A Strategic Guide to Financial SEO

Nowadays, more and more customers are turning to online platforms seeking help or guidance for their financial needs and services. In fact, with this grueling economic downturn, individuals are looking for financial advisors to counsel them on how to use their finances well.

Therefore, it becomes a want and necessity for financial services companies to practice the best SEO for financial services to build a robust online portfolio. And so, are you among those looking for elaborate and concise ways to improve your financial services this year with SEO (Search Engine Optimization)?

If you’ve said YES…

This comprehensive financial SEO guide serves as a strategic compass, illuminating the path to enhanced financial companies’ brand visibility and snowball lead generation, sales, and a boost in traffic within the financial services field. But why would a financial company in Singapore maximize on SEO strategies for finance?

Grab some coffee (or tea) & let’s dive in – this will be a long one…

What Is SEO for Financial Services?

Generally, when you optimize your financial website using targeted finance-related queries, your site may rank higher in SERPs (search engine results pages); in short, you’ll be implementing SEO best practices for financial services.

It is crucial to master the financial SEO compass in your financial firms. This can increase brand awareness, attract qualified leads, and increase conversions.

As a rule of thumb, the financial services industry is currently highly competitive, and SEO can play a vital role in helping finance services companies stand out from the crowd. By optimizing your websites for the right keywords and phrases, financial services companies can make it easier for potential customers to find them online.

BUT WHY IS FINANCIAL SEO IMPORTANT? Let’s find out;

Why You Should Use SEO Strategies For Finance -Top (Benefits)

You might have heard lots of narratives about SEO trends for finance. And when you tried to immerse yourself into it, you almost killed yourself because of disappointments and ZERO results.

Does that mean SEO for financial services comes with no benefits? NO! If things get tough, it is only wise to pivot and hire an SEO expert to do everything for you. That’s where Leading Solution comes to your rescue. Here are the top reasons why you should hire an expert for your financial service businesses;

Boost Brand Recognition for your Financial Services Company

The only and the best way to enhance long-haul brand visibility and recognition is through financial SEO. In fact, according to Brightedge, the main channel for trackable traffic in the entire internet continues to be organic search, as it remains dominant in this aspect.

The following is a chart from Brightedge that highlights the importance of SEO and how businesses gain from organic search more than any other channel;

Therefore, when your website ranks high in search engine results pages (SERPs) for relevant keywords, it is more likely to be seen by potential customers. This can increase brand awareness and build trust, ultimately attracting more organic clicks from SERPs.

Better User Experience

SEO strategies cater to search engine algorithms and prioritize user experience. User-centric design, easy navigation, and mobile responsiveness are integral aspects optimized through SEO which can also help to improve the user experience of your financial services website.

A seamless, user-friendly interface attracts visitors and retains them, reducing bounce rates and enhancing the likelihood of conversions. Google’s algorithm updates increasingly to prioritize user-centric factors, affirming the correlation between improved user experience and higher rankings.

Drive Massive Organic Traffic

The secret of SEO lies in driving organic traffic to websites. Based on the research done by SEMrush, organic traffic accounts for 53% of all website traffic. This suggests that SEO is essential to any online marketing strategy, especially for financial services companies.

Typically, organic traffic comes from search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Organic traffic is valuable because it is free and targeted. When your website ranks high in SERPs for relevant financial-related keywords, you are more likely to attract organic traffic. This can increase the number of visitors to your website, which can lead to more leads and sales.

Enhances the Quality of Leads

SEO not only drives traffic but also facilitates the quality of leads. When potential clients find a financial service provider through organic search results, they’re often amid decision-making.

Studies show that organic search leads boast a 14.6% close rate, significantly higher than outbound leads (such as direct mail or print advertising). Moreover, tailored content optimized for specific financial queries or needs increases the conversion rate, establishing trust and credibility among potential clients.

Note: conversion rate is the percentage of visitors to your website who take a desired action, such as signing up for a newsletter or making a purchase.

Increase Brand Visibility in Local Search

Of late, local SEO for financial advisors is booming and has become a top creme in every business. Financial firms are competing for a leading position in a particular geographical location. See the following screenshot for clear explanations;

As more customers are using search to find answers to their problems. Local SEO is becoming increasingly important for financial services companies. You need to optimize your site for local search to be seen by customers from your locality. Therefore. by optimizing your financial website for local search, your financial services company can increase its visibility and attract more local customers.

Knowing the benefits of financial SEO is half a step to the winning line. In this comprehensive Financial SEO guide, we’ve compiled 101 Essential SEO strategies for Financial Services. These steps will help you plan and execute your best SEO strategies for your financial firm without any hassles.

If you’re tired of spending vast amounts of money on paid advertisements and want to embrace something cheap and long-term, here are the steps to your financial industry success in 2024 and beyond;

101 Essential SEO Strategies for Financial Services; Step by Step

There are lots of SEO strategies for financial services discussed by SEO gurus. To your utter shock, most discuss these strategies based on theories rather than experience or practical attempts.

We at Leading Solution have helped tons of businesses achieve their ROI through SEO best practices. Therefore, we have first-hand experience with SEO and how well SEO marketing for the financial industry should be done. You’re looking to implement financial SEO best practices because you already own a website but with little or no results seen from your financial website, right?

Follow the following steps to revamp your financial website like a pro;

Assess Your SEO Current Status

The first step to your SEO success is to analyze your current SEO status. This will help you to identify areas where you need to improve. The good news is that there are many free SEO tools at your fingertips to analyze data. For example, you can use SEMrush to determine the current status of your financial website, as disclosed in the screenshot below;

Assessing the current SEO status of your website as the first step in revamping your financial website will help you pinpoint different issues encompassing your site, thus yielding poor SEO results. You can clearly analyze the errors, warnings, and notices from the above screenshot to amend for better rankings.

Once you have all the specs harming your website assessed, it’s time to do the following;

Prioritize Technical SEO

Technical SEO forms the backbone of website optimization. In this case, you’ll have to focus on the following to enhance essential SEO strategies for financial services;

• Focus on enhancing website speed
• Ensuring mobile responsiveness
• Optimizing site architecture
• Resolving issues like duplicate content or crawl errors.

Technical aspects significantly impact user experience and search engine rankings, making them a crucial starting point. After the above errors are fixed, jump to the following strategy;

Keyword Research & Competitor Analysis

Keyword research involves identifying the keywords and phrases your target audience uses to search for financial products and services online. You can use a variety of tools to perform keyword research, such as Google Keyword Planner and SEMrush, as shown below;

• Log in to your GKP (Google Keyword Planner)
• On its friendly interface, locate where it is written: “Discover New Keywords.”

• Once you’ve entered your preferred keyword, scroll down to “get results.”

It is that simple! Now you have all the keywords in your arsenal. Would you jump onto writing and optimizing your site right off the bait? NO! After keyword research, you’ll be compelled to do a competitive analysis.

Understanding your competitors’ strategies provides invaluable insights. Analyze their keywords, content, backlink profiles, and overall SEO approach. Identify gaps or opportunities where you can differentiate and excel. This will help you identify areas where you can improve your SEO strategy. You can use various tools, such as SEMrush and Ahrefs, to perform a competitor analysis.

After keyword research and competitor analysis, evaluate your content as discussed below;

Evaluate Content

Content remains king in the digital realm. Once you have performed your keyword research and competitor analysis, evaluate existing content for relevance, accuracy, and engagement. Similarly, you can develop content that is focused on the needs of your target audience.

This content should be informative, engaging, and relevant to the keywords your target audience uses to search for financial products and services online after you have populated your site with relevant, interesting, and informative financial-related content. It is time now for big wins!

Boost Your E-A-T

No fuss in this. E-A-T means Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. This is one of the most crucial SEO strategies for financial services. You can boost E-A-T by showcasing credentials, certifications, client testimonials, and thought leadership content. This establishes credibility and fosters trust, which is essential in the financial domain.

Link Building and Authority

Conversely, quality backlinks from reputable sources validate your website’s authority. You can focus on acquiring high-quality, relevant backlinks through content partnerships, guest posting, or industry collaborations.

Note: Quality over quantity is the rule here.

Upgrade Your Local SEO

Local SEO is optimizing your website to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) for local searches. To upgrade your local SEO, you must ensure your website is listed in local directories, such as Google My Business and Yelp. Also, ensure consistency in NAP (Name, Address, Phone) details across platforms and garner positive reviews to boost local SEO.

Case Study and Financial SEO Success Story

AdvancePoint Capital- Case Study & Success Story

AdvancePoint Capital is a financial company that is out to help small businesses get loans to up their firms. And so, they wanted more consumers to find them online. This means AdvancePoint Capital fully understands the power of SEO for financial websites.

Therefore, they decided to look for the best SEO digital marketing agency to work with in improving their financial SEO. Before hiring an SEO agency, they used to spend lump sums of money on ads, which is very expensive compared to search engine optimization in the long run.

AdvancePoint Capital longed to show up higher in Google searches by spending less. This was hard because big companies had already dominated the space. Nonetheless, AdvancePoint Capital resorted to paying all their money on SEO by hiring an SEO agency to handle it for them.

Firstly, the agency changed some words and made new pages on their website (re-optimizing the existing pages). Aside from site optimization, the following are some of the best SEO for finance companies done on AdvancePoint Capital;

• They identified keyword phrases that had the most opportunity to rank on the first page of Google and generate clicks.
• Implementing a comprehensive link-building strategy comprised of both contextual and scholarship links

After a few months, more people found AdvancePoint Capital on Google and witnessed tremendous results, as shown below.

The above essential SEO strategies for financial services made their website more substantial and trusted. It went from being not very strong to being better.

Check out the best SEO agencies in Singapore for all your digital marketing needs.

Find a Financial SEO Agency in Singapore

Financial services companies must have a robust online presence in a field where the big boys are investing all they have in marketing. This can be achieved through a comprehensive SEO strategy encompassing keyword research, on-page optimization, link building, and technical SEO.

By following the tips outlined in this financial SEO guide, financial services companies can improve their website’s ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs), attract visitors, and generate more leads and sales.

In case you need help, talk to us today at Leading Solution so we can suggest you the best current practices and strategies for the most visible results. Apart from SEO services, we also offer photography and social media marketing to push your business to the next level. Take advantage of the Productivity Solutions Grant to cut down your digital marketing costs by up to 50%.