The majority of third party administrators (TPAs) are not taking advantage of the benefits of search engine optimization (SEO) simply because their web pages do not contain enough content. While your web pages must contain information that health plan participants and employers need, they should also include content that caters to prospective employers, brokers and agents who may not know about your company or the employee benefit plans you offer. The recent changes in health care reform are creating significant search traffic for third party administrators. Employers are looking for affordable health plans and TPAs can capitalize on this to draw traffic to their websites.

Below you will see how many times, according to Google, the following terms are being searched per month in the United States:

‘third party administrator’ ‘self funded’ and ‘self funding’ ‘consumer directed health plans’ and ‘cdhp’

12,100 5,500 6,400

When it comes to your website’s visibility, both by search engines and internet users, you do not want to be stuck playing hide and seek. Your website needs to be easy to find when people are searching for the services that you offer. The harder it is to locate you online, the more likely searchers are to give up or find someone else who can solve their problem. That someone else might even be your local competitor.

Third party administrators need to focus on improving the visibility of their website in organic search engine results through search engine optimization (SEO). Good SEO helps search engines find and rank your web page higher than other sites that relate to search queries. Using relevant keywords and having proper page titles and meta tags is very important. Does your website have these items in place?

How to Establish Relevant Keywords

Spend time brainstorming keywords and phrases that are relevant to the plans and services you offer. Try to think in terms of how your customers or prospects would search for your business. Sometimes even though you think you know how prospective clients are searching, it’s not always accurate.

For example, you might think people are searching for ‘consumer directed plans’ when they are really searching more often for ‘cdhp’.

Below are some free and simple tools that we use to research keywords when we are building websites for our third party administrators.

1. Google Wonder Wheel

Google’s Wonder Wheel can be accessed by first performing a Google search on a term or phrase, then selecting ‘Wonder Wheel’ on the left hand side under ‘filter options.’ Google will present you with a visual of how it groups together keywords. This tool shows you how the majority of users perceive search terms – providing you with insight into which keywords to choose for your site.

For example, if you search ‘third party administrator’ and select the Wonder Wheel, Google displays the searched term in the center of the web and more specific terms that stem from it.

When ‘self-insured health plans’ is searched, using the Google Wonder Wheel (shown below), we can see that from this search stems searches such as ‘what is a self funded insurance plan’ and ‘fully insured health plans’. When ‘what is a self funded insurance plan’ is searched the link ‘Fully Insured vs. Self-Funded’ appears at the top of the organic results, second only to Wikipedia. This link leads to Physician’s Care’s website, owned by ASR Health Benefits – an NAEBA member TPA. ASR’s page appears at the top of organic search results simply because they have a page explaining the difference between self insured and fully funded plans.

2. Google Adwords Keyword Tool

Another tool that can be used to view both the competitiveness of keywords and how often they are searched is the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. As a website development and search engine optimization agency, we use this free tool regularly and it can be useful to you as well. The tool allows you to view how often your keywords are searched globally and locally. It also gives you a rating of how much competition there is for that keyword, based on Adwords advertisers. Google Adwords Keyword Tool can give you some insight into what consumers are actually looking for. Individuals who are searching ‘third party administrator’ might just be looking for general information while those searching for ‘tpa costs’ are probably more interested in purchasing services. Having information from these tools can help you determine what content you may want to add to your website.

With the increasing amount of search traffic for ‘third party administrators’ and related topics, it is crucial to have relevant keywords and content on your website. Having the right information on your site can increase traffic and ultimately help you generate more leads. Using the tools mentioned in this blog, you can establish topics to cover on your site that will establish your business as an expert in the employee benefits field.