What is SEO? And why financial advisors need it.
Search-Engine Optimization, or SEO, refers to increasing the traffic to your website, both in quality and quantity. Say you search for something on Google, most of the time, the answer you are looking for is displayed on the first page of the search results. Very rarely do you go to the second or third page, and I’m assuming you have never gone beyond the third page. But whenever you search, Google shows you millions of results. So what happens to the other pages? Basically, Google uses a very advanced algorithm that ranks pages on the basis of relevancy and authority. SEO helps you, and your business stand out and use this algorithm to get ranked at the top! And trust us, it is a lot easier than it looks.
Now many financial advisors believe that they don’t want to get techy because this is the sort of business that depends solely on referral marketing. But the truth is, the financial advisory sector is also taking an online shift, and like we have seen multiple times in the past, those who embrace the change are the ones that thrive in the future.
SEO is a very powerful tool that can help you as an advisor, beat the competition, and generate a lot of traffic. It will also improve your recognition, and image and help you gain a lot of customers. So let’s dive into the tips to get you ranking!
#1: Keyword Research
The first and arguably the most important step towards SEO is focusing on keywords. You need to choose the right keywords to rank on. Remember Google values relevancy so if you’re in the financial advisory business, you should focus on keywords related to this industry. The easiest way to get keyword ideas is through the SERP results themselves, in the “Searches related to” section. But the best ways are through some third-party platforms, like ahrefs or SEMrush.
When it comes to keywords, the most important factors are “Volume”, and “Keyword Difficulty”. Volume basically refers to the traffic your page is generating and keyword difficulty gives you an idea of how hard it will be to rank on the keyword. Ideally, you’re looking for high volumes and low difficulties. You can also add variations to your keyword, for example, while the keyword “financial advisor” might have a high volume, it most definitely also has a high KD. Instead, if you choose “financial advisor Ohio” you could get a lower KD and attract the most appropriate customers if you are Ohio based for example.
Assuming you don’t have the time to spend hours in front of your website every day, you should go for the easier keywords. If you however want to rank the more difficult ones, consider some professional help.
#2: Your Advisor Website Should Be Responsive
There are two ways to make your website friendlier, for both Google and the people who visit your website.
Mobile-Responsive:
Since a lot of people these days surf the web on their mobiles, Google rewards the mobile-friendly websites with higher rankings. Furthermore, mobile-friendly websites are very easy to navigate through and will help your customers get to what they want easily.
Speed:
In front of the Google algorithm, a slow loading website really harms your ranking. That’s because slow loading websites take away from the user experience. Studies show that most people leave the site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. Now with speed, there comes a trade-off, because a lot of times speed has to do with the number of pictures and videos on your website. You might need to take a few out, or maybe try something like lazyload. To track your website’s speed performance, go to GTmetrix.
#3: Publish High-Quality Content
This might sound obvious but it really isn’t. A lot of people think they might be putting out great content but you need to know how Google sees your content too. After doing keyword research, select a keyword you want to write a blog on. Now you need to choose a topic that most people can relate to or read about, like personal asset management or investment opportunities, etc. Make your blog relevant to the topic. Make it rich with a lot of information. Google rewards information-rich blogs over very thin ones. A well-written article will keep you ranking, keep customers coming to your website, and will also give you the opportunity to have good backlinks. Remember to include your keyword in the article as much as you can naturally. If you stuff a lot of the keyword in your blog, Google sees this as “keyword stuffing” and realizes that the blog is more for SEO and less for information. So make sure you don’t stuff your page.
#4: Build Good Backlinks
Backlinks, or in links, are links coming to your website from other websites. The Google algorithm sees these as “votes” to your website. So if you have a good quantity and quality of backlinks, it will be much easier to rank on organic search results. Google focuses a lot more on the quality of the backlinks, and quality is based on credibility. Say you have a blog on your financial services website. Now if websites like Wallstreet Journal or Forbes provide a link to your blog, it will provide your website with a great boost, compared to many small-scale low credibility sites. So always try to get good quality backlinks.
There are many ways to get backlinks. Firstly, you need to have linkable assets like blogs or videos or quizzes. Basically, things that other pages might provide links to easily. And second is the focus on quality. If your work is high-quality people will want to provide links to it. Just make sure you don’t do two things; don’t force links, let them build up organically over time, and don’t buy links; Google algorithm is getting smarter at recognizing this and can blacklist your website if found guilty.
#5: Focus on the little things
There are a lot of little things that if done right, can help boost your page. For example, the title of your page, make sure it has the keyword and looks very relevant. Similarly, people often look at the meta-description (the small paragraph of text beneath the title). Make sure your meta is relevant, and urges people to click, because your meta is virtually the only way your words are selling your page to the customer, addressing them directly. Your website URL also plays a role. Google, and people, would much more prefer a page with a URL that has “xyz.com/financial-advisor-seo” than let’s say “xyz.com/myblog”.
SEO Elements
There are mainly 2 different types of SEO. Focusing on all of these can almost guarantee success, and it’s not that hard. Here I will try to summarize some of those for you to give you a general idea.
Keywords Strategy:
You will need a keyword strategy for the website’s content. We have gone ahead and taken the liberty of finding some popular keywords for you that will help you generate traffic quickly. Here are the top keywords you should use in your website titles, meta descriptions and headings.
Top Keywords For Financial Advisors:
- Wealth management + area
- Financial advisor + area
- Investment management firm + area
- Financial planner + area
- Certified financial planner + area
You can also have niche keywords if you provide services in certain niches:
- Small business financial planner
- Financial advisor for athletes
- Financial advisor for entrepreneurs
- Financial advisor for doctors
- If you are a fee-only advisor, you can optimize your website page for a fee-only financial advisor in the area.
It is recommended to optimize one page for one keyword or one keyword theme.
On-page SEO
This is the type of SEO that deals with your blogs and your webpages. You can control everything when it comes to these. Having a good on-page strategy will ensure your blogs and other pages generate good traffic. Here are some tips to boost your On-page SEO:
1. Header Tags
Focus on your H-tags and apply them well. Good and orderly tags can go a long way in making your page more relevant. Remember to use your keywords.
2. Alt-image Tag
Remember to include an image description with your image. This will increase the relevancy of your page and also help you rank on Google Images.
3. Internal Linking
Build good internal links to your website. When you write a blog on your financial advisory, make sure to link your homepage to send traffic that way.
There are many more small ways to improve your On-page, Do some research and remember every little thing counts!
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is also another important aspect of SEO that a lot of people do not pay as much attention to. This deals with the website’s user experience (UX), page speed, mobile-friendliness, canonical tags, etc. Focusing on technical SEO not only helps you rank, but it also strengthens your website and therefore is very important. For an industry like financial advisory, website security, another aspect of technical SEO, is also a very important factor.
This has been a very general guide to get you started on SEO and to start your business ranking. As you read more, you will realize there are a lot of different ways you can generate a great amount of traffic and boost your revenues. Good luck!
Local SEO
Local SEO (Local Search Engine Optimization), sometimes referred to as local search marketing, is a great way to market your financial advisory firm, as it helps you promote your services to local customers at the exact time they’re looking for them online.
Basically, when someone searches for financial advisors, they are shown only those firms near them. For example, below are the search results from searching ‘financial advisor’ in New York.
This picture shows some of the key things you need to focus on, for the ease and accessibility of potential customers.
These give immediate access to the people of the area. If your firm is ranking here it would be very easy for people to find and contact you.
To rank your firm, you need to have a Google My Business account. Reviews go a long way, and so you need to build those star ratings. In addition to this, you need to do a proper on-page and technical SEO to generate the numbers you’ve always dreamed of.
This picture shows some of the key things you need to focus on, for the ease and accessibility of potential customers.
These give immediate access to the people of the area. If your firm is ranking here it would be very easy for people to find and contact you.
To rank your firm, you need to have a Google My Business account. Reviews go a long way, and so you need to build those star ratings. In addition to this, you need to do a proper on-page and technical SEO to generate the numbers you’ve always dreamed of.