If you have a financial advisor website (and of course everybody does), you likely know the importance of where your financial advisor website ranks on pages that are produced by search engines like Google. When a user types in a search query, what displays next is known as a SERP (Search Engine Results Page) and no matter what the search is for, there is likely to be plenty of competition for that user’s attention.
As a financial advisor, you’re no stranger to competition from local and national companies, and competing for a top position on a SERP is no different. In short, the website with the most relevant, timely, and accurate content wins.
Read on for details about why a financial advisor’s SERP position matters and more importantly, how to improve where your website ranks.
Why Does SERP Position Matter?
When it comes to digital marketing, a financial advisor’s website is likely the hub for all digital marketing efforts. Ultimately, it’s where all of the other digital channels lead. For example, a social media campaign may have videos and other highly shareable content, but where does it all lead? Back to your website.
Your financial advisor website can make or break your success when it comes to search engine marketing and where your page ranks in the results. Think about any time you personally have searched for something in Google. There are so many choices on page one, 91.5% of Google users do not scroll to page two.
Chances are (depending on the topic) you had hundreds or thousands of options to choose from, with Google ranking them using a system that is supposed to determine which websites are the most relevant based on keywords that are input by its users. If your financial advisor website is on page 10 of the search results, it’s very unlikely you’re going to generate many visitors to your website.
How Can Financial Advisor Websites Get Closer to the Top for Organic Searchers?
The key point to keep in mind is that this article is referring to organic SERP results. This is not the same as the paid search results that show up at the top of a page as a result of an online advertising campaign. The information below is referring to how a financial advisor can rank at (or near) the top of a SERP organically:
Quality Content
A website is not getting anywhere near the top of a SERP without high quality content that is read by search engine users. This includes everything from blog posts, whitepapers, infographics, eBooks, and other educational content, plus the features on the website that are used to promote functions such as images.
The content on your website should be relevant, and consistent with all other information that is published by your financial advisor firm. As an example, if your website lists your address as one location, but your GMB profile lists another, that gives Google a reason to think other information online about your financial advisor firm may be incorrect and that can damage where your website appears on SERPs.
Featured Snippets – Helping or Hurting?
This can be a tough question to answer. A featured snippet is essentially a few lines of copy that is pulled from one of the higher-ranking sites in that search result, and ultimately can answer the searcher’s question without them clicking on a link.
However, it’s been shown that if users do click on a link when a featured snippet is shown, it’s usually the website that the snippet came from. While this can hurt click-through-rates for the other high-ranking sites on that SERP, it can also be seen as an opportunity if it’s your financial advisor website that the featured snippet is pulled from. While you can’t write a featured snippet, you can optimize your website to have a better chance of being featured in that coveted position.
Think Local
As mentioned above, based on how broad or specific a search query is, your financial advisor website could be buried very deep in the search results. And for some very broad searches like “financial advisor,” intense competition is to be expected.
Instead of trying to compete on some of the most popular search terms on a national scale, think locally. Crafting a geo-specific SEO strategy means gearing your content to those potential clients who live and/or work in the communities you serve.
Ways to embrace and emphasize your local presence include having a complete GMB (Google My Business) profile and optimizing your keyword strategy for local search.
Answer Questions
With more people using mobile search, there has been a shift in how Google searches are conducted. For example, where a search for financial advisors in the past may have been “Boston financial advisors,” people on mobile devices are often using voice search and speaking their search phrase in the way they would speak to another human.
What was once simply “Boston financial advisors” might now be “How can I find a good financial advisor in Boston.” The difference (and where Google’s AI is using new tools to decipher search users’ intent) is that your SEO needs to consider what search terms look like now and adjust your SEO accordingly.
Keywords
When it comes to a keyword strategy, a good strategy for financial advisor websites is to avoid the most popular keywords, which also have the most competition. Instead, it’s recommended to focus on long-tail, more detailed keywords which may not be as popular, but attract visitors with a higher level of intent. Put simply, this strategy emphasizes quality over quantity and can benefit financial advisory firms who opt for this SEO strategy while also maintaining a broader keyword strategy for general SEO.
Become a Trusted Resource
Trusted by Google, that is. Google has many ways of ranking and validating your website content. One way is by a website’s EAT ranking.
EAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) rankings also affect where your financial advisor website will end up on a SERP, but more importantly, these rankings give Google a way of classifying your financial advisor website in terms of how you rank with your credibility and online reputation when compared to other financial advisor websites. Enhancing this ranking will only help your financial advisor website’s SERP position.
