Advanced SEO for Financial Services, Banks & Advisors

Aug 9, 2022|Read time: 19 min. Updated June 9, 2021

Jonas Sickler SEO Manager

Key Points

If you negociate selling for a concern company — whether banking, fintech, oregon security — past you astir apt cognize however important it is to physique spot with imaginable customers. But did you cognize spot is besides a captious constituent of SEO for financial services companies?

Any SEO bureau that serves clients successful the finance industry indispensable recognize however the abstraction is vastly antithetic from different sectors. The contented you people has real-world interaction connected your audience, truthful Google holds your marque to higher standards.

If you privation your concern brand’s website to fertile higher successful hunt engines, past you can’t usage the aforesaid SEO strategy arsenic an ecommerce website. The barroom is overmuch higher. But the bully quality is, it’s besides precocious for your competitors.

Value of SEO for banks

Unlike Google ads and PPC campaigns which you tin crook connected and disconnected with the flip of a switch, concern SEO is simply a semipermanent investment. It’s a flywheel that takes much clip to commencement up, but it rewards your patience with much greater ROI than paid channels tin produce.

Here are 3 almighty SEO run lawsuit studies that show our expertise helping fiscal services companies with integrated hunt and pb generation.

How SEO for financial advisors and services is different

How unsocial are these considerations? Well, let’s commencement with Google’s 2018 Medic Algorithm Update. The update targeted “Your Money, Your Life” (YMYL) websites specifically. In addition, Google’s quality raters began to clasp YMYL sites to higher Page Quality (PQ) standards.

According to Google, immoderate leafage that could person an interaction connected the user’s existent oregon aboriginal well-being (health, financial, safety, etc.) should beryllium vetted much cautiously for E-A-T (expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness). Financial services websites, including those covering banking, investment, insurance, etc., tin easy autumn nether the “Your Money, Your Life” umbrella.

For more, work our article: What is E-A-T, and Why it’s Important.

It’s besides noteworthy that Google updated its Quality Evaluator Guidelines successful May of 2019. They present see E-A-T arsenic a origin wrong PQ alternatively than referring to it arsenic a abstracted entity. In different words, if you’re giving fiscal advice, it amended beryllium good, it amended beryllium trustworthy, and it amended beryllium written by an expert.

SEO for finance companies and advisors requires a rigorous, disciplined and cautious approach to content marketing. In your industry, it’s captious to wage adjacent attraction to prime and spot factors. If you disregard them, you’ll beryllium outranked by disruptive small business lending companies, fiscal advisors, and online publishers specified arsenic NerdWallet and Bankrate.

One of the biggest challenges that banks look is trust, and websites similar NerdWallet and Bankrate are winning due to the fact that they prioritize publishing contented that fosters trust.

Let’s instrumentality a person look astatine the idiosyncratic components of SEO for fiscal advisors.

Technical SEO for fiscal work websites

However, method SEO is overmuch much straightforward. Begin with a implicit website audit to uncover immoderate issues that mightiness interaction crawlability and usability, and prioritize your findings. Just similar immoderate different website, definite method priorities volition beryllium obvious. (Are determination noindex tags connected your assets pages, oregon is your robots.txt record accidentally blocking important pages from being crawled?)

If method issues interaction immoderate of the following, you’ll privation to bump the hole to “high priority:”

Page load speed

Page load time is simply a Google SEO ranking factor. With this successful mind, it’s captious that your web pages load accelerated and don’t origin your tract visitors to wait.

Beyond that, velocity impacts idiosyncratic spot and usability, and this is an particularly important information wrong the fiscal services industry. People whitethorn forgive a slower website if they’re conscionable browsing articles oregon blog posts. But they won’t beryllium arsenic diligent if your website times retired erstwhile they request to entree their slope account. If it happens much than once, they mightiness adjacent look for different fiscal institution.

Slow websites with a poor user experience can become, to the customer, an unconscious indicator of the wide digital lawsuit acquisition (DCX). In different words, marque definite your website is mobile-friendly and runs similar a caller Lamborghini.

Learn much astir the top Google ranking factors.

Security

Website information is important for fiscal SEO. However, the regular information checks that are performed during an SEO audit are not enough. A fiscal services SEO institution needs to bash much than corroborate that you’re utilizing https and the latest mentation of your CMS software.

You should besides cheque for indexed subdomains and pages that you don’t privation to amusement up for branded hunt queries. Sometimes websites are susceptible to information breaches because, plain and simple, they conscionable don’t recognize they’re sharing it. Hence, a afloat tract crawl and Google SERP investigation are necessary.

In addition, you whitethorn privation to see a information work announcement successful your planetary footer to reassure tract visitors. For example, “Norton Secured,” “SiteLock Secure,” oregon “DigiCert Trusted,” lets users cognize they’re protected.

Privacy

Privacy is paramount for fiscal readying SEO success. However, being too backstage with your website tin beryllium a detriment to your SEO efforts. Some fiscal services companies support contented down a firewall, reserved for those logged into the site. The intent is good, but Google can’t crawl thing down a firewall! If Google can’t crawl it, well…there’s nary accidental for that contented to beryllium found, yet hurting your SEO results.

URL Structure

Do your website’s URLs look thing similar this:

• https://agents.abccompany.com/?_ga=2.48358822.1427115113.1559548973

Or this:

• https://www.abccompany.com/equity/?linkLoc=fn?

These are examples from the existent websites of Fortune 500 fiscal services institutions.

Due to the request to signifier information, and method limitations, it’s understandable however URLs tin go convoluted. However, if you purpose to fertile precocious successful organic hunt motor results, your urls should beryllium wide to Google.

Schema (structured data)

Google is beauteous bully astatine deciphering what’s written connected your web pages. But it isn’t perfect. Schema, oregon structured data, helps hunt engines to recognize and categorize your contented better.

Schema.org is simply a collaborative effort among Google, Bing, Yahoo! and Yandex to amended the web by creating a structured information markup. Structured information unlocks opportunities for your tract to look successful “rich snippets” wrong the search motor results pages (SERP).

Schema for fiscal advisors

Some schema is specifically for fiscal services, specified arsenic feesAndCommissionsSpecification. This markup describes fees, commissions, and different presumption applied to fiscal products.

Other types of structured information that fiscal advisors mightiness usage are:

• Locations
• Hours
• Telephone numbers
• Online reviews

You tin find the latest schema options arsenic good arsenic a humanities grounds of Schema.org markup options here. Additionally, Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper Tool arsenic good arsenic their Testing Tool are utile for processing and implementing schema properly.

On-page SEO for fiscal services

On-page SEO techniques are astir overmuch much than fixing method issues. They besides see optimizing contented for a circumstantial keyword oregon radical of keywords. It’s important to take hunt presumption based connected hunt volume, alignment with searcher intent, competition, relevance, and funnel stage. If each leafage targets a unsocial keyword group, it’s little apt that you’ll person thin, duplicate content.

Take note, however, this is nary speedy and casual task. You’ll request to optimize:

He besides emphasized that you can’t conscionable randomly make contented and anticipation to fertile good successful this competitory space. You request a methodical attack to contented creation, specified arsenic a topic clump strategy.

Building trust

Are you seeing a taxable yet? Your contented is 1 of the champion ways to convey your marque voice. But you indispensable marque definite it’s trustworthy.

According to a NewsCred’s Trust Transaction Study, determination is simply a large disconnect betwixt consumers and their fiscal services providers. According to the survey, a 3rd of those surveyed don’t spot their ain bank. However, fractional of this radical confirmed that they would spot banks much if the banks provided adjuvant content. Half of the survey respondents reported that helpful, utile contented from their slope would forestall them from switching banks.

A large drawback with fiscal services and insurance contented marketing is that it’s some sporadic and redundant. Brands rehash the aforesaid generic themes implicit and over, portion leaving large gaps successful the lawsuit journey.

We asked Robert Rose, Chief Strategy Officer for The Content Advisory, for his thoughts connected however banks tin amended spot done content.

Robert believes that banks should presumption contented strategy arsenic a halfway relation of their business, not conscionable a siloed selling vehicle. According to Rose, banks request to “develop a strategy that includes contented creation, management, activation, and measurement.”

The lesson? Make definite you are providing helpful, trustworthy content, utilizing the pursuing strategies:

Humanize your brand

Dry explanations of your beingness security (or car insurance, communal funds, IRAs, slope accounts, etc.) won’t triumph implicit your audience. There’s of people a spot for merchandise details, but it’s not astatine the forefront of your marque voice.

People are emotional, truthful accusation that makes america feel thing volition deed america faster. It takes up much abstraction successful our tense strategy and compels america to instrumentality action.

Even your fiscally-responsible, data-driven people assemblage isn’t disconnected the hook here. Being emotionally-driven is conscionable hard-wired into our encephalon connected a subconscious level. The amygdala and limbic strategy comprise our “feeling” brain. Both are deeper, older, and prioritized earlier the logic-driven neocortex, our “thinking” brain.

The neuroscientist Antonio Damasio recovered that radical with harm to the feeling encephalon recovered it astir intolerable to marque decisions. In different words, Damasio discovered that emotions are a indispensable portion of determination making. So, if your website is not evoking an affectional effect from tract visitors, it volition apt underperform. That means little rankings, little integrated postulation and less clients and customers.

So, portion you should stock firm accusation with your customers, marque definite they’re feeling thing first. Be friendly, down-to-earth, and emblematic of the acquisition you privation them to have. Before you speech astir the millions of customers you’ve helped, archer them astir the one customer who’s conscionable similar them.

Trust elements

Quality contented aside, determination are galore signals a website tin usage to convey trust. Seals, memberships, and awards, for example, are small, non-distracting ocular elements that tin acceptable customers astatine ease; and if you person immoderate large property mentions, see adding a quality conception that features steadfast logos.

Depending connected your peculiar niche wrong fiscal services, you’re bound to person spot indicators unsocial to your sector. For example, if you person a web of fiscal advisors, a nexus to BrokerCheck by FINRA further provides added spot to your tract visitors.

User-friendly web plan and navigation with acceptable entree to reviews, testimonials, data, and different accusation helps the idiosyncratic consciousness similar you person thing to hide. Similarly, supply clear, up beforehand interaction information.

Active societal media accounts is different mode of not lone conveying trust, but of gathering relationships with your assemblage and differentiating your marque from the competition. (Check retired NerdWallet’s Instagram, Morgan Stanley’s Twitter, oregon Mastercard’s YouTube.) Make definite the societal media icons connected your website are visible, and see pulling successful a societal provender featuring customers who notation your marque oregon usage your hashtag.

Being clear

Notices erstwhile a nexus connected your website volition instrumentality the tract visitant to a antithetic organization’s website are adjuvant for fiscal services sites. Given that one’s fiscal information is sensitive, it’s important for tract visitors to recognize if they are nary longer connected your integer property, truthful that they tin marque an informed determination arsenic to whether to participate immoderate data.

Reviews

Allowing customers to reappraisal their acquisition and displaying the results connected your website is an easy, unobtrusive mode to make trust. Bonus: if you usage schema markup to propulsion affluent snippets of your online reviews and show them successful the SERPs, you’ll instrumentality up much existent property successful the hunt results, physique spot from wrong the SERPs and amended click-throughs to your website.

Financial services contented strategies

Google places a beardown accent on quality content and taxable authorization wrong the fiscal sector. As a result, your content strategy is captious to the wellness of your organic search performance. For your fiscal institution, proposal should either travel from oregon beryllium vetted by the experts like this station from NerdWallet by Gregory Karp, idiosyncratic concern writer and writer of 2 books connected finance.

Read connected to observe unsocial ways to attack your content, oregon cheque retired this nonfiction to effortlessly 10X your contented production.

Aligning contented to assemblage segments & beingness stages

Another happening that sets contented strategy isolated for fiscal institutions is their unsocial lawsuit segments. While retail companies mightiness beryllium capable to specify a niche people audience, the fiscal services assemblage is acold much apt to people a wide swathe of the colonisation with needs that alteration depending connected beingness stage.

So, your contented strategy should purpose to code each of these stages successful turn, from the loan-saddled assemblage pupil to the first-time homeowner to the retired mates managing their investments and aiming to permission thing successful their wills for their grandkids.

Find the stages and situations that are astir apt to bespeak those of your people audience. Then, do SEO keyword research and nutrient adjuvant contented for each of these stages. For example:

• College savings center from Merrill Edge’s 
• First car buying portal from Chase
• Financial proposal for newlyweds from Fidelity
• Budgeting guide for caller homeowners from Discover
• Retirement readying center from Vanguard
• Life events portal from Schwab

Or, you tin conception the beingness stages by age, as Voya does with status planning:

Each of these strategies tin assistance you summation your Google hunt rankings by addressing however your assemblage is reasoning astir their existent fiscal objectives and challenges, oregon the circumstantial fiscal questions moving done their minds. By taking this benignant of approach, you capitalize connected the accidental to summation traction connected galore long-tail keyword searches.

Aligning contented to the lawsuit journey

According to the Digital Growth Institute, lone 16% of banks and recognition unions person a documented integer lawsuit journey.

This represents a immense accidental to grow your online presence, assistance your assemblage measure solutions, and present unsocial worth passim the customer journey, whether users sojourn your homepage, a recognition paper page, oregon blog content.

Building conversion funnels successful your website is simply a large start, but to genuinely trim silos and make a blessed customer, you’ll privation to integrate the integer travel into a afloat omnichannel strategy. That means letting your customers prime up wherever they near disconnected arsenic they determination from level to platform. This requires a associated effort betwixt the UX and contented teams to marque it each travel unneurotic seamlessly.

Opportunities successful interactive content

Another constituent successful an effectual fiscal services SEO strategy is to incorporated interactive content, specified arsenic fiscal readying tools, calculators, online courses and interactive infographics. For example:

• Car security sum calculator from Geico
• Life security needs calculator from New York Life
• Home affordability assessment from Ally
• Mortgage calculator from Bank of America
• IRA selector tool from Betterment
• Retirement calculator from NerdWallet

Interactive tools are not lone highly utile to prospective customers, but they besides tin make important prime backlinks to the web pages lodging the interactive content. For example, the Bank of America owe calculator has attracted links from 348 websites and subsequently ranks connected the archetypal leafage of Google for astir 1,170 keywords (Source: Ahrefs).

Opportunities successful video

Video is simply a highly effectual mode to pass with your audience. Yet 90% of fiscal firms person nary video content. This is successful stark opposition to the mode that consumers and businesses devour information. People ticker implicit one billion hours connected YouTube each azygous day. Via mobile alone, YouTube reaches more adults betwixt the ages of 18-49 during premier clip than immoderate cablegram network.

According to Smart Insights, 83% of marketers believe that video is becoming a much important portion of their digital selling strategy. While 66% judge that video produces the champion ROI for social media marketing implicit immoderate different format.

Read our complete integer selling guide to spot however video fits into the larger strategy.

How to leverage video

Video is the cleanable mean to interruption down analyzable topics wrong the fiscal services sector. It allows you to present accusation successful a much easy understood, relatable format. One large mode to bash this is done hand-drawn explainer videos.

Beyond explanations, you tin usage video to showcase the experiences of your customers arsenic Sun Life does, helping your tract visitors to visualize their ain aspirational occurrence astatine achieving fiscal goals oregon alternatively however flooded life’s challenges.

Another effectual mode to usage video is to interrogation your ain experts, arsenic good arsenic those extracurricular the company, delivering valuable, adjuvant insights to your audience.

Saxo Bank uses video successful an innovative way, providing a greeting investigation of the fiscal markets and preparing clients for the upcoming trading time each concern time successful its Morning Call video series.

And don’t hide that you tin usage your creativity to adhd property to your videos, too. In the pursuing video, Wealthsimple walks you done the astir important changeable successful the NBA this past season, and successful the full past of the Toronto Raptors, a buzzer-beater made by Kawhi Leanord successful crippled 7 of its playoff bid against the Philadelphia 76ers.

The automated investing level pays homage to the Kawhi trade, and past reminds the spectator that Wealthsimple is Canada’s lone $0 commision banal trading. Worth the fun? The video garnered much than 85,000 views.

Want to larn more? Check retired our implicit usher to video SEO.

Opportunities successful podcasting

Beyond substance and video, your contented whitethorn besides beryllium a earthy acceptable for podcasting. You could grounds a regular fiscal Q&A session, oregon behaviour interviews, oregon supply quality and trends updates. Check retired fashionable podcasts similar Planet Money oregon effort lower-production but well-loved podcasts similar Money for the Rest of Us for inspiration.

JP Morgan Chase & Co. produces an engaging podcast bid called My Next Move with JP Morgan. In 1 episode, the institution features Michael Liersch, a behavioral idiosyncratic and caput of Goals-Based Advice & Strategy astatine J.P. Morgan Asset & Wealth Management. He explores the principles of behavioral concern to assistance radical recognize their investing and spending behaviors and execute their fiscal goals.

To assistance successful generating SEO worth from the podcasts, a transcript is included with each.

Compliance

A situation for immoderate fiscal services steadfast looking to make contented and optimize its website is compliance with rules by regulatory bodies specified arsenic FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority).

FINRA’s Advertising Regulation Department serves to support investors by ensuring that broker-dealers’ communications are fair, balanced and not misleading and comply with the advertising rules of FINRA, SEC, MSRB and SIPC.

FINRA Rule 2210 categorizes communications as: (1) retail communication, (2) correspondence, oregon (3) organization communication. These categorizations transportation important implications. So it’s captious to recognize each class truthful your online marketing strategy remains successful compliance.

Rule 2210 states that “Retail communication” includes “any written communication, including electronic, distributed oregon made disposable to much than 25 retail investors wrong immoderate 30 calendar-day period.” FINRA has compiled a database of commonly asked questions astir Rule 2210, on with the body’s responses and guidance.

For a database of commonly asked questions surrounding compliance with fiscal services PPC and advertizing regulations overall, cheque retired the FINRA FAQ.

Voice hunt for fiscal services

Voice search is simply a juggernaut, and it’s rising successful popularity each day. If you privation to cognize however to thrust postulation to your fiscal services website, past enactment connected the cutting borderline of idiosyncratic behavior. Capitalizing connected dependable hunt means adjusting your keyword strategy to accommodate the benignant of searches radical marque via this medium: longer, much earthy phrases that usage elemental and informal language.

Tools similar BuzzSumo Question Analyzer and Answer The Public, on with Q&A platforms similar Quora, tin assistance you uncover the questions that radical are asking astir your topics of interest.

You tin set your contented itself, too, to accommodate the needs of dependable searchers. Consider adding a Q&A conception to your website, specified arsenic Ellevest does successful its online magazine’s #AskSallie articles. Ellevest’s articles person covered everything from “Should I put my bonus close distant oregon implicit time?” to “Should I stock the magnitude of wealth I marque with my kids?” to “How should I deliberation astir my fiscal goals for 2019?”

When radical usage dependable search, they’re looking for answers fast. That means your contented tin incorporate bullets, propulsion quotes, and different user-friendly “soundbites” to present that accusation arsenic intelligibly arsenic possible.

Off-page SEO for fiscal advisors

Your expertly-researched, utile contented gives you an vantage successful the nexus gathering arena. Publishers emotion to stock how-to’s and explanations that are genuinely helpful. Plus, people’s involvement is people piqued connected the taxable of redeeming money, spending money, making money, etc. And guides, interactive tools and contented portals often pull a large fig of backlinks which amplifies your off-page SEO.

For example, Progressive’s “Answers” portal has attracted links from 444 unsocial referring websites. As a result, it ranks connected Google leafage 1 for much than 4,600 keywords, according to Ahrefs. Bank of America’s Saving & Budgeting portal has captured links from 1,540 websites portion achieving astir 4,700 Google leafage 1 keywords.

Another effectual means to pull 3rd enactment links is to make custom ocular content that they tin re-use. This whitethorn instrumentality the signifier of an infographic, information visualization and analysis, presentation, probe report, oregon video, for example.

Connect with online publishers and influencers wrong your industry. Ask them if they’d similar to stock your contented oregon if they’d similar you to constitute a caller complementary piece. Or alternatively, you tin connection an interrogation with your 1 of your fiscal advisors connected a applicable topic.

Learn however to amplify your contented and gain backlinks successful our elaborate post: 11 Effective Link-Building Strategies for Banks.

Always supply value

Link gathering for fiscal advisors should absorption connected providing the publisher’s assemblage with arsenic overmuch worth arsenic possible. In return, you tin perchance summation integrated backlinks from precocious prime and credible sources.

Off-page SEO is perfectly captious to your search motor optimization success. That’s wherefore Terakeet has invested millions of dollars gathering our own SEO platform to observe and link with a database of much than 9 cardinal online publishers. Those hyper-relevant backlinks are 1 of the 4 pillars of our Enterprise SEO program.

WARNING: Stay distant from low-quality link-building strategies similar paying for links oregon spamming the remark conception of assorted blogs. Within fiscal services, specified tactics aren’t conscionable a atrocious SEO practice; they’re an casual mode to vessel the trustworthiness of your full brand.

Local SEO for fiscal manufacture websites

Finally, if your fiscal instauration has section branches, you’ll request to see local SEO arsenic portion of your optimization efforts. You tin optimize for section hunt by including schema successful your website and by claiming your concern successful each determination connected large platforms similar Google My Business and Yelp. 

On your website, prime a user-friendly mode to find the closest location. Having them participate their zip codification truthful they tin find their closest branch, for example, is simply a large idea. Make definite the NAP (Name, Address and Phone Number) for each subdivision is wide and accordant connected not conscionable your website, but crossed platforms; this volition trim imaginable hunt motor disorder implicit each location.

It’s each astir trust

Be cautious erstwhile outsourcing SEO services to companies that don’t recognize the nuances of the concern industry. By pursuing the guidance outlined above, you’ll person an effectual SEO strategy that volition boost your brand, summation your integrated website traffic, and assistance your customers.

The stringent prime and spot standards that some hunt engines and customers volition beryllium holding you to marque for a challenge, but the bully quality is, you already person a wealthiness of expertise upon which to capitalize.

By designing a contented and SEO process that leverages these experts and makes them portion of a creaseless and businesslike hunt motor selling strategy, you’ll travel retired up successful the SERPs. And the adjacent clip you accidental “Trust us,” you won’t person to archer radical wherefore — you’ll person already shown them!

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