Are consumers thinking about life insurance? In order to get into the consumer mindset, a good first step is to look at what they are searching online.
We explored what the public-at-large wants to know when it comes to life insurance information, using Google Trends and the keyword tool on Google AdWords. The results are both interesting and lengthy.
Before we delve into the technical aspect of this experiment, you may be wondering: How does this help me? For starters, you can get into the "consumer mindset" and better understand and anticipate their questions and needs. These results also will enable you to better foresee questions from your prospective clients.
Additionally, the data can guide your marketing strategy. With this knowledge, you can create blog posts providing the information consumers want. You can answer questions on your website or on social media. You can also build presentations using these points of concern, or craft clever opening lines for breaking the ice with new clients.
Methodology:
Google Trends
On Google Trends, we focused only on the searches done in the United States, and on a few particular keywords or phrases that contain our target language. We then set a date limit for the reports in order to only view a year's worth of data — from January 2015 to January 2016.
Interpreting the charts, numbers and graphs on Google Trends is tricky because these numbers do not represent the absolute search volume. According to Google Trends, the numbers that appear show total searches for a term relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. However, Google Trends does not reveal the total number of searches.
The results also do not show if there are more people or less people searching for a keyword or keyword phrase. In other words, these keywords are only "trending," and the numbers in this article are not the total number of searches that people conducted in the U.S. from January 2015 until January 2016. These numbers are only based on the popularity of the search keyword or keyword phrase, according to Google Trends.
Google AdWords
We also used Google AdWords, a keyword tool, to find the most popular keywords or keyword phrases in the U.S. The tool is segmented by product or service, and by product category.
Unlike Google Trends, AdWords provides an estimate of the number of monthly searches for each keyword. The tool also takes into account the exact match for the specific keyword as well as related ideas and phrases that contain that keyword.
The search that we conducted using AdWords only includes 12-month search history data from January 2015 through December 2015.
On the next page, you will find the results of our keyword and keyword-phrase research based on Google Trends and Google AdWords search data.
Google Trends keywords and phrases:
States that were searching for "life insurance"
*Numbers represent search volume relative to the highest point, which is always 100.
No. 10: New Jersey
Search volume: 77 out of 100
No. 8 (tie): South Carolina
Search volume: 78 out of 100
No. 8 (tie): South Dakota
Search volume: 78 out of 100
No. 7: Iowa
Search volume: 79 out of 100
No. 6: Connecticut
Search volume: 80 out of 100
No. 5: North Carolina
Search volume: 82 out of 100
No. 4 (tie): Louisiana
Search volume: 85 out of 100
No. 4 (tie): Delaware
Search volume: 85 out of 100
No. 2: Mississippi
Search volume: 97 out of 100
No. 1: Alabama
Search volume: 100 out of 100
Google Trends related searches with the keywords "life insurance":
*Top searches are terms that are most frequently searched in a single session within a particular category, country or region.
Top 5 topics:
1. Life insurance — industry
2. Insurance — field of study
3. Term life insurance — industry
4. Policy
5. MetLife — Life insurance company
Top rising topics:
1. Voya Financial — company
2. Transamerica Corporation — insurance company
3. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company — financial planning company
