While SEO (Search Engine Optimization) may have seemed like a marketing buzzword in its early days, it has lasted well beyond its initial 15 minutes of fame. SEO has become a vital part of a successful digital strategy for building online visibility and website traffic. In fact, SEO separates the financial advisors who have websites (all of them) and the advisors who have made the Internet an integral part of their marketing strategy.
It’s no longer enough to simply have a financial advisor website and expect people to find it. Websites do not generate their own traffic. Internet visibility generates website traffic. And, with so much competition out there, financial advisors need to make it easier than ever to be visible to those using search engines to find financial advisors and financial information.
Read our 5 SEO strategies that can be implemented by financial advisors right away:
Strategy #1: Perform an SEO Audit of Your Financial Advisor Website
It’s impossible to know where you’re headed if you don’t know where your digital marketing is now. In terms of SEO. that means performing an audit of the current SEO of your financial advisor website. While this process can seem techy, it is an essential first step before making any changes or enhancements.
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There are several online tools available that can help you get a jumpstart on this process. A basic SEO audit typically includes crawling indexed pages for errors, checking page/site load times (slower = reduced visibility), checking internal and external links, conducting a keyword overview, and key competitor analysis. Once you have the audit completed, you can see where you can make improvements to optimize your financial advisor website.
Strategy #2: Think Mobile-First
For quite some time in the early days of smartphones and tablets, the SEO term “mobile responsive” was huge. At that time, mobile technology was relatively new and just starting to become accessible to your average investor. As more and more people started using smart devices to access the internet, it became apparent that the overall online experience was not designed with a mobile experience in mind.
Today, 62% of all searches are conducted from mobile devices. This means financial advisor websites must be mobile friendly and voice friendly.
From a technical aspect, you already screens are much smaller on tablets and phones. It then became necessary to optimize websites to be able to work in both a desktop and mobile environment by “responding” and adjusting to the size of screens that are being used. And for a while, that was a best practice for SEO. But mobile responsiveness isn’t enough anymore.
Based on the popularity of mobile devices, the tables have turned, and mobile is now a standard practice. With this came the birth of the mobile-first SEO strategy. This prioritizes an optimized mobile environment over a desktop environment and further changes SEO elements along the way.
Strategy #3 Optimize Keywords and Phrases
SEO and keywords go hand in hand. But just like other SEO practices, the way keywords are used in SEO has evolved. Even though the basics of financial advising haven’t changed over the years, the way people are using search engines to find this information has. And if your financial advisor website isn’t adapting, it will become much more difficult to build and maintain a strong online presence.
As mentioned above, mobile devices have changed the SEO game in more ways than one. Not only have the size of these devices changed things, but the way they’re used in comparison to traditional desktop devices has as well. A large part of this is due to voice search i.e. people speaking their search queries into a search engine rather than typing it.
As an example, let’s say a traditional search conducted on a desktop computer is “financial advisor San Diego.” That same search for a mobile user speaking into their phone could be more conversational: “I want a good financial advisor in San Diego who works with doctors.” The intent is the same, but the voice generated keywords are more specific. This is where Google’s Semantic Search has come into play. Noticing this shift in how people are searching, Google took things a step further by updating its algorithms to be more interpretive rather than simply matching a search term on a word for word basis.
The goal is to determine the intent of a search query, rather than only what was said or typed. And while it’s Google’s job to anticipate search intent, it’s the job of the financial advisor to optimize their website’s SEO based on what investors are looking for.
Strategy #4: Get (a Little) Technical
In addition to performing a basic SEO audit of your financial advisor website, you could take it a step further by digging a bit deeper into the technical side of things. More specifically, into title tags and meta descriptions. This is how your financial advisor website content is “telling” Google what that content is about.
All too often, title tags and meta descriptions are left blank or have incorrect or outdated information. By optimizing these elements, your financial advisor website SEO can benefit greatly. This is because Google’s algorithms have even better reasons to rank your financial advisor content higher when they have more details on what that content represents.
Strategy #5: Refresh and Optimize Existing Content
Even if it was “optimized” when it was created, that doesn’t mean it stayed that way. With things changing rapidly in the world of digital content and SEO, it’s never a safe bet to assume the status quo will hold up to what’s coming or what is already here. By reviewing your existing financial advisor content with today’s SEO best practices in mind, you can make small tweaks and updates that could help boost overall SEO.
These changes may entail adding keywords, updating meta descriptions and title tags, and refreshing content that may now be out of date or inaccurate.
As a bonus, reviewing your current financial advisor website content can help you gain a better understanding of what types of content can complement and/or build on what you already have, generating even more SEO impact.
Bonus Strategy: Find a Digital Marketing Partner
No matter how experienced (or inexperienced) you are with your financial advisor website’s SEO, you may need some help when it comes to implementing these strategies. By enlisting the help of a digital marketing partner with SEO knowledge and experience, you can focus your efforts on growing and maintaining your financial advisory firm. Additionally, bringing on a specialized agency can help accelerate the results of your SEO efforts, generating more online visibility and website traffic.
