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SEO Strategies for Financial Websites
Here are a few SEO tips specific to financial websites.
First, understand that people are very sensitive and possessive about their money. Your website has to ooze credibility if you want to convert traffic to customers. You probably know this already, but keep it in mind when you hire an SEO consultant. He or she needs to make sure that SEO changes do not reduce the credibility of the website.
Are you selling services locally or nationally/globally? If you are selling locally, there is no point fighting for national rankings. People will search for “bookkeeping southern California” if they need somebody local, and you have a fighting chance to rank for that search term. But the investment required to compete with all the other sites and outrank them for “bookkeeping” just isn’t worth it.
Design your website around the services you offer. Don’t place a link in the main navigation menu that says just “services”. Have a page for accounting, a page for bookkeeping, a page for tax filing, a page for each individual service you offer. Why? Two reasons:
- A page centered around bookkeeping has a better chance ranking well for “bookkeeping southern California” than a page centered around services. The focus on one topic makes it clearer to the search engines what the page is about.
- People searching for a specific service, such as bookkeeping, should land on a page specifically about what they search for. You will convert more visitors that way. And nobody searches for financial services; they search for the specific service they need, whether it be insurance, or accounting, or investment advice, etc.
Make sure you are participating on Tipd.com and PFbuzz.com. These are great places to get ideas for link-bait viral content. It’s a great place to submit your own content (search-engine-friendly links) and get the attention of financial bloggers who might be interested in linking to your content.
Most SEO strategies and tactics can be applied across almost any sector, so don’t forget to do all the good things you would for any other website. What I mention in this post are a few items that are specific to financial websites.
Written by David Leonhardt
Grab The Bookmarketer For Your Site
May 7th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Thanks for the content. I am looking at the two sites you mention.
May 8th, 2009 at 9:36 am
It is always important to split up the site as much as possible so that certain pages can focus on certain services. The user experience is much better as well.
May 8th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
Thanks for the post. I'm trying to apply the best seo strategies for my site but I had totally forgotten about PFbuzz for my posts!
May 9th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
I like the part about targeting local areas; but I believe in targeting both certain geographical areas and globally as well so as not to leave money on the table by limiting seo efforts to local areas.
Thanks also for the two sites you mention as I had no idea that they even existed.
May 11th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
There is an advantage of fighting nationally/globally – it is so called brand recognition, that points on that your company is well known all over whole country/world, etc. But it takes more money in times..
Cheers, Wisp.
May 12th, 2009 at 5:31 am
Is SEO for financial websites the toughest? Which one is more difficult – SEO for financial websites or gambling websites?
May 13th, 2009 at 8:07 am
Awesome Man. I've worked for more than 1 year in finance industry and thought of this concept, however didn't find none. However, it's never late.
May 13th, 2009 at 9:39 am
Would you also recommend adding address in footer of pages so that pages rank in local listings? Your point about individual pages for each service is taken. Haven't tried tipd or pfbuzz but will surely look them up.
I am not sure my comments are being posted, trying with IE.
May 13th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Why would a local business that takes only walk-in traffic want to target globally?
May 13th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Absolutely. For any local business, it helps for SEO…plus it saves users having to search for the contact-us page.
May 13th, 2009 at 11:00 am
Yes… Another reminder of the importance of specifics… Thanks
May 14th, 2009 at 4:16 am
Thanks for the useful information. I just visited those sites. Great!
May 20th, 2009 at 7:31 am
I was telling someone yesterday at a networking event, who admitted that he hadn't done anything with his website since he put it up, that if he decided to gear his SEO efforts (of which he has none) towards the local market that he'd have a good chance of reaching the first page, as long as he promoted both his services and his location, which he hasn't done either. Could end up being a client; that wouldn't depress me any.
May 22nd, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Reputation, credibility, and authority is at the heart of any SEO for any type of website, not just financial sites. However consumers need to see all the type of security measures on those type of sites especially if they are handing over personal financial information through the site. A lot of SEO is about common sense and getting your site listed for where you are geographically should be a no brainer.
May 22nd, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Credibility is a huge issue. If you have testiomonials, awards, recognitions make sure you use them. You cannot overlook the relative power of positive comments and recognitions when it comes to what people are going to do with their money.
May 23rd, 2009 at 3:47 am
Yes… Another reminder of the importance of specifics… Thanks!
May 26th, 2009 at 3:22 am
Thanks Sphinns for the fantastic tips, I suppose sometimes people really get carried away with SEO and forget to focus on the task at hand wish is bringing the company and site relevant business with a high conversion. I suppose that is one of the reasons we should always go for long tailed keywords!
May 28th, 2009 at 7:40 am
Hello! First of all I would like to thank you for the useful information you have posted. I will take a look on Tipd and PFbuzz like you said. Regards, Naomi
June 5th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
You pointed out good insights about SEO focusing on the specifics because I believe that when people are searching for something, they usually type the best keyword to describe what they need and that means specificity is the target. Therefore, the statement above is correct and makes sense!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts for this particular matter.
June 6th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Even I don't have a financial website, your article is very useful. The main issue here is to design a website around the content – what people are looking for? After that, we can go for website marketing.
June 8th, 2009 at 3:10 am
Would you also recommend adding address in footer of pages so that pages rank in local listings? Your point about individual pages for each service is taken. Haven't tried tipd or pfbuzz but will surely look them up.
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Mic | Rock Star
June 9th, 2009 at 1:54 am
Yes… Another reminder of the importance of specifics… Thanks
June 12th, 2009 at 11:19 am
Thanks for this. I would like to have a financial website. Just to cover cost I want to have adsense on it and apply SEO to gain more traffic. Thanks for the tips. I will take it to heart.
June 18th, 2009 at 3:53 am
As in my SEO point of view we need to be more specific and direct to the point when making a theme for our website, then after that an SEO consultant will do the rest to market your site.
June 19th, 2009 at 3:58 am
When I was still new to SEO, I used to hire a so-called expert on the field. As it turns out, I was only wasting my precious money. Now I went through the process of understanding the system itself and I do the SEO of my websites on my own.
June 19th, 2009 at 10:00 am
I like the part about targeting local areas; but I believe in targeting both certain geographical areas and globally as well so as not to leave money on the table by limiting seo efforts to local areas.
July 4th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
SEO for financial websites is just a bit of a nightmare. Your links are always going to look commercial and spammy, and thus many places will not accept link exchange/blog comments etc etc. Secondly, competition is immense.
July 13th, 2009 at 8:22 am
Hi Leadership, I agree with you that competition for financial websites is immense but I think SEO for any financial website is not a nightmare. Implementation of most important and careful on-page SEO techniques like selection of page title, improving URLs structure, proper domain name, meta descriptions etc., will increase the credibility of the website.
July 21st, 2009 at 6:28 am
Hello! First of all I would like to thank you for the useful information you have posted. I will take a look on Tipd and PFbuzz like you said.
July 21st, 2009 at 7:12 am
Thanks for the useful info mate, Im just a newbie in SEO so im very much thankful to all the tips im getting from guys like you
October 13th, 2009 at 12:18 am
Tipd.com and PFbuzz.com.I personally boomark these 2 site @Staph Treatment I believe targetting local area is good but if your products and services are globally you must target globally instead of geo targetting. The advantages of geo targetting is you rank well in your area but the traffic is limited compare to global
December 14th, 2009 at 6:51 am
Your page mus be easy to understand, give keywords that will automatically best describe your product. It will be easier for you to capture a reader's attention.
December 14th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
thanks for the tips. We should understand that our customers merely needs enough for reason to trust our credibility. As SEOs, we should understand that our websites are our primary source of income.