HUB Ontario

Placing the Focus on the User to Increase Website Traffic for HUB International Ontario.

HUB International is one of the leading insurance brokerage firms in North America. HUB provides a variety of products and services including property and casualty insurance, life insurance, health insurance, risk management products, and more. They are the largest insurance broker in Canada.

The Challenge

It can be a challenge to keep brands consistent across all websites of a global company. It is even harder for a company that provides a diversity of products that HUB International offers. Manually creating landing pages for all branches and all services is a significant drain on the company’s resources. If they aren’t consistent, this can be frustrating for users and visitors.

HUB International needed a way to create brand consistency across its various websites while also creating content that was specific to the region. They wanted to come up with a website that was focused on lead conversion. This means restricting the websites to generate architecture that was easier to navigate.

The Analysis

First, Marcel took a look at the current pages that existed throughout HUB’s websites. UX / usability and web development experts were involved and Marcel met with HUB several times during the process. Through these meetings, we learned that the websites were not being developed with either the user or the region in mind. Therefore, search engines were not ranking HUB’s pages very highly.

Clearly, this process was not working out. It simply wasn’t producing traffic or lead submissions. Therefore, we decided to come up with a strategy that would improve search engine rankings.

By thinking about the user and the specific region. The end result would be increased website traffic and lead submissions.

The Solution

Marcel Digital decided that the process would proceed in three separate steps. These are:

• User testing
• Conversion Rate Optimization testing
• Redesign the websites

User testing was a critical part of our strategy. We knew that to increase website traffic and lead submissions, the opinions of the user need to be central to this process. We applied user testing to guide both the design and the development process. By figuring out what the user likes and dislikes, we can come up with a webpage design that is user-friendly.

Next, we used Conversion Rate Optimization testing to increase the rate of lead submissions. Once someone visits the page, the next step is to present products and services that cater to their needs in a way they can understand. Using our database of tests and applications, we were able to spin the content from HUB in such a way that improved leads, leveraging their exceptional products in a way that would be attractive to visitors.

Finally, with all of this information, we were able to revamp HUB’s websites. We redesigned the front-end of their websites to improve brand consistency. This uniform appearance made it easier for visitors to process. We applied some consistency to the front-end layout as well. We also redeveloped and repurposed each website with region-specific content that would be more attractive to search engines, leading to higher rankings.

The Results

The new websites throughout HUB International created consistency that was attractive to both users and search engines. The end result was a 133 percent increase in overall lead submission as well as a 152 percent increase in overall traffic. This case study demonstrates the usefulness of data collected from users in detailed testing as well as the importance of region-focused content for search engines. This information can be leveraged to create exceptional, consistent websites. This process created a format that HUB could apply to future websites as well, freeing up valuable company resources.