As a financial advisor, you might be too focused on providing accurate, value adding advice to your clients at the expense of marketing your business online. Search Engine Optimization is simply aimed at making it easier for the right internet users to findyour website quickly.
By having your website on the first page, and preferably as the first listing, on search engine result pages (SERPs) you get to attract organic traffic and gain additional exposure among the target audience.
Read on below to learn more about why SEO is more important than you might think.
Table of Contents
What Is SEO?
To understand the importance of financial advisors SEO, it’s important for you to first understand what it is all about. Search Engine Optimization refers to the deliberate efforts made to improve a website’s ranking on search engine result pages. The main aim is to get the website in question to the top of SERPs, or as close as possible. The listings on the first page of SERPs, mainly the ones at the top of the first page, get the lion’s share of the organic traffic generated through internet searches.
Top ranking websites are considered to be authoritative brands in their niche. This usually sets them apart from the competition; something that often proves to be an asset from a marketing and branding point of view, for all types of businesses.
As a financial advisor, it is important to note that internet users who make internet searches using specific keywords are considered to have a certain level of intent. This means that they are highly likely to convert into sales or followers, provided that they like what they find.
You might want to attract such internet users to your website so that they can learn more about your company, services and reputation in the industry. The higher your position in SERPs, the higher the percentage of organic user traffic directed to your website; and as we know, getting users to your website is the first step to achieving your website’s goals.
Now that you know what SEO is all about, read on below to find out why it’s more important that you might have initially thought.
Creation Of High Quality Content
In SEO, the phrase “content is king” is commonly used. To demonstrate the relevance of your website to search engines, you need to publish relevant, value adding content. This content needs to be fresh, relevant to the search terms used and valuable to internet users.
When internet users make an online search and get directed to your website, they expect to find quality, relevant and useful information. If they find such information, they are either going to share the information via email, social media platforms or any other possible means, this will lead more interested internet users to the website; they are also highly likely to come back for more in future. This grows your brands authority in the eyes of the search engines, as it is also moved to view the information as relevant and useful, in addition to facilitating increased brand exposure and fostering brand loyalty.
As a result, your online following will get a boost. This increases the likelihood of attracting more clients with time.
Builds Credibility
Financial advisors can enhance their credibility and reputation through SEO. Search Engine Optimization efforts aim to propel your website to the top of SERPs by demonstrating, albeit to search engines at first, that your website is the most authoritative and reputable listing in the entire pool of available listings. This is through the use of relevant keywords, quality content and an easy to use website.
Internet users take a brand’s online credibility quite seriously; fortunately, so does SEO. Users are likely to trust a brand that is visible online, at the top of SERPs – publishes quality and accurate content and maintains active social media profiles.
SEO Tips For Success
Now that you have a good understanding of why SEO is so important to financial advisors, we can look at a few useful tips to help get you started on the right foot.
Define Your Objectives
The first thing you should do before you even think about implementing an SEO strategy is to define your objectives. Sit down and come up with a list of objectives you want to achieve through your website. You should also take the time to come up with a clear description of your target audience.
With the above information clearly laid out, it will be easier for you and/or the individuals charged with the responsibility of coming up with, and implementing an SEO strategy to chart a successful way forward.
The next task will be to come up with an effective SEO strategy that will help you reach the target audience, and offer them the information they are after.
Identify Relevant Keywords
Internet users rely on the use of specific keywords to search the expansive World Wide Web for the specific information they are after. Once the specific search terms are entered into a search engine’s search bar, the search engine uses keywords to find the most relevant results to display. As such, for your website to rank as higher in SERPs, you need to identify the most relevant keyword and keyword phrases, and use them naturally in the content published on the website.
There are many tools and strategies you can use to identify the main keywords interested internet users are using to search for your services or the information published on your website. This will make it easier for search engines, and most importantly internet users, to find your website.
Don’t Forget Social Media
Over the last few years social media’s influencing role on SEO has grown exponentially. For starters, search engines now consider social signals to be an indication of the relevance of a given piece of content. Content that is widely shared on social media websites is usually considered to be more relevant by search engines; as such, it is important that you create quality and shareable content.
Furthermore, it is important that you use social media to spread the word and direct people to your new and improved website. This can be done through sharing the link to your website on all your social media posts and profiles.
Financial advisors might not think that SEO is important to the success of their business at first; however, after reading the above information, it is clear that SEO should be a major part of your overall marketing plan.