Financial advisors may already know SEO is Search Engine Optimization. It is the digital marketing process that produces organic visibility for their websites on the Internet.
And, the greater their websites’ visibility, the higher the probability investors will find the financial advisors on the Internet.
Online visibility (SEO) produces the traffic your website needs to generate qualified leads for your firm. No visibility means no traffic. But, this is just the tip of the proverbial SEO iceberg.
This also means what investors find on the Internet (blog article, pillar page, video) should be good enough that they are compelled to visit the websites of financial advisors.
In general, the larger the number of investors who visit financial advisor websites, the more leads that will be produced by those websites.
One of the most frequently-used SEO strategies for building online visibility is producing high-quality blog articles that meet all of Google’s requirements for visibility: Original content, 1,000+ words of content, pillar pages, and readability (the number of investors who open and read the content).
In fact, a HubSpot report shows that blog posts with over 2,500 words win the most organic traffic.
HOW DOES SEO WORK?
Search engine bots index financial advisor content in their systems so it is easy for investors to find. Think of an index as a ginormous public library: Investors use index cards to find the information they are seeking.
But it doesn’t stop there. Google algorithms will analyze millions of pages of content using hundreds of factors to determine the ranks or visibility of pages that are produced by financial advisors.
Next, algorithms analyze pages in the index, taking into account hundreds of ranking factors or signals. This is to determine the order pages should appear in the search results for a given query.
In effect, Google has read every article it has indexed. So, it knows which articles have the information that investors are seeking on the Internet.
The more Google users open and read a financial advisor’s content, the higher the visibility (rank) of that content. Research by Datareportal indicates that 58.4% of consumers buy a product or service weekly.
Is there another way to use the Internet to produce leads for financial advisors? Yes, it is Search Engine Marketing (SEM).
Instead of building visibility on the Internet, financial advisors buy it with paid advertising campaigns.
WHAT ARE THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT METRICS FOR SEO?
Financial advisor visibility on the Internet can be measured by the number of keywords they rank for and the page ranks (page 1,2,3) for those keywords.
In an ideal world, digital marketing for financial advisors will rank for hundreds or thousands of keywords and the preferred rank will be on page one, two, or three.
Page one is important because depending on who financial advisors talk to, 75% to 90% of Google users do not scroll to page two. They find what they are looking for, most of the time, on page one.
The other critical metric is the number of visitors that are produced for financial advisor websites. SEO visibility is critical, but website traffic is the key to the production of leads.
HOW DOES SEO HELP INVESTORS FIND FINANCIAL ADVISORS?
There are two perspectives. On the one hand, SEO creates the visibility that investors rely on to “find financial advisors”.
On the other hand, SEO can also help investors “find the information about financial advisors” that they are seeking.
The second application is the more important one. That’s because investors have a number of ways to find financial advisors. However, they only have one confidential way to screen them before determining who they want to contact.
It makes sense that investors want to be sure they contact the best financial advisors for interviews. Consequently, this is the primary first step in many firms’ sales funnels.
All investors have to enter in Google is “find financial advisors in Dallas.” They will find an overwhelming number of choices.
SEO makes advisors stand out, so they become one of the firms that are selected by investors for initial interviews. The whole process took a few seconds or minutes.
Now the real work starts. Investors have to read various articles and visit several websites to find the financial advisors they like the best. Then they initiate contact through those advisors’ websites to schedule interviews.
If this sounds like a subjective process, that’s because it is. On the Internet, first impressions can be the key to financial success.
HOW DOES SEO HELP INVESTORS RESEARCH FINANCIAL ADVISORS?
The Internet is a game-changer for investors and financial advisors. It gives investors access to vast amounts of information about the advisors. It also gives investors control over who they contact for interviews.
None of this was available to investors even a few short years ago. Consequently, the biggest financial advisory firms usually had the largest direct marketing organizations that were based on cold calling (outbound marketing), direct mail, and networking.
SEO is based on inbound marketing when investors initiate contact with financial advisors.
Investors access information by visiting websites and Google-searching names. What they see helps them screen advisors before they contact them.
HOW DOES SEO CREATE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE FOR FINANCIAL ADVISORS?
What investors see on the Internet impacts who they contact to schedule interviews. They must like what they see to give up their anonymity and initiate contact with financial advisors.
Let’s call this a predisposition that they are contacting the advisors who meet their requirements. This is based on the information published on their websites - in particular What We Do (descriptions of services) and Who We Serve (descriptions of typical clients).
Alternatively, let’s assume they also Google-search the financial advisors’ names. They see a lot of content for some advisors and no content for other advisors.
Who writes content? Experts write content. This is the other way SEO builds credibility and creates a competitive advantage. It can establish certain financial advisors as experts in their fields.
HOW DOES SEO IMPROVE THE CLOSE RATIOS OF FINANCIAL ADVISORS?
As noted, investors can use the Internet to find, research, and contact the financial advisors they like the best. This SEO-driven process impacts the success of financial advisors because it gets them in the game.
In fact, for advisors who use sales funnels, this is the initiation of their processes. Investors have to find them to contact them.
SEO can also be used to build credibility and trust. These have a major impact on the success of financial advisors who are wise enough to build a substantial presence on the Internet.
Imagine the competitive advantage when what investors see on the Internet impacts who they interview and eventually, who they select for their financial advisors.
Conclusions
Sure, financial advisors can buy visibility with SEM. However, that does not make them credible, trustworthy financial experts. It just means they can afford to buy the advertising space.
More astute investors have figured this out. Brand names may dominate advertising, but that doesn’t make them the best financial advisors.
Even if investors find financial advisors in an ad, their reaction may be to visit those websites and Google-search their names before clicking on the ad—and filling out the all-important landing page that captures their contact information.
So, SEO is important, even when investors are responding to the SEM ads of financial advisors.
