Winning the top spot on Google is tough on a financial adviser’s marketing. Type “financial adviser bristol” into your search bar, for instance, and you’ll get 2,280,000 results!
How do you beat numbers like that?
The good news is that you can with the right strategy, commitment and resources. It’s also well worth the investment, with organic traffic being amongst the most qualified and highest converting.
The best way to achieve results is to work with an experienced financial marketing agency who knows about SEO in your industry (search engine optimisation).
Yet there is a lot you can do yourself to get your website laid on a solid digital marketing foundation.
#1 Gather Reviews
One factor which helps drive your website up search engine results is strong click through rates (CTR).
In other words, the more people click on your website when they see it in Google search, the higher you will tend to rank.
One crucial way to increase your CTR is to build up a strong set of positive, 4-5 star Google reviews.
According to one study, 83% of consumers are more likely to trust a peer review than an advert. By encouraging clients to leave reviews, therefore, you build your brand authority, credibility and trust in the Google – all positive drivers behind your search rankings.
#2 List Yourself Appropriately
Another important driver of SEO for financial advisers is having your website appear in relevant, trustworthy local directories.
Find publications, newspapers and recognised directories which could appropriately list your business as a profile, where users can find out more about your business.
Ideally, the profile should contain a link back to your own financial website as well, to help build your back-link profile and domain authority.
#3 Up Your Website Speed
People expect websites to load quickly these days – especially when they are on their mobiles.
If your financial website loads slowly, don’t be surprised if your Google Analytics shows your users punishing you with high bounce rates, low session duration and poor conversion rates.
Fortunately, the reverse is also true. The faster your website is, the more time people are likely to spend on your website, and the higher your conversion rate is likely to be.
There are some simple ways to increase the speed on your financial website. One great way is to compress any large image files you have sitting on your pages.
Use Google PageSpeed Insights to find out what else you can specifically do for your website, by entering your domain name into the search bar.
#4 Check Your Mobile Responsiveness
It’s probably now fair to say that if your financial website does not adapt well to mobile and tablet devices, it will never do well in the search engines until it is re-designed.
There are a few useful free tools you can use to check how mobile responsive your financial website is:
https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly
https://testmysite.withgoogle.com/intl/en-gb
https://www.bing.com/webmaster/tools/mobile-friendliness
It might well be that there are some minor amends you can make yourself, if you are confident to do so.
If you require bigger changes, then you likely need to think about a re-design for your financial website to make it more future-proof in the search engines.
Should this be the case, you could help your future website design partner by listing some of the areas these tools have highlighted, where your mobile responsiveness can be improved.
#5 Add Original, Compelling Content
It isn’t an exaggeration to say that most SEO is built around great content.
If your financial website contains unique content which is perceived as valuable, interesting and relevant to your target audience, then Google is far more likely to push you higher up in its search engine.
A great place to start is to look at questions people are asking Google using the search bar.
For instance, typing “”when can i take my pension” into Google brings up suggestions of other questions people have asked Google:
Writing articles as answers to these kinds of questions is a fantastic way to address your clients’ pain points, and build your brand as a trusted authority on these kinds of questions.
#6 Reduce Jargon On Your Financial Website
This one might seem counter-intuitive.
After all, if you want people to think you are an expert on financial planning, shouldn’t use use industry-specific terminology in your website copy to reassure your readers that you know what you’re on about?
In short, no.
Some people visiting your website will be well versed in the jargon surrounding pensions, investments and other aspects of financial planning. Most, however, will not be.
More often than not, these people feel overwhelmed, intimidated and sometimes frightened by the complexities surrounding these subjects.
Usually, they want someone to bring clarity and reassurance to their troubled minds. If you therefore speak to them in language they do not understand, they are likely to leave your website quickly.
And remember, if people click on your website in Google and then leave quickly, that is going to be a negative search engine ranking signal for financial website.
You need to strike a delicate balance, of course, in your website copy. The fact is, some people will be searching for industry specific terms in Google, and you need to target these in your copy:
“inheritance tax advice”
“nil rate band advice”
“final salary transfer advice”
And so on.
As such, we’re not saying you should dumb things down completely. However, in our experience most financial advisers are speaking far too technically to their prospective clients during their first digital encounter with the brand.
Speak to the client in language they understand, without being patronising.
