SEO in the finance sector comes with three main challenges:
- It is a competitive space.
- It is a highly regulated space.
- Google classifies this space as YMYL, meaning it involves sensitive content for users. Google places great emphasis on prioritizing websites with a proven reputation. For this reason, it is important to work on EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust).
In this article, we will dive into these three main challenges and at the end I will highlight which skills you need to suceed as a SEO professional in finance.
But first, hi 👋🏽, I’m Corina, and I’ve been working in SEO for finance since 2021. I live in a country that has more banks than cows (I guess), and I’m personally interested in the topic of investing.
1. SEO for finance is a competitive space
With major banks, fintech companies, and financial service providers competing for top positions in search results, the financial industry is a competitive sectors. The ROI per conversion is high as well as must be the marketing budget of big players.
This intense competition means that generic keywords like “best credit cards” or “mortgage rates” have high keyword difficulty scores and require significant resources to rank for. Large institutions with strong domain authority dominate search results, making it difficult for smaller players to rank.
How to overcome this obstacle with your SEO Strategy?
To compete, focusing on long-tail keywords is key. These are more specific search queries with lower competition but high intent, such as “best investment strategies for beginners in Switzerland” instead of “investment strategies.” By targeting niche topics and answering specific user questions, you can attract qualified traffic while building authority over time.
2. Finance is a highly regulated space.
The financial industry is strictly regulated, meaning your content must adhere to guidelines from regulatory bodies like FINMA in Switzerland, the SEC in the U.S., or the FCA in the UK. Non-compliance can lead to penalties or loss of trust.
We can see the following dificulties:
- It makes content production slow, as it needs to be reviewed by compliance or legal teams.
- You can’t simply write whatever you want. Found a great keyword opportunity? Check with compliance first before investing time in a full article.
- Also, you need skilled financial writers who are able to ensure complex financial concepts are explained in ways that both satisfy regulatory requirements and engage users.
How to address this obstacle with your SEO Strategy for finance?
Processes—oh, sweet processes! To avoid creating content that you can’t use later, I recommend involving compliance from the start of content production. Additionally, internal SEO education helps all teams work more efficiently together.
I also recommend working with skilled financial writers who can balance compliance requirements with clear, user-friendly language.
3. Financial websites are classified YMYL
Financial websites fall under Google’s Your Money, Your Life (YMYL) category, meaning they deal with content that can impact users’ financial well-being. Because of this, Google holds them to higher standards, prioritizing accuracy, trustworthiness, and authority. To rank well, financial websites must demonstrate Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust (EEAT) by providing well-researched, transparent, and credible content. EEAT is a concept that has been defined by Google in its Searhc Quality Rater guideline. Read more on the topic in my dedicated blog post.
How to address this obstacle with your SEO Strategy for finance?
To address this complex challenge, I recommend taking the following measures:
- Experience: Showcase first-hand knowledge by publishing insights from industry professionals or sharing real case studies. Customer testimonials and reviews also help demonstrate practical experience and reliability.
- Expertise: Ensure content is written or reviewed by financial experts with relevant qualifications. Display author bios with professional certifications and credentials to establish credibility. I also recommend leveraging Schema markup. Apply the Person schema for author profiles and the Organization with FinancialService for publisher information.
- Authoritativeness: Build authority through high-quality, authoritative backlinks from reputable financial sources, industry associations, or government websites. If you can’t get backlinks I sincerely believe mentions are good too. Since off-page information is used as training material for LLM. You want to be present where there’s talk about your niche.
- Trust: Establish trust signals by implementing strong security measures, such as SSL certificates, data encryption, and compliance with financial regulations. Clearly display trust badges, privacy policies, and disclaimers to reassure users.
What skills do you need as an SEO Manager for financial companies?
An SEO Manager in the financial sector needs a unique set of skills to navigate complex environments and drive results:
- Strong product knowledge: A deep understanding of the financial products your company offers is essential. This knowledge allows you to create relevant SEO strategies, ensure content accuracy, and align marketing efforts with user intent.
- Strong presentation skills: You must be comfortable presenting SEO strategies and results to various stakeholders, including executives. Being able to translate SEO insights into business value is crucial for gaining buy-in.
- Excellent communication skills: Clear and effective communication is essential. Reduce complexity, avoid jargon, and explain one idea at a time. Always highlight the impact of SEO initiatives in terms that resonate with your audience.
- Stakeholder management skills: You will work with many in-house departments such as compliance, legal, sales, and content teams. I recommend creating a stakeholder map to keep an overview of all involved parties.
Above, you see an example of such a stakeholder map. Similar to a SWOT analysis, stakeholders are also classified into four groups: High influence, low influence, high stake, low stake.
I have classified stakeholder according to these groups and put each stakeholder into a box. This helps prioritising requests.
Below examples of roles:
- High influence, high stake: This could be the head of marketing, as they control the budget and are invested in results. It could also include the Head of Digital Strategy. You’ll want these stakeholders on your side—keep them inspired, persuaded, and regularly updated.
- High influence, low stake: For SEO projects, this often includes the legal team (compliance!) and developers. They have a significant impact on success, so serving their needs and maintaining strong relationships is key.
- High stake, low influence: For example, the sales team, as their insights and alignment with SEO goals are essential. Educate them on SEO’s importance to ensure smooth collaboration.
- Low influence, low stake: This group might include marketing members from other channels or country managers. While less critical, they should still be kept up to date.
That’s a wrap. I hope I could give you an insight on why finance is so special and how you can tackle these challenges. Contact me for mentoring or consulting.
