Weaving digital trust: Strategies to optimize marketing performance to LLMs

Key takeaways

Just as the Jacquard loom used structured data to weave complex, beautiful patterns, your agency can use structured digital signals to weave a narrative of trust and authority across the web. The opportunity in front of you is to build optimization directly into your marketing plan to strategically improve digital trust to grow your business. To kick start the optimizations, consider refreshing and completing your Nationwide Agency Locator profile as a “single source of truth”, allowing the tool to accurately sync your data across the internet. Then, continue to optimize digital content and channels, writing for humans and structuring data to effectively train the various LLMs used in AI tools used by consumers every day.  

By continually training AI models on your brand narrative through consistent online content, responding on review sites, remaining active on social, and maintaining relevance by answering customer questions in your evergreen content, your business becomes increasingly discoverable and relevant. Demonstrating specialized protection with confidence allows you to stand out. By providing opportunities to predict and prevent risks, you improve your positioning with Large Language Models and, most importantly, establish yourself as a trusted advisor to your future customers.

What does an 18th-century weaving loom have to do with your insurance agency’s digital marketing strategy? More than you might think. The Jacquard loom, invented in 1804, used a series of punch cards to automatically weave intricate patterns into fabric. Each hole in the card represented a specific instruction, telling the loom which thread to lift. This system of structured, machine-readable instructions is widely considered the foundation of modern computing. 

This concept directly connects to the Large Language Models (LLMs) driving today’s AI revolution. Just as the loom relied on specific patterns to create a design, LLMs process massive datasets to recognize patterns and generate text. For your agency, the quality of your output from AI depends on the quality of your input that is discoverable online as you optimize digital marketing.  

How AI is changing digital marketing

The digital landscape is rapidly changing and impacting human behaviors. Recognizing current challenges and opportunities is the first step toward building your online reputation strategy.  

• Decreased organic traffic: In the new AI era consumers increasingly rely on “zero-click” search results. Bain & Company reports that this shift has already reduced organic web traffic by an estimated 15% to 25%.¹ Your content needs to be exceptional to capture attention. 
• AI accuracy issues: Generative AI models can be unreliable. A study from Columbia University found that top models provided incorrect citations 60% of the time.² This makes your original, authoritative content more valuable than ever. 
• The need for freshness: To be seen as a credible source, your content must be current. Fresh content is cited 1.8 times more often, which is a powerful signal to both search engines and AI models that your information is trustworthy and relevant.³  

As consumers increasingly use AI, to guide these models effectively and improve your marketing performance we’ll focus on the importance of three core strategic pillars: 

1. Authority: Position your agency as a subject matter expert for specialized protection, with predict-and-prevent solutions. 
2. Freshness: Keep your content current and relevant. 
3. Consistency: Maintain your unified brand voice across all platforms to better guide the LLMs. 

Strategies to optimize your digital marketing content for LLMs

In an environment of AI Overviews and zero-click searches, a key strategy is to establish your agency as the definitive source of insurance information in your local vicinity. When a potential client asks a question, the objective is for the AI to pull its answer directly from your content. This becomes more likely when you consistently demonstrate authority, a cohesive brand narrative, with freshness. 

Think of your digital optimization as a strategic process for enabling the LLMs to recognize and validate your business’s brand authority. The AI models powering modern search results are in a constant state of learning. By consistently feeding them machine-readable data (content structured in a way that algorithms can easily parse and interpret⁴), on a frequent basis, with highly specific information, you effectively train these systems to prioritize your agency’s narrative. This alignment is valuable in the AI era, where optimizing your digital footprint is no longer just about human visibility and relevance, but also about ensuring your marketing performance translates into trusted, authoritative positioning and data signals within AI-generated responses. 

Strategies to establish authority online

• Create pillar pages on your website: Develop comprehensive guides on core insurance topics relevant to your areas of expertise, such as “The Ultimate Guide to Commercial Auto Insurance” or “Navigating Small Business Liability.” These long-form pieces serve as a central hub of information that you can cross-promote in other marketing channels, like email and social posts.  
• Web content to showcase your expertise: Write content that answers the complex questions your clients are asking. Instead of a basic post on “what is homeowner insurance,” create a detailed article on “How to Choose Homeowner Insurance Coverage for your first home”, for example. A great source of inspiration is writing content that answers the most frequently asked questions your clients are asking. The content on your website pages should align to the expertise you reference on your Agency Locator profile, for greater online consistency.  
• Leverage online reviews and social channels: Build authority by actively managing your presence on review sites like Google and Yelp and engaging with your audience on social media platforms. Share testimonials, respond to feedback, and showcase your expertise through posts and interactions. 

Ensure clarity, accuracy, and consistency are present in content

How to sync your agency’s online data in real-time  

• Complete your Agency Locator profile: This tool allows you to manage your public-facing information from a single, centralized location. By keeping your profile robust and up to date, you create a “single source of truth” for your brand’s data. This ensures that when LLMs crawl on the web, they find consistent information about your hours, location, and services, validating your legitimacy. 
• Position your agency through your Nationwide Agency Locator profile: Careful selection of your specialties and services within the profile is a strategic step in creating your online authority. This helps identify your agency’s strengths and expertise to the marketplace. 
• Regularly review Agency Locator profile for accuracy: Your business changes over time, and your digital footprint should reflect that. Establish a process to validate that your profile currently reflects the focus of your business offerings. That gives LLMs the best opportunity to validate your expertise prior to featuring your agency in AI Overview which conveys to the consumer that you are a trusted advisor. Without a fully completed profile, you risk losing visibility and trust with future customers. 

The importance of optimizing your digital marketing content for LLMs to build trust

Trust is the currency of the digital world. Consumers gravitate toward brands that are authentic, reliable, and transparent. Consumer also rapidly adopted AI, and utilize and trust AI answers in their everyday, online life. Optimizing your digital marketing toward machine learning offers a sophisticated way to foster this trust.

One key pivot is to shift from broad, one-size-fits-all campaigns, to segmented marketing and hyper-specific content strategy and execution. Machine learning needs data, and specificity naturally includes more data points. Focusing your digital marketing on the intersection of expertise and specificity will heighten the level of relevance and show customers that your agency understands their insurance needs. It’s a strategy that uses digital trust to prompt human trust building.  

Social media: Fostering authentic connections

Social media platforms are crowded spaces. To stand out, brands must create genuine connections. Machine-learning algorithms can analyze user data—likes, shares, comments, and viewing habits—to help you understand what content truly resonates with your audience. Consider leaning in on specialized protection and the inclusion of predict-and-prevent topics in your social content calendar. This allows you to create and distribute content that feels organic to your brand and valuable to your audience rather than purely promotional. By consistently providing content that your audience finds interesting and useful, you establish your brand as a credible voice in your industry, which strengthens trust. 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Enhancing discoverability and authority

Appearing at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs) is a powerful signal of authority. For humans readers and AI crawls. Machine learning integrations are creating answer engines that are integrated with Search, as well as competing with classic search.  Machine learning is at the core of how search engines like Google rank content, and you can use similar principles to enhance your own SEO strategy. 

ML-powered tools can help you perform advanced keyword research, identifying long-tail keywords and semantic variations that your competitors might be missing. These tools can also analyze SERP trends and predict changes in search algorithms, allowing you to adapt your content strategy proactively. Furthermore, machine learning can help you optimize your site’s structure and internal linking, improving user experience and signaling to search engines that your website is a high-quality resource. When customers consistently find you through search and AI Overviews and land on helpful content, their trust in your brand grows. 

Paid search: Delivering relevant ad experiences

Machine learning can transform paid search into a more precise science. Platforms like Google Ads use ML for features like Smart Bidding, which automatically optimizes your bids for conversions based on dozens of real-time signals. 

Beyond bidding, ML helps you refine your ad copy and targeting. By analyzing performance data, it can identify which ad variations perform best with specific audience segments. This leads to more relevant ads that directly address user intent. When a user’s search query is met with a highly relevant ad and a seamless landing page experience, it reduces friction and builds confidence in your brand from the very first interaction. 

Paid social: Precision targeting for higher impact

Similar to paid search, machine learning revolutionizes paid social advertising. Social platforms have proprietary and powerful ML algorithms that help advertisers find their ideal future customer. By creating lookalike audiences, for example, your business can reach new prospects who share online data signals with your existing best customers. 

Machine learning also optimizes ad delivery, showing your ads to the people most likely to take your desired action. This precision targeting prevents ad fatigue and ensures your message reaches an engaged audience. By avoiding a scatter-targeting approach and instead delivering tailored ads to interested individuals, your business can create a more positive and trust-building brand experience. 

Content Strategy: Focus on answering frequently asked questions from clients

This approach helps Large Language Models (LLMs) easily identify your content as the best answer to a user’s query. When you create website content, focus on answering real questions your clients ask every day. Modern FAQs function similarly to keyword phrases. So, follow these guidelines for FAQs⁵ when creating website content. 

• Use natural language: Phrase questions exactly how a user would ask them (e.g., “Does my policy cover flood damage?”). 
• Be concise: Provide direct answers between 50–100 words.
• Be direct: Avoid fluff and get straight to the helpful information. 

Continue to prepare your digital marketing for the future

Implementing machine-learning strategies is not a “set it and forget it” task. The best practice that powers this entire process is regular, in-depth digital marketing analysis. Your campaigns generate a constant stream of data, and this data is the fuel for the ML models Additionally, your team’s analysis can also lead to insights to inform other digital marketing optimizations. 

Regularly occurring analysis helps you understand what’s working and what isn’t. Are your social media posts leading to conversions? Is your paid search campaign delivering a positive return on investment? Answering these questions allows you to refine your strategies and improve campaign performance over time. ML tools can automate much of this analysis, providing you with intuitive dashboards and actionable reports. This continuous feedback loop ensures your marketing efforts remain optimized, efficient, and aligned with your goal of building digital trust.

FAQs to continue to prepare your digital marketing for the future

What is digital marketing strategy?
A digital marketing strategy is a plan that outlines how your agency will achieve its marketing goals using digital marketing channels like search, social media, online review sites, and email. It guides your decisions on where to invest your time and budget to best reach your target audience. A strong strategy ensures all your digital efforts work together to build brand awareness, building digital authority, improve online visibility, generate leads, and grow your book of business. 

What are trust signals, and how do they impact my insurance agency’s AI visibility? 
Trust signals are pieces of information online that prove your agency is legitimate, authoritative, and trustworthy. For AI search, the crucial signals can include positive reviews, accurate business listings, and a professional and secure website. AI models use them to verify your credibility and are more likely to recommend your agency to users seeking insurance. 

What does “digital trust” mean for insurance agencies? 
Digital trust is the level of confidence customers have in your agency based on your online presence. It’s built through consistency and transparency across all your digital platforms, from your website to social media and online reviews. For an insurance agency, it means showing potential clients that you are reliable and expert before they even contact you. 

Why are insurance shoppers relying heavily on AI searches? 
Shoppers use AI search to get quick, comprehensive, and conversational answers to complex insurance questions. These AI searches can be initiative in search, social and AI tools. AI can synthesize information from many sources to provide personalized recommendations, making the research process faster and simpler than traditional search methods. 

How can digital trust signals break down for insurance agents? 
Digital trust breaks down when your online information is inconsistent or negative. This can happen through: 

• Conflicting business hours or addresses on different websites. 
• A high number of negative reviews. 
• An outdated or insecure website. 
• A lack of recent customer feedback. 

How does improved digital trust create opportunities for insurance agents? 
Strong digital trust makes your agency more visible and appealing in AI-powered search results. While no one knows the exact calculus used by different AI models, some commonalities have been identified. When AI models see your agency as a trusted authority, they are more likely to feature you in answers and recommendations. This directly connects you with high-intent prospects actively looking for insurance, giving you a competitive edge. 

What should Insurance agents do first to strengthen digital trust? 
Start by ensuring your agency’s name, address, phone number, and website are correct and identical across all online directories and platforms (like Google Business Profile, Yelp, and industry-specific sites). By completing your Nationwide Insurance Agency Locator profile you’ll effectively manage your information and deliver consistent, accurate answers to consumers across various digital channels, including search engines, social media platforms, and maps. Your completed profile is part of a central “knowledge graph” that acts a single source of truth for your brand’s data. This supports your digital legitimacy through harmonized data across the internet and is a complimentary solution for Nationwide appointed agency partners.  

How can I tell if trust signals for my insurance agency have a problem? 
Search for your agency online and look for inconsistencies. Do different sites show different phone numbers? Are there unanswered negative reviews? Does your website look unprofessional or lack security (no “https” in the URL)? These are all signs that your trust signals need attention. 

What’s the fastest approach to improve trust and the likelihood of getting better results from AI search? 
The fastest way is to clean up your core business listings and actively manage your online reviews. Correct all inconsistencies in your name, address, and phone number across major platforms by updating your Nationwide Agency Locator profile. Then, start asking satisfied customers for reviews to build a fresh, positive reputation that AI tools can easily recognize.