5 Things to Keep in Mind When Doing SEO for Financial Services
It should come as no surprise that people search for banks near them online quite a bit. When you’re on the go, and you want a location for a nearby banking operation, it makes sense to do a quick search. Since people are already searching to find banks, it only makes sense that these companies have taken an interest in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
Financial services companies need to maintain their credibility while gaining search engine rankings. Visitors to their sites must trust their offerings, so the website and tactics in play have to create trust at every step of the process. Authoritative websites with robust Calls-To-Action not only draw people in but convert the traffic into paying customers.
Let’s go through five cornerstone SEO principles that financial services firms must always implement:
1. Be Original or Forget the Whole Thing
There is already a ton of content on the web. Being original is not easy, but it’s the best possible way to gain search engine traffic. When you post an article or web page that is very similar in content to others that exist, the chances are high that your newer page won’t replace any of the ones that currently rank. It makes sense because your page did not do anything to stand out from the crowd.
It’s quite common for websites about personal loans to contain duplicate content from syndication services. Avoid this tactic like the plague and stick to crafting distinctive content that searchers can’t find anywhere else.
2. Provide Fresh Content
It’s common knowledge in SEO circles that Google uses a Query Deserves Freshness ranking boost that factors into their algorithm. This fact means adding fresh content is a crucial strategy.
Modern SEO strategies for banks must include fresh content. On-topic content that ties into the bank’s products and services is a savvy way to introduce web searchers to the company’s brand.
3. It’s All About Improving the User Experience
SEO involves offering web surfers a top user experience. One of the quickest ways for a website to do that is to provide high-quality tools like a first home loan repayments calculator. Almost all homeowners and prospective ones will have some interest in calculating the rates and what its impact is having on their home loans. Tools are very “sticky” and keep visitors coming back for more.
Mobile search and improved user experience have been the mantra for Google results for several years now. Google rewards websites that do the best job of servicing end users. Bank websites that offer personal loans can fully satisfy queries, so there’s no good reason to neglect to attempt to rank these pages.
4. You Can’t Ignore Monitoring and Tweaking
Your SEO will never be perfect, but with a commitment to excellent digital marketing in the banking sector, it will improve. Understand that your competition is serious about what they’re doing so you’ll need to think the same way.
Results change all the time in search engines. The quicker your team knows that something’s different, the faster they’ll be able to deploy a solution. Monitoring SEO is the only way to ensure that your ongoing efforts are on the right track. There is no shortage of tools at your disposal so use the ones that help your business get excellent results.
5. Never Lose That Long-Term Commitment to SEO
Achieving SEO success is a lot more like running a marathon than a sprint. It doesn’t hurt to be active at the beginning, but what ends up mattering most is a steady supply of work that culminates in increased rankings.
Most companies fail at SEO just because they underestimate how intense and prolonged the process tends is for everyone. Businesses need to have a sufficient budget in place for an adequate amount of time to see their rankings move up. Even when rankings are in place, it pays to continue to invest in quality content and distribution to continually bring in a fresh flow of new prospects. Financial services products tend to have high enough margins to make reinvestment in SEO and digital marketing a smart plan. Digital marketing in the banking sector has a high potential for profit.
Conclusion
Discovering how to market financial services online may be a process of trial and error. SEO should be a part of any digital strategy, solely because a people conduct a large volume of searches each month seeking branch-specific information. Serving those queries will help bring in new clients. Further, more people than ever are originating loans via online avenues so grabbing a piece of this burgeoning market makes perfect sense.
There are no shortcuts or quick fixes worth pursuing for banks who take on the challenge of effective SEO. Good, fresh content and high-quality tools are the formulae that have been working and will continue to draw in visitors. Chasing algorithms has not proven to be a sound plan. Instead, a relentless focus on user experiences pays off again and again for top-ranking websites. Sites, where people can accomplish their goals, tend to rise to the top, provided they have a plan in place to get there.
