During the last few years, I have reviewed hundreds of insurance agency sites. About one-third of them don't have adequate e-mail information. The other two-thirds include e-mail addresses with their staff list. If there were dire consequences to listing e-mails, I'm sure they would have changed their sites long ago. Because most sites draw very few organic searchers, it would seem the people inconvenienced would be an agency's current customers.

Spam should be properly handled, not avoided at the cost of servicing your customers. Set your filters accordingly. You can set custom spam filter policies within your agency to suit each person's needs. Your provider is probably already doing a fairly good job of filtering.

2. Play fair.

Some of the things you don't want to say on your website are:

• We're your one-stop shop.

• We provide tailor-made insurance.

• We will assist you with all of your insurance needs.

• We will assess your needs and provide the perfect policy.

• We use routine policy reviews to help keep our customers' coverage in line with changing insurance requirements and their personal needs.

Think of yourself as a waiter in a five-star restaurant. You may suggest an entrée, but you would never order for the patron. Your role is to provide advice so that your customers can make good decisions about their needs.

Your website and other advertising methods should reflect that role. More than half of the agency websites I've reviewed contained phrases that would make a plaintiff's attorney grin. Don't overstate what you intend to do.

With all that in mind, let's re-word the previous statements:

• We have relationships with a large number of quality companies that provide an array of coverage options.

• We will assist you in making proper coverage decisions.

• We will assist you with your insurance needs.

• We will help you assess your needs and provide policy choices for you to select from.

• We will use coverage reviews to help you keep your coverage in line with changing insurance requirements and your personal needs.

3. Don't hit people.

Don't criticize your competitors. This includes calling out direct writers as inadequate, if you're an independent agent. People don't understand the difference between the distribution systems and will much sooner be turned off by your negative remarks than they will be educated.

Conversations should be conducted face-to-face and should be filled with positives about your agency, rather than negatives about others.

4. Don't take things that aren't yours.

One costly company-sponsored website improvement program that provides content for agencies' sites uses the same content on multiple sites. In so doing, they claim that they are enabling agencies to rank higher on Google searches.

Your customers expect you to know what is in the insurance policy you're selling. They don't expect you to be a great writer, and they will know professionally written material when they see it. If you use content from another site, make the proper attributions and supply a link to the source document.

By having a website, you've set your agency ahead of those who still don't have one. After you follow these steps, you will have maximized that to your advantage.