients that they refer new business to you. In sales and marketing lead generation speak, there is a very specific funnel that content should be created to meet the needs of your business.

For the easiest and cheapest content, write it yourself. After all YOU are the expert in your own business! Some of the major content you will need to create for your website is:

• Home Page
• About Your Company Page
• Services Page
• Your Team
• “Why Work With A Public Adjuster”
• Client Testimonials
• Peril Types

You should strongly consider creating a blog where, unlike the more static informational pages above, you create content on a regular basis that is educational and timely for your potential clients. Articles like how to shop for homeowners insurance, things to consider when upgrading your bathroom or kitchen, and snow removal tips are great places to start. Your blog is a key component to getting your public adjusting website showing up to prospects in search engines so don’t overlook this crucial lead generation tactic!

Also keep in mind that all content you create – text and images – needs to be 100% yours. No plagiarizing or “borrowing” images from Google unless a website owner gives you explicit permission. Having a solid understanding of copyright laws as well as the FTC advertising guidelines (specifically for endorsements) is mission critical to keeping you out of legal hot water and hefty fines.

Writing Effective & Compelling Website Content

We are BIG fans of Hubspot as a resource to learn all things website. If you are looking for a “getting started” guide when it comes to website writing, check out How to Write Compelling Copy: 7 Tips for Writing Content That Converts.

Using a Content Creation Company

If you cannot write well, consider hiring a content strategy company to write content for you. Be prepared to give the company solid direction on audience, prospect personas, and keywords. A good copywriting company will be able to work with you to get the information they need to produce the best content for you.

Graphics

The best way to ensure you are using unique (and legal) graphics is to design them yourself! Two free and easy online tools you can use are:

• PicMonkey
• Canva

Both come with amazing templates and elements allowing you to customize as much as you need. You could even create a new company logo this way!

A Note on Search Engine Optimization

There are plenty of companies out there today that will sell you Search Engine Optimization. Our view on SEO is that it isn’t something you can “buy” and “install” once and expect it to work. SEO really means all the ongoing work you need to incorporate into the design and framework of your website, the graphics you use, the social media you share, and the website copy you write to get found in search by the right people at the right time.

The easiest way to start optimizing your site is to “think like someone who just had a tree fall into their swimming pool would.” Make sure that every single element you put in your website answers their questions. Think about it, when people are looking for help with a property loss, are they really searching for “peril type,” “declarations page,” or “letter of representation?” They are not. Those are the words and phrases used by professionals in YOUR industry, not property owners. Learn to speak, write and answer questions in their terms and you will gain their trust – AND search traffic. Hubspot has a great resource “how to teach yourself SEO in 30 days” that can get you on the right path.

For large companies, or once in fiercely competitive industries (like e-commerce), hiring a quality search and conversion optimization firm is vital and can literally make-or-break your business. In fact, we use and hire these experts ourselves at ClaimWizard when designing solutions for our own clients. If you are looking to design your own website and keep it inexpensive and don’t know what A/B testing, organic vs. PPC, landing pages, conversion optimization, tracking pixels or long tail keyword traffic is, you probably don’t need to invest in a SEO firm just yet.

A quick primer on everything else…

Congratulations on adding a +1 to the nearly ONE BILLION websites online in the world today! You have just started on your digital journey to helping property owners and growing your business. Now what?

In the past (the 2000’s) it was assumed you could just put up a website and ignore it until you needed to update your address or hours. Those days are long gone. Consumers today turn to the Internet as their primary way of educating themselves before making a purchase or hiring a company. The more critical the need, the more they research. In order to be the service that property owners trust and learn from, your website needs to be top-notch all the time. After all, you website never sleeps, never takes a day off, and never stops working.

Besides needing a constant flow of targeted quality content to prospects, as a website designer and developer you are now responsible for learning and maintaining:

• Website and Database Security
• Content and Framework Updates
• Technology Advances
• Graphical Design Trends
• Digital Advertising Channels
• User Experience Trends
• 25% of your time month researching new and changing trends & technologies (that’s just us, we’ve been doing this for nearly 20 years)