SEO Services for Finance Companies

Finance companies work in a Your Money Your Life (YMYL) sector that’s considered critical for an individual’s health, well-being, financial stability, and safety. Therefore, Google, ChatGPT, Microsoft Bing & Copilot and other major search and LLM platforms pay particular attention to the quality of content that’s put in front of users.

Low-quality content and misinformation can have catastrophic consequences, which would damage the platform’s trust.

SEO for finance companies, therefore, requires a lot more attention to expertise, experience, authoritativeness and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T).

Regulators in most countries lay down strict guidelines on what can and cannot be said by finance brands on their own sites and on third-party sites. This can limit how on-page content may be optimised. It also has implications for how digital PR and link building are carried out, because any content that seemingly endorses the finance brand should include disclosures and disclaimers.

Finance websites are also highly targeted by fraudsters and hackers. As a result, regulators require much higher levels of website and data security to protect consumers. Google also has a much lower threshold of tolerance for vulnerabilities on financial sites. Websites in the sector that suffer data breaches or get compromised risk getting un-ranked quickly by Google.

The primary SEO challenge faced by finance companies is earning consumer trust and demonstrating experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T). Companies must prove they are credible and can be trusted by their customers.

Google, ChatGPT and other major search and AI platforms apply the highest level of scrutiny to financial content. This means run-of-the-mill SEO tactics are unlikely to succeed. Link building is also more challenging as it needs to be compliant and can limit how creative one can get with content and tactics.

Added to this, large, complex finance sites also face technical hurdles with data security, speed and mobile usability.

The highly competitive and regulated nature of the financial services industry makes it more difficult to secure quick wins in SEO. Established businesses should expect to see significant ranking improvements in six to twelve months, while startups can expect to take even longer.

Factors that can speed up SEO are the same as the factors that would make audiences trust the brand sooner. These include:
Authors on the site also getting cited and published in high authority websites
More organic press mentions in reputable publications
Sustained high levels of mainstream media coverage
Consistent positive chatter about the brand on social media and forums.

Yes!

The single biggest advantage of SEO is that it allows you to reach your customers at all stages of their journey from research to consideration and final purchase of your financial products, without having to pay exorbitant costs per click.

SEO success in this sector is driven by the fact that people are actively searching for a financial product or solution. Trust plays a big factor in financial decisions, and people inherently trust businesses that are organically ranked at the top of Google search results. Leads from SEO are thus more likely to convert faster than those from other channels.

While firms aren’t legally required to work with a specialised agency, it is highly recommended due to the unique complexity and regulatory requirements of the financial services sector.

When selecting an SEO agency for your financial services firm, look for three main factors:

1. Demonstrable ability to establish E-E-A-T;
2. Experience building links in highly regulated sectors;
3. Real-world examples of SEO work done on highly complex sites.