“SEO drives 1000+% more traffic than than organic social media” (Brightedge)
Thinking about adding SEO to your marketing strategies? The 2022 Kitces Research Survey on Advisor Marketing revealed that SEO had the lowest Client Acquisition Cost (CAC) among the most widely used strategies.
Even so, competition for Google rankings in the financial services industry is fierce. Independent advisors must compete with other advisors, personal finance blogs and major media companies for a place at the top of Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs).
Competition only intensified during the pandemic as more firms moved online and upped their commitment to a content strategy. Now, with the advent of A.I. writing tools, even more barriers to entry have disappeared.
However, all is not lost. There is still room on the SERPs for the independent advisor. We help our clients rank for important industry and target related keywords every day.
As we prepare to dive into the details, remember that the goal of SEO is not just to increase website traffic but it’s about being found by the right people, at the right time, and with the right message. It’s about creating a digital presence that resonates with your target audience, showcases your expertise, and builds trust with those seeking your financial guidance.
In this article, we will discuss the foundational elements of SEO tailored specifically for the financial advisory sector – from deciphering the mysteries of keyword research and crafting content that engages and converts, to building a robust backlink strategy and optimizing for local search.
Understanding the Basics of SEO?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a set of strategies designed to build and relay signals of relevancy and authority to the search engines. When applied effectively, these strategies enhance your firm’s visibility for chosen keywords, attracting more traffic, leads, and clients.
It is a zero sum game, for one company to move up in the rankings, another must move down. As such, successful SEO in 2024 requires moving beyond the “just write good content” mantra to a practice of in-depth research, strategic planning, and proper implementation on a consistent basis.
Core Components of SEO
1. Keywords: Keywords are the foundation of SEO. They are phrases or terms that potential clients use when searching for financial advice or services online.
Identifying the right keywords – keywords related to your business, that prospective clients are searching, AND that you can rank for (this is the real challenge) – is crucial because it ensures that your website can be found on the search results pages.
2. Quality Content: Quality content is a must for engaging and retaining website visitors. It’s not enough for content to simply include keywords. It must be informative, relevant, and provide value to your audience. For financial advisors, this could mean creating blog posts that answer common financial questions, detailed guides on financial planning, or informative videos that break down complex financial concepts.
SEO for Financial Advisors
For clarity, I have broken the discussion of SEO tasks into 3 distinct sections connected to the ideas of relevancy, authority, and user experience. In reality, it’s important to realize that the benefits of any one specific SEO step often overlap and impact the other areas as well.
SEO Step 1. Relevancy (On-page SEO)
Relevancy has to do with what your business does, who it does it for, where it is located, and what areas it serves. Relevancy signals are generally elements that you have more control over – keyword selection, content creation, your location, business citations, etc.
1. Create a Page for Each Keyword
In order to rank for competitive industry and location-based keywords, you will need to create a unique page around that keyword. In this case, “page” is generic for content, it could be a web page, blog post, video, or other suitable forms of content.
For example, have a distinct page for each of your services, rather than one page listing all of your services. Then highlight that page’s keyword by using it in the page title, the URL, and throughout the content.
Note that your homepage will usually be your highest authority page, so should be reserved for your most important keyword.
2. Title Tags
The title tag is still your best opportunity to let the search engines know what your page is about. It usually defaults to the title of the page or article, but from a straight SEO perspective, sometimes can benefit from a manual overwrite. Below is a title tag being written on the Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress.
3. H-tags (Headers or Headlines)
Use H-tags (headlines) to break up and organize the content for your reader, and to highlight your subject area for the search engines – use keywords in your headers where it makes sense. Use your H-1 tag only once on each page.
Below is an example of setting an H3 Tag in WordPress.
4. Alt. Image Tag
The search engines are not great at seeing images, so where your visitors see a great graph of the most recent bull market, the search engines may only see wasted white space.
Alt. Text is your opportunity to explain to the search engines what that picture is about – all the better if that description includes your keyword.
While you’re at it, it is a good idea to also include your keyword in the title and file name of the image.
The above image shows the addition of alt. text in WordPress to a graphic representing a “bull market.”
Note: FYI, the actual alt. text for this image, as it is being used to demonstrate alt. text in an article about Advisor SEO, is “alt. text for SEO.”
5. Content Mark-up
Your content should include primary keywords (more than once, but not in a forced or unnatural way), plus popular synonyms and semantically relevant keywords.
Emphasize keywords by including them in the headers, using bold or italicized text, or by creating a bulleted list.
Try to include your keyword early in the content (first sentence if possible, but first paragraph if not).
Of course, you want to avoid “keyword stuffing.” Your content should always read naturally for your visitors.
6. Internal Linking
Strategic internal linking – linking from one of your pages/posts to another of your pages/posts – can help boost the authority of targeted pages, may encourage visitors to stay on your site longer (which is good for client acquisition and represents a good user experience – which can help your SEO), and helps the search engines crawl and understand your website more clearly.
7. External Linking
Linking out to related high authority sites may improve the search engine’s perception and understanding of your website and business and therefore help with your SEO.
8. Structured Data
Also known as Rich Snippets or Schema, Structured Data is not a ranking factor but it can improve click-through rates once your business appears on the SERPs.
Rich snippets are additional bits of information that allow the search engines to better understand, and therefore display, your content in the SERPs.
Below you see two results for a Chocolate Cookie Recipe. The first is a traditional Google SERP, 3-lines including a title and description. However, the second listing includes a picture, star rankings, time to cook, and how many calories they are – which are you more likely to click on?
Structured Data is not quite as exciting for financial advisors, but it can still include stars, event information, additional company or individual profile information, and more descriptive links to click on.
9. Keyword Tag
Most SEO programs will still provide a space for you to include a list of more keywords (in addition to the one in your Title Tag). While this won’t have any negative consequences, the Keyword Tag is no longer an SEO signal.
10. Meta Description Tag
Another option still included in SEO programs is the Meta Description (or sometimes just “Description”) tag.
While no longer an SEO ranking signal, it is still an important marketing component in that the text that you include in the Meta Description is often the text that the search engines display as the “description” in the SERP listing.
You can see in the SERP image below, that the Title Tag (underlined in red) actually becomes the first line of the SERP listing, and the meta description (outlined in blue) are lines 2 and 3.
This means that you MUST write your Title Tags and Meta Descriptions so that they are engaging for your potential visitor as they will be your first opportunity to “sell” to them (convincing them to click on your listing).
I(b). Local SEO (Google Map Pack)
Local SEO rankings are influenced by your overall on-page and off-page SEO, however, there additional are steps that are more central to “Local SEO.”
1. Location
Local Search is now “searcher-centric,” – the search engines give extra consideration to the results that are nearest the searcher’s current location.
This means that if there is a specific community that you want to rank for, you would do well to have an office space in that community.
If you are trying to serve a nearby city from the suburbs, it’s going to be very challenging (if not impossible) to show up in the map pack for that city. However, depending on your competition, it may still be realistic to show up in that area in the Organic search results.
2. Google Business Profile
Formerly known as Google My Business (GMB), the Google Business Profile is your opportunity to register your firm directly with the search engine.
The more information you provide throughout the page, the better, but pay particular attention to the category you choose (i.e. financial planner), and the description you write.
You are allowed 750 characters for your firm’s description, and generally speaking, longer is better.
Include important service and location based keywords. It is your opportunity to tell Google and the people searching for your services, more about your business.
Photos get a surprising amount of attention on Google Business Profiles – not so much from the search engines, but from the searchers – they help with click-through-rate. Include your logo, office pictures (inside and out) and members of your team.
3. Collect Client Reviews
Reviews, especially completed on your Google Business Profile, are a strong Local SEO ranking signal.
Beyond Google, you can also collect and display reviews on 3rd-party sites such as LinkedIn, Yelp, Facebook, and many others.
Decide which platforms are most important to your business and focus on collecting reviews on those platforms.
For most industries, collecting reviews and testimonials for their business has been an important part of Local Optimization for several years.
As of May 4th, 2021, with the SEC’s latest changes to the marketing rules, this has become a Local SEO best practice for many advisors as well.
As a side note, many State Administrators are looking to align their rules more closely with the SECs, and a few already allow advisors to ask for reviews.
Contact your compliance officer or State Administrator for specific information regarding your use of reviews in your area.
4. Create a specific page for each location
If you have multiple locations, you will want to optimize for each, including creating a page for each location. Often this can be the “Contact Us” page for that office, however, it helps if you include some information about that area (city, neighborhood, etc.) a Google map, a distinct address, and a unique “local” phone number for each location.
5. Create pages for local search terms
The “Local Map Pack” is only displayed for a few broad industry search queries ( i.e Financial Advisor, Financial Planner, etc.). It is important that your website includes pages that are optimized for those few search terms. The pages should also include location-based keywords (i.e. city, state, zip code) with your primary keywords (i.e. Financial Advisor, Boise, Idaho, 83706).
6. Name-Address-Phone Number (NAP)
Settle on a NAP for your business and use it consistently across the web. If some part of your NAP changes (i.e. you move to a new location) make sure to update your NAP wherever it appears. It is recommended that you display a “local” phone number for each location.
Your NAP should appear on every page of your website (i.e place it in the footer, header, or sidebar).
7. Register with the Local Search Engines
Set up and optimize accounts with Google My Business, Bing Places, Apple Maps, and Yelp for Business.
8. Register with the Data Aggregators
Register with the “Local Data Aggregators” – Data Axle, Neustar Localeze, Foursquare.
These groups send your information out to other business directories and have an extensive reach throughout the Local Search Ecosystem.
9. Build relevant Citations
Citations are online business listings or directories where you can list your business.
The Local Search Engines and the Data Aggregators are basically citations but are more influential than most.
The more often your business is “cited” consistently across the web, the more confidence the search engines have in listing it on the SERPs. There is also the potential benefit of the directory sending you traffic directly.
Citations include groups you pay to belong to like the FPA, XYPN, and NAPFA, or can be more general free listings such as Manta or Superpages.
Learn more about building citations.
II. Authority (Off-page SEO)
Off-Page SEO is the most challenging component of the optimization process as it requires people outside of our control to get involved.
The strongest “authority” signal, actually the strongest SEO signal, comes from your backlink profile – the quality and number of links from other websites that direct visitors to your site.
Note: For Local Search Rankings, client reviews on Google (and some other sites) are also important contributors to a site’s authority.
Backlinks do occur naturally, and your site has probably accumulated some whether you are aware of it or not. However, despite Google’s design, and the hopes of many “just write great content” proponents out there, a strong backlink profile usually takes many years of writing to develop on it’s own (if it ever does).
Google’s theory is that if you publish good content, others will find it, link to it, and the best content will rise to the top of the rankings.
It can occasionally still work this way, however, because of content saturation and the fact that most industry bloggers don’t link out to other sites, most blogs go unnoticed by the link creators.
Instead, today’s successful content creators must actively plan and work on a backlink development strategy – specific content, specific connections, and specific sharing strategies – if they want to develop a position of online dominance in their market.
You can use the “Link Explorer” tool to get an idea of your site’s backlink profile (and that of your competition).
Other factors considered for authority include the age of the URL and the depth or expertise displayed in the content available on the site.
While there are many strategies that can be implemented for link building, guest posting – providing valuable content (i.e. blog post, podcast guest, media interviews) on a related site – is a great way to introduce yourself to new audiences, and to earn backlinks in the process.
III. User Experience (UX)
Search Engines use performance metrics and data to determine how users engage with your content or website. They use these impressions to determine if the searcher was engaged with your content which would indicate that it was a good answer (or not) for that query.
Performance Metrics
1. Mobile-Friendly
With the roll-out of Mobile-first indexing, your mobile website has become the default version of your website – the version Google is measuring. Does the mobile version of your site load quickly? Is all of the content accessible on mobile? Are the links and buttons clickable (not too small or too close together) and is the text readable? Have you removed “pop-ups” from your mobile site?
Test your pages using Google’s Mobile-Friendly test tool. Even if you’re using a responsive theme, don’t assume that your site is formatted for mobile, test its functionality yourself.
2. Website Loading Speed
It is important that your site loads fast – for both search engines and your visitor’s user experience.
Recent studies show that on average, the number one ranked website loads 20% faster than the number 6 ranked website.
As it stands now, more than half of web visitors expect your site to load in 2 seconds or less and will start abandoning your website after 3 seconds.
Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to measure your Desktop loading speed, or Google’s Test My Site for the best measurement of your Mobile Site’s loading speed.
User Experience Signals
UX signals can be found in Google’s Universal Analytics, and include:
1. Bounce Rate
A bounce occurs when a searcher clicks through to your page, and without spending much time on that page, clicks (or bounces) back to search again. Although not always the case, it indicates that they didn’t find the answer to their query on that page.
2. Dwell Time
Similar to Bounce Rate, it measures the time they were on the page before clicking back to the search results.
3. Click-Through Rate
The more searchers click on your listing on the search engine results pages, the more Google identifies it as offering a good answer to the search query.
4. Pages/Session
How many pages is the average searcher visiting once they land on your site?
5. Session Duration
How long does the average visitor remain on your site?
The Role of Content Marketing in Advisor SEO
The regular creation of high-quality, unique content is vital to SEO success. “Content” is most often thought of as being a blog article, but can also include video, audio or visual content.
Each piece of content allows you to introduce and rank for new keywords, provides assets for link building, signals to the search engines that your site is actively being updated (meets Google’s “freshness” requirement), and helps develop your expertise in the eyes of the search engines and your website visitors.
What Should I Write (Talk) About?
1. Foundations, Pillars, and Clusters
- Foundation pages are basically pages about the broad services you offer (i.e. Business Advisory Services).
- Pillar pages are about one of the elements of your Foundational pages (i.e. Business Advisory Services is made up of Succession Planning, Retirement Plans, Tax Planning, etc.)
- Cluster pages break down the elements involved in the Pillar page (i.e. succession planning for family owned businesses, succession planning for small businesses, succession planning for non-profits).
- Sub-Cluster pages break the components even further (i.e. The Role of Life Insurance in Succession Planning).
2. They Ask, You Answer
Marcus Sheridan wrote a great book on his experience with content marketing – They Ask, You Answer.
3. People Also Ask
- Check the Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for any topic you are considering writing about. Find out:
- Searchers Intent: Google has figured out what searchers are most often looking for when they put in a search term. Make sure that it matches what you’re offering. (i.e. a search for “All is one SEO” sounds like someone is looking for a comprehensive package. However, in reality, “All in one SEO” is an SEO plugin for WordPress.
- What type of content does Google like to display – listicle, video, etc.
- How long does your article need to be? Compare what is ranking, especially the smaller companies that are ranking – how long is their article. Plan on making your article just as long or longer if you want to rank.
- Update and republish existing content periodically. Old content becomes stale quickly online. Update important pieces and republish them again. If you have annual content (i.e. retirement contribution limits) don’t write a new post every year, simply update your existing post and republish it.
- Choose a niche audience. Content marketing is easier and more effective when you target a specific audience.
- Do pay attention to niche specific news and changes. Whether your target audience is a particular industry or a specific location, look for changes in laws, regulations, or practice that will impact their planning (i.e. an increase in property tax in your target city).
Blogging Don’ts:
- Write only Commentary: Advisor’s tend to want to write market/economic commentary. While insightful, and great for clients and perspective clients to see – it has little SEO benefit.
- Tie content too closely to specific events. This content becomes old and stale quickly. Instead of writing about the second quarter inflation, write about how high (and low) inflation impacts the economy.
- Write multiple articles for the same keyword. Either the topic is different and should be cluster content, or it is the same and should be added to the existing post.
- Break content up into multiple articles (i.e. Part 1, Part 2) – longer is usually better.
Social Media and SEO
There is a lot of confusion surrounding the role of Social Media in an SEO campaign. Social Media definitely does indirectly impact your SEO in a number of ways.
Your social media accounts do act as citations and may be the highest-ranking outcome when someone searches for you or your company by name.
It is also a great tool for sharing your content, and can help with link building by making it easier to connect with influencers and link creators.
However, Facebook “likes” or “shares,” or Twitter “re-tweets” do not directly influence your search rankings. Nor do social media accounts, posts, or shares, count as true backlinks that help to build authority.
Voice Search
In today’s world, more searches are being completed through voice search on smartphones, computers, tablets, and smart speakers. Voice search benefits from traditional SEO signals, as well as a few strategies that specifically apply to voice search.
- Focus on common questions that prospects or clients ask related to your services and provide answers to these questions.
- Use the question as your title.
- Provide a concise answer or definition to the question right after the heading. Use the rest of the article to expand on the answer.
- Use Schema to mark up your content.
- Optimize for Local Search.
- Make sure your site is mobile-friendly.
- Improve page speed and load times if your site is failing to measure up to your competitors or Google’s expectations.
We will continue to update the steps in this article as the search engines make changes to their algorithms.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in September 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness. The most recent update was on 10/10/2022
