As it turns out, some people don’t really like talking about money. They think it’s a boring topic, right up there with the weather, insurance, and personal sleep schedules.
If you’re a financial advisor and you suspect that this might be one of the reasons you’re not getting enough traffic on your website, don’t feel too bad. There’s an SEO strategy even for businesses with seemingly hard-to-reach audiences.
Take a look at the 7 tips financial advisor websites can use to improve their SEO and grow an engaged audience.
1. Review Your Website
HuffPost has an article listing the reasons why millennials don’t trust financial planners. Confusing jargon is one.
Since the term ‘financial advisor’ could mean different things – a broker, insurance agent, banker, investment manager, etc., millennials don’t seek out financial planning services even if they might benefit from it. This is something advisor websites should think about when doing a review of their current content.
Aside from content review, consider a website redesign. If your site’s looking outdated or is hard to navigate, it’s a candidate for an overhaul. Don’t forget to make it mobile responsive and make sure all features are working properly.
2. Don’t Rush
It might be tempting to accept an offer from an SEO company that promises to get your website to the top in no time. Don’t believe them. There’s no such thing as quick results in SEO.
Even if you have a great looking website and excellent content, SEO is not an automatic process. It will take some time to see results. If you’re not planning to take care of your site’s SEO in-house, make sure to work only with pros who won’t get your site penalized by search engines like Google.
Another advantage of working with pros is you don’t have to concern yourself with technical stuff such as domain authority, backlinks, and index pages. Of course, these are SEO basics that are good to learn on your own. But if you don’t have a lot of time, hiring an SEO expert is a good option.
3. Be Active in Social Media
Should advisor websites also work on their social media pages? Definitely. Building a strong online presence doesn’t just involve your website. If you want to increase your search rankings, you have to do a combo of social media marketing and SEO.
But maybe you’ve seen somewhere that Google doesn’t consider social as a ranking factor. It’s true. But you should still do social because when you share a high-quality article from your website and it gets shared a lot on social media, it increases your chance of getting links from other websites.
Social media is also a great way to build your audience. Many of your target clients may not find you when they search on Google or Bing. But they might land on one of your social media accounts so don’t leave these empty.
4. Plan Your Keywords
Can you discuss SEO for financial advisor websites without mentioning keywords? Sure. But don’t use this approach for your website.
You want to really mind your keywords because you don’t want to keep churning out blog posts that no one reads. Good keyword planning ensures that you’re keeping your target audience engaged by producing content they are searching for.
Researching your competitors’ keywords is also a big part of keyword planning. Take a look at Small Cap Power. See how they used the keyword ‘Canadian dividend stocks’ in one of their posts.
Check also how the keyword appears in the URL and their tags. If you’re offering the same service, you might want to do a deeper analysis and check their backlink profile and topical authority as well.
5. Optimize for Local
Some financial advisor websites operate globally, while others may focus on local audiences. If your site falls into the latter category, you have to know how to implement local SEO strategies.
This includes researching local keywords, linking and backlinking to other local businesses, and getting listed in local directories, just to mention a few. It might also mean tweaking your content strategy. Instead of writing financial advice for a general audience, a local approach will look something like this “5 Tips to Invest in New York Real Estate.”
Of course, when writing posts, don’t forget the basics. Don’t write just for the sake of having content up on your website. Always offer value and work on becoming an authority in your field.
6. Work with Influencers
Don’t just show off your financial whiz on your blog and social media accounts. If there are opportunities to guest post, grab them.
You’ll also want to work with influential bloggers in your niche. Make sure to offer something in return if they do accept your request for a sponsored post. If they don’t, you can try a different approach.
Going back to our earlier example, you can try appealing to millennials by tapping an influencer they follow. For example, you can ask a popular fashion blogger to write a post on the benefits of financial planning. Yes, it may sound weird but if the fashion blogger’s savvy enough, he or she will know how to angle it in such a way that it engages his/her readers.
7. Keep Learning
SEO is always changing. There will always be something new to learn. If you’re doing SEO by yourself, it’s even more important to not use outdated SEO techniques.
As a financial advisor, you’ll also want to avoid offering stale advice. Talking about finances may be boring for some people, so you should take that as a challenge to present information in an easily digestible format. Take away the mystery and make your content accessible to everyone.
Bonus Tip for Financial Advisor Websites
Digital marketing is not just a buzzword. You can learn how to market and promote your advisor site better by checking out our marketing and promotion posts.
Don’t hesitate to browse our other business articles as well. Here, you’ll find different resources including tons of articles on branding and SEO.