There are a ton of benefits for driving new leads to your Financial Advising business through careful Search Engine Optimization (SEO) planning and implementation. But you need to know what you are doing and how SEO is evolving to make the most of your investment of time and money. That’s where our thoughtful SEO for financial services comes in. This ultimate guide is meant to help you identify the most effective and current strategies for creating great SEO results.. We will talk about the importance of SEO for financial advisors and what strategies work best for their industry. Let’s jump right into it.
Why is SEO Important for Financial Advisors?
As a financial advisor, part of your job is to make sure that your clients can find you when they need you. After all, what good are your services if no one knows that you exist? That’s why SEO for financial planning comes in handy for this. SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of making sure that your website appears as high up as possible in search engine results. And since most people don’t go past the first page of results, it’s essential to do everything you can to ensure that you’re ranking as high as possible. There are a number of factors that go into SEO, but some of the most important include keyword research and on-page optimization. By taking the time to optimize your site for search engines, you’ll be much more likely to attract new clients and grow your business.
SEO Strategies for Financial Advisors
So you’re a financial advisor and you want to develop strategies to increase your leads and profits, right? Well then, here below, just for you, are some of the best practices for optimizing your website to rank higher on Google.
1. Make sure your website is fast, secure and mobile-friendly
It’s important to get off on the right foot when it comes to SEO for financial services. So the first step for any business to maximize SEO success is to make sure you have a website that is fast, responsive, secure and can be viewed seamlessly across computers and mobile devices. Without this, potential customers will move on quickly to a website that provides this more ideal experience for them. Time is money, so people don’t want to waste time when they are trying to make good decisions about their money.
A quick search on Google for, ‘why is it important to have a website that is fast, secure and mobile-friendly’, resulted in several persuasive quotes:
“Two seconds is the threshold for ecommerce website acceptability. At Google, we aim for under a half-second.”
“53% of mobile site visits are abandoned if pages take longer than 3 seconds to load.”
“As much as 56% of all internet traffic is from automated hacking tools, like bots and scanners.”
“Recent studies have shown that more than half of digital traffic online now comes from mobile devices and through mobile apps.”
First and foremost if you want the best SEO for financial planning to work for your Financial Advising business you need to follow step number one above.
2. Fill your website with relevant “YMYL” content
YMYL stands for “Your Money Your Life” and is a criteria used by Google and other search engines to identify quality content on the websites and blogs they monitor. Essentially, they are looking for relevant content that has the potential to impact the happiness, health and wealth of potential clients, thus improving their quality of life. Financial content that offers users information about debt management, investments, insurance, pensions, taxes, real estate buying, estate planning, legacy planning and savings, are some of the many topics that would qualify as YMYL content.
3. Identify your most advantageous financial advisor keywords
No strategy around SEO for Financial Advisors would be effective without the thoughtfulidentification and use of keywords in your website titles, headlines, content and blog articles. A simple Google diagnosis of optimal SEO keywords for financial advisors will help you identify what keywords and key phrases you will want to include in your website headings, titles and content.
If you are unsure of how this works there are loads of financial services SEO agencies that can help you with any and all of the vital steps listed and explained here. zö agency is committed to providing you with the best SEO services for financial advisors and making your experience the best it can be while getting great results for your business!
4. Publish a Blog and create excellent content for your users
A haphazard approach to website development and SEO will not cut it in today’s competitive online marketplace. Excellent content will go a long way to setting your website apart from the competition. This will take time, thought, expertise and excellent writing skills but it will also make your website relevant, helpful and trustworthy for your current and future clients.
Generations from the Baby Boomers to the Millennials and younger are searching for excellent content information on all kinds of topics through search engines. Blogs help deliver great content while at the same time substantially raising your ranking on search engines.
Google defines quality content, outlined by their Search Quality Guidelines, as follows:
BASIC PRINCIPLES
- Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines
- Don’t deceive your users
- Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a Google employee. Another useful test is to ask, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?”
- Think about what makes your website unique, valuable, or engaging. Make your website stand out from others in your field
5. Regularly update your site with SEO-optimized videos and photos
There are a lot of SEO strategies for financial advisors and here is another one. Probably the fastest growing medium for brand messaging and quality content online is the use of SEO optimized videos and photos. More and more people are watching videos to gain understanding and knowledge about topics of interest and importance to them. Images have always been highly effective communication tools. These specific SEO tools for financial advisors are enhancing your user’s experience of your website!
However, in order to maximize the user experience and benefits from these videos and images, they must be optimized on your website so that they can be fully viewed and/or understood. Make sure on your website that you are optimizing all of these:
- Image alt tag
- Image file name
- Image title
- Image description
6. Maximize your Google My Business profile
All SEO for Financial Planners needs to reach out to local businesses and clients. This is where Google My Business comes into play. We have all seen when we search for local businesses on Google how they display local map listings. You want to maximize your exposure in these local map listings in order to draw clients for your financial services. The way to do this is to maximize your Google My Business listing.
Google uses the data on your Google My Business page to display your firm’s:
- Phone number
- Address
- Business hours
- Average reviews
- Specials, coupons, and updates (Google Posts)
Here are a few ways to optimize your Google My Business page:
- Identify your correct business categories on GMB.
- Carefully craft a 200-300 word (keyword rich) description for your business.
- Include your correct Name, Address and Phone number.
- Insert a link to your website
- Connect your social media and online review profiles
- Add lots of photos.
For further information contact a local and reputable financial services SEO agency.
7. Unify your local directory listings with your business information
Another tactic that Google uses is that they collect business information from all of your local directories. This will almost always include some that you didn’t even know existed. A final recommendation therefore is to unify all of your local directories with your correct business information. This will optimize your results on Google as it specifically pertains to SEO for financial planners .
Find, create, claim and correct all your local directories including but not limited to:
- yellowpages.com
- yelp.com
- wallethub.com
- wealthmanagement.com
- insidermedia.com
- financialservicedirectory.com
- wiseradvisor.com
- cpadirectory.com
- linkedin.com
8. Make use of optimized title and descriptions
When you’re a busy financial advisor SEO can be too much to take on. It’s a complex and ever-changing field, which is why many financial advisors choose to outsource their SEO needs to professionals. One of the most important aspects of SEO is creating optimized titles and descriptions. This involves using SEO keywords for financial advisors and phrases that potential clients are likely to search for. By including these key words in your title and description, you can help ensure that your website appears near the top of search results, making it more likely to be seen by those who need your services. In today’s competitive market, making use of optimized title and descriptions can be the difference between success and failure.
SEO Services for Financial Advisors
Financial advisors provide a valuable service to their clients, helping them to navigate the complex world of investing and personal finance. However, in order to attract and retain clients, financial advisors need to be visible online. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a proven way to increase visibility and traffic to a website. By optimizing web content for relevant keywords, financial advisors can ensure that their site appears at the top of search engine results pages. In addition, SEO can help to build trust and credibility with potential clients. By providing informative and accurate content, financial advisors can demonstrate their expertise and build relationships of trust with their clients. As a result, SEO services can be an essential part of any financial advisor’s marketing strategy.
Even More Help is Available
Now you can see why SEO Strategies for financial advisors are so important. This is a lot of information and will demand great attention to detail as well as an abundance of time and investment to create. If you are wondering if you’ve got this on your own let me ease your mind by saying Help is Available! You can find an SEO agency for Financial Services who will help with any or all of these recommendations. This often means getting you started with a customized and current SEO audit for financial advisors.
zö agency is wonderfully experienced in SEO optimization for our tribe of clients. Consider allowing us to do what we do best so that you can focus on doing what you do best for your clients as well.
