As a provider of FinTech, you’re all about solving financial problems with smart technology solutions.
Whether streamlining, augmenting, digitizing, or disrupting the more traditional financial services, you’re only as profitable, however, as the number of customers that can find you and convert.
With the advancements and abilities of FinTech today, customers have more options to choose from than ever before.
You’ll need to get to them first, and you can accomplish this by utilizing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to rank higher in organic search results.
But you’re going to need a strategy, including tactics to get you to where you want to go.
Here’s a complete FinTech SEO guide to help you out.
What Exactly is SEO?
SEO is an inbound marketing technique utilizing a set of strategies and tactics to optimize your website, web pages, and blogs.
The goal of this optimization is to get your content in front of potential customers by improving where you appear in organic search results.
When a user enters a query into a search engine, you want your content to rank high up in the results, so they can find you and what you offer.
Otherwise, potential customers may not even know your FinTech product exists or what it can do for them.
While SEO is valuable across all industries today, FinTech requires extra focus when it comes to how to rank on Google search pages.
This is partially due to legal and government regulations and partially due to the level of competition in the overall financial services field.
How Does SEO Help FinTechs?
Your digital marketing strategy is about more than content; it’s about how to get the right content in front of your targeted audience and lead them through the sales funnel.
If you’re still not convinced of SEO’s power, here are several ways your FinTech can benefit.
SEO gets you to the right audience at the exact point they need you
Most search engine queries are entered at the point where the user is seeking information and most likely at a point ready to buy.
This is known as the decision stage of the buyer’s journey.
In other words, they are already looking for what you have to offer. You want them to be able to find you quickly, ahead of your competitors.
This requires that you rank higher up on the search results page.
By using SEO with your content, you answer the important questions customers have and put yourself at the forefront of their purchase decision process.
SEO can help build trust
The financial services sector involves access to a customer’s sensitive data and financial information.
For this reason, they need to know they can trust you now and in the future.
You can show and build trust by providing quality SEO-optimized content on a regular basis. Build your brand as a trustworthy source all customers can rely on.
SEO will create returning traffic and potential leads
A solid SEO strategy today will pay off long down the road by creating returning traffic.
It will also most likely provide you with more potential leads.
The search engines index your quality FinTech content for the long-term, bringing customers back to your site and reaching new ones as well in the future.
SEO leads to collaboration
When done properly, SEO can help open up the door to collaboration with others, such as media, financial publications, and finance bloggers.
This collaboration can then lead to even more exposure, such as interviews, requests for guest blogs, and the all-important quality backlinks.
What are the Best FinTech SEO Tactics?
Ideally, you want to satisfy search engine algorithms for positioning higher up on search result pages. With rising competition in the FinTech field, however, you’re going to need an SEO strategy that works.
Here are essential SEO tactics to advance your FinTech as the optimal choice for customers:
1. Establish SEO Goals
Before jumping in, start by planning your approach and developing a list of SEO goals. These can help guide you as you move forward.
Determine what it is you wish to accomplish, and identify the specific goals to help you get there.
Conduct research, including what your competitors are already doing. Also, understand your targeted audience by creating buyer personas.
For example, if you know that Millennials are particularly keen on FinTech (which they are), identify why that is and create a buyer persona based on what you find.
Many Millennials tend to distrust traditional financial institutions and desire quick and instant services that can occur with very little effort.
2. Conduct Thorough Keyword Research
One of the most important tactics for FinTech SEO is to put a lot of effort into your keyword research. You need to get this right.
It will help if you always keep in mind what the search intent is for those entering queries. What is it they are looking for, and how are they asking?
This type of information can help guide you to those long-tail keywords most commonly entered with their query.
While FinTech is already a competitive field, when it comes to search queries and rankings, you’ll also be competing with financial advice websites and blogs.
So, in addition to keywords specific to FinTech, define common finance keywords and determine the best way to incorporate some or all of them into your SEO strategy.
For example, some common finance keywords used across the industry include mortgage rate, loan application, promissory note template, stock profit calculator, tax bracket, and credit score.
Just be sure you always avoid keyword stuffing, which, if discovered by the search engine, will bring penalties and lead to lower SEO effectiveness.
3. Develop Good Quality Content
FinTech customers are unique in that they know what they are looking for, if not specifically, at least in a general sense. Your content needs to reflect this.
Invest in good writers, editors, and content marketing strategists.
Creatively use your chosen keywords and let them guide you as to the topics you need to cover within your content.
Also, post good content often if you want to rank higher for the more competitive keywords.
An additional tactic these days is to vary the type of content you provide.
When it comes to FinTech, complexity is often involved. Finding more ways to share information in a relatable way with customers, then, is essential.
Try mixing up your blog posts and articles with one or more of the following:
- Videos
- Images
- Infographics
- Interactive content (e.g., calculators or quizzes)
Use these to capture the reader’s attention and present information in different ways.
The more your audience understands what you have to offer and how it can solve their problem, pain point, or need, the better.
4. Create Quality Link Building
Link building is essential to your SEO strategy.
To establish your website as a trustworthy, authoritative, and expert resource, produce the kind of content that attracts high-quality websites to link back to.
These can be anything from a popular financial blogger all the way up to Forbes magazine.
Also, link out to trusted resources in your own blog posts to show authority as well.
These quality links help establish you as a reliable source of information and, in turn, show that you know what you’re doing.
Quality link building is invaluable to attracting organic traffic and boosting your SEO even higher.
5. Establish a Social Presence
Social media marketing continues to evolve, and your FinTech company needs a social presence to complement your SEO strategy.
Social media marketing and SEO work well together.
First, select the social media platforms to focus on. Understand the benefits of each and the best methods to achieve your goals.
Engagement on social media can lead to additional traffic to your website, and this, in turn, will boost search engine rankings.
Maintaining a social presence also helps to increase brand awareness.
6. Make Your Website SEO-Friendly
Your website can make or break you when it comes to acquiring new business online. Because of this, utilize SEO as an essential part of your website plan and maintenance.
Steps you will want to take to make your website more SEO-friendly are as follows:
- Adding keyword-rich titles, headings, sub-headings, and meta-descriptions in webpage content.
- Maximizing page loading speed.
- Inserting allowable hidden text, such as alt tags on images and videos.
- Designing pages to be easily read on mobile devices.
- Assuring you have all the appropriate website security certificates.
Keep in mind that FinTech also involves legal requirements and government regulations to adhere to, and these will need to be at the forefront of your overall FinTech digital marketing strategy.
One final note on your website is to adhere to the strict guidelines Google imposes on select industries, including those in the financial field.
These guidelines look at the expertise, authority, and trust conveyed throughout your website’s main content.
To help with this, always pay close attention to your About, Management, and Contact pages.
Also, keep your website updated, including the copyright date, privacy policy page, and required legal disclosures.
Without this, a Google manual review may throw penalties your way, deeming your site as untrustworthy.
7. Elevate Yourself to a Thought Leader Role
In a field like Financial Technology, authority is key to establishing trustworthiness and credibility.
Since FinTech is still an emerging market, finding a way to elevate yourself as an authority or thought leader in the field can increase your SEO results.
Consider what you can offer that differs in some way from others already out there. What unique way can you contribute to the field?
By definition, thought leaders are trendsetters, not trend followers.
8. Monitor Content and Keep it Up-to-Date
While content may still be king, fresh content goes one step further.
Why keep your content fresh and up-to-date?
One important reason is that the Google search engine algorithm factors in fresh content in its rankings.
Secondly, financial topics often need updating to keep pace with the changes that occur in this field.
Seekers of information want to know what is available now. For example, what are average home prices now, not a year ago.
Real-time data and fresh content are the way to go to boost SEO.
For your more generalized content, considered to be evergreen in scope, at least review it every six months or so and make a few small changes.
9. Analyze SEO Performance Periodically and Make Adjustments
Continue to monitor your SEO performance and make any necessary adjustments as needed.
If some things aren’t working as well as you thought they would, change them.
Look for advancements in the industry itself. New words or phrases may need to be incorporated into your keyword strategy to increase your SEO performance.
Always strive to stay agile in your approach and discover ways to use SEO tactics to boost organic traffic and increase conversion rates.
10. Focus on B2B Instead of B2C Customers
A final tactic some FinTechs can use in their SEO strategy is to focus their efforts on B2B instead of B2C customers.
The reason for this is that the competition narrows when you market to other businesses instead of consumers.
Smaller amounts of content are available, and you can reach a higher search result ranking much quicker.
Wrap Up: Is Your FinTech Using SEO to Increase Traffic and Win More Customers?
A well-planned FinTech SEO strategy can make a huge impact on organic traffic to your website and increase your overall conversion rates.
Understanding exactly how SEO works combined with how best to implement it is the way to move your FinTech brand out in front of competitors.
It will also get you noticed by those who are looking for viable technology solutions to their financial needs.
Go one step further and discover ways to strengthen your marketing strategy through technology by watching this information-packed recorded webinar with Scott Brinker, the VP Platform Ecosystem at HubSpot!
