Why You Need SEO for Financial Services [Your Guide]

Every industry faces unique marketing challenges. When it comes to SEO for financial services, for instance, you have to be cautious, follow regulated practices, and use precise information to build trust.?

Not only is the financial services industry highly competitive—you have to be conscious of legal standards in addition to selecting strategic keywords.

Big Leap understands the challenges companies face. That’s why companies trust us to help them achieve success with SEO for their financial services. And so should you.

What Are the Greatest Challenges Regarding SEO for Financial Services?

Great SEO is all about steering the right traffic in your direction. You want to connect with people looking for your exact expertise, and that connection starts with great site performance. Tuning up your site will help you meet the following challenges in developing a successful SEO marketing campaign.

Get Seen

The financial sector is very competitive, which means it takes careful keyword analysis to discover the best opportunities for the best terms to improve your search engine presence. The more specialized your niche, the more critical it is to properly research and align the most effective keywords to your content.

Earn Trust

Earning trust builds authority and leads to higher search engine rankings. This is even more important when it comes to the financial sector. You must build trust with your visitors and search engine algorithms.

For instance, Google has rolled out a standard they call Your Money or Your Life (YMYL). Simply put, industries that deal with important topics like money and health are held to a high standard to provide accurate information as a credible source.

Build Authority

SEO can help you in the short term by improving your site’s indexing and loading speed and aligning content to search terms. But, rising in ranking positions happens steadily over time. Building authority doesn’t happen overnight—and that’s by design.

Google’s “E-E-A-T” standard emphasizes the engine’s preference for sites that represent Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.

Ensure All Content Is in Compliance

Financial services must comply with multiple regulations, from website content to what is okay to state in display ads. For instance, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) instructs organizations on the right way to apply existing consumer laws and regulations to online equivalents, including how services are defined and communicated.

Financial services have to follow Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) compliance and any rules that deal with each specialized niche.

Follow Strict Advertising Regulations

While you’re being careful with your website’s wording and all of your aligned content, you have to be just as cautious and responsible with your ads in your PPC campaigns.?

There are FTC regulations, multiple Acts you have to comply with, and Google’s layer of protections as well. Google strictly enforces their protections to make sure they don’t approve ads that fail to follow their standards.

What Does SEO for Financial Services Involve?

SEO marketing looks different for every company and every niche within the industry. The following are a few examples of how the messaging differs from one service to the next.

• SEO for banks will likely center around accounts and features, peace of mind, and opportunities to earn and save money.?
• SEO for accountants may cross over into the Software as a Service (SaaS) niche, where helping people understand how a software platform can make complicated accounting easier and faster is the central message. This can also be content for a trustworthy accounting firm.
• SEO for financial advisors is about personalization. People want to feel comforted by a familiar face and be ensured that they are instructed to make sound, long-term decisions with their savings and investments.
• SEO for cryptocurrency is an emerging niche that crosses multiple sectors. It deals with regulatory compliance around emerging technologies like blockchain but often is about new company startups that have to follow rigorous regulatory guidelines to be absolutely transparent about everything from fundraising to people’s expectations for profit.
• SEO for fintech is becoming increasingly focused on cutting-edge breakthroughs in decentralized technologies. An example is decentralized finance, called DeFi, where many standards align with banks and investment entities, but trust in institutions and people is being traded for trusting technology platforms.

Local SEO for Financial Services

Organizations with a physical location and aren’t only online can use search engine local listings. Every individual physical location needs unique listings, including current details about the address, phone, and operating hours.

Link Building

SEO involves building authority through familiarity. That starts with highly-targeted keywords matched with excellent content. But, much of how search engines define a site’s authority is based on how much others find your content valuable. Sharing on social media, positive reviews, local listings, and mentions on relevant websites all help give search engines context to how widely accepted and appreciated your content has become.

In addition to the organic shares you receive, SEO for financial services involves actively seeking opportunities to receive backlinks from other credible websites. Guest blogs, reaching out to other professionals, and maintaining a social media presence all help to boost your visibility and authority.

Reputation Management

Money can be a sensitive subject. Even though there are numerous specialties in finance, they all come with the potential that someone will leave a negative review. Additionally, with highly competitive fields, there is always the potential that competitors don’t play fair. In any case, SEO includes playing offense and defense to protect your brand and your services. Managing online reviews means professionally responding to negative reviews and seeking a path to turn them into positive ones.

PPC

SEO isn’t just about organic traffic anymore. Pay-per-click (PPC) ad campaigns are a vital element of your SEO strategy, helping you...click here to read the full article.