SEO for Banks: 9 Actionable SEO Tips for Finance and Banking Services Industry

Potential customers use search engines to look for banking services and information.

The best banks have a strong online presence and show up on search results when their customers look for them. This means having a solid SEO strategy built-in.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a marketing strategy to help rank your bank’s website high on the search engine result pages (SERPs).

A good SEO strategy involves keyword research, content creation, and optimization strategies that can increase organic traffic from Google to your website.

There is competition online among different banks for the same audience.

SEO plays an important role in attracting your target audience when they are looking for banking-related content and when they are looking to visit your bank branch.

Digital marketing strategies for banks

Let’s look at some of the marketing strategies banks use to drive traffic to their website.

In Google Analytics, there is a useful benchmarking report that you can use to compare your website to other websites. From here, we can get an idea of the digital strategies that banks use.

I’ve selected the Banking industry and based on 284 website properties, we can see that banks websites use a variety of marketing channels to attract traffic online.

The top 3 sources of website traffic for banks appear to be Organic Search, Direct, and Referral.

So having a digital marketing strategy including social media, PPC, and SEO is important for banks to attract new customers and retain existing ones.

Is SEO important for banks?

When we research an initial list of seed keywords of the banking industry in US, we can get an idea of the search demand of these terms:

(Data from Ahrefs)

The more keywords banks can target and rank for on Google, the more organic search traffic they can drive to their websites.

Let’s use credit cards as our seed keyword. It has a search volume of 122,000 monthly searches and generates over half a million keyword ideas.

Consumers are on Google searching for banking-related content, products and services.

The question, how many credit cards should I have is searched for on Google 19,000 times every month.

Crucial to rank in the top 10 results

With a strong SEO strategy in place, banks websites can improve their ranking position on Google search results and attract thousands of visitors to their website.

Where you rank on the SERPs affect the amount of traffic your website gets. Advanced Web Ranking did a case study of the click-through-rate (CTR) of pages based on their ranking position.

As we can see, the CTR starts to decline from position 5.

Web pages ranking in position #1-3 get the most clicks from Google.

The #1 position gets a CTR of 30%.

Followed by 15% in position #2, and 10% in position #3.

The CTR in position #9 is around 1% and declines past the first page!

That means if your bank’s website is not ranking in the top 10 results on Google, less than 1% will click through to your site.

So it is crucial to rank for your niche keywords at the top of the search results to drive traffic.

Higher conversion rate

Also, organic search has a higher conversion rate than most other marketing channels.

In a study by Rand Fishkin, he found that only 4.5% of Google searches lead to clicks compared to 45% of searches lead to organic result clicks.

So if you are not yet investing in SEO, you are missing out on a very profitable source of traffic. For the banking industry, SEO is one of the best ways to attract your target audience and get more prospective customers.

SEO Strategy for Banking and Finance Industry: High E-A-T

As a financial institution, the content you publish on your bank’s website has real impact on people’s lives.

So Google and users expect a high level of accuracy or trust.

Naturally, the SEO strategy for the banking and finance industry would focus on achieving high E-A-T.

• Expertise
• Authority
• Trustworthiness

In this micro SEO guide, I’ll share some actionable SEO strategies for the banking and finance industry drawing from my experience as a coach and SEO consultant.

We are going to dive deep into Google’s search rater guidelines which is the best resource to learn about E-A-T.

If you are a marketing manager for a bank, have a finance blog, this guide will be useful in developing SEO strategies for your bank or finance website.

#1. Improve your bank website’s E-A-T

Banks websites and financial information fall under the YMYL, Your Money Your Life topics.

According to Google’s search rater guidelines (SRQ), YMYL topics could significantly affect people’s health, financial stability or safety.

That means Google and users hold your content to a high standard.

More so than website content for non-YMYL topics such as gardening, for example.

So the SEO strategy to focus on would be improving the bank website’s Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness.

The best way to understand E-A-T is to dissect Google’s SRQ.

The guidelines provide more explanations for different niches in section 3.2.

There’s one for the finance industry:

“High E-A-T financial advice, legal advice, tax advice, etc., should come from trustworthy sources and be maintained and updated regularly.”

There are two SEO takeaways here

• Bank website content should be written from a trusted source
• It should also be maintained and updated regularly

#2. Create High Quality pages that has a beneficial purpose and helpful title

A high quality page according to Google has a satisfying amount of high quality main content and a descriptive or helpful title.

That signals on-page SEO!

For financial products and services, it would mean content pages having a beneficial purpose and a descriptive title.

Title

Notice the second bullet point that says a satisfying amount of high quality MC (Main Content) including a descriptive or helpful title?

This means that Google considers the title as part of the main content of a page.

So, work on your page titles because that is a strong SEO factor.

Main content

There are two points about main content here: high quality and a satisfying amount. 

In section 4.2, the guidelines describe what high quality means.

How to achieve a satisfying amount of high quality main content:

• Write factually accurate content
• Ensure it is clearly written
• Comprehensive
• Use your judgement to decide how much content is necessary based on the topic and purpose of the page.

#3. Optimize your bank’s about pages

Based on Google’s guidelines, establishing who is responsible for the website is a crucial part of assessing E-A-T.

Such as pages about the company, who they are and what they are doing.

For a financial institution, I think the company itself establishes authority and as long as it maintains a good reputation.

It should be easy to establish high E-A-T by creating sufficient and accurate content.

I think Citibank does a pretty job at providing comprehensive information about what they do.

So for banks, your about us pages are especially important for SEO because you are a YMYL topic.

At least based on Google search rater’s guidelines, this type of content on your website will be scrutinized.

So optimizing your about pages will be very important to establish high E-A-T in the banking and finance industry.

For other niches that are non-YMYL, about pages are perhaps less critical for SEO.

#4. Prioritize your bank’s contact and customer service information

If we sift through the Google guidelines, we can find some specific examples for the banking and financial services industry.

Contact and customer service information are discussed quite thoroughly for the banking sector.

So make sure to provide ways for people to contact your bank:

• Email
• Phone number
• Address
• Contact form
• Chat
• Customer online login

In section 7.4.1 of the guidelines, Google describes that providing adequate information on customer service pages is critical to establishing trust.

Especially for online banks or if you conduct financial transactions.

What does that mean?

It seems to mean banks need to provide clear information about what the user is logging into. 

Examples of high E-A-T pages

Google provided an example of an online banking login page with high E-A-T.

Characteristics: 

• Has login functionality
• Clear information about what the user is logging into
• A large, popular bank with a good reputation

The page referenced was Citibank’s login page! This could be a good example to reference if you are working on an online banking login page.

#5. Maintain a positive reputation

Reputation seems to be about what other people and experts in your niche have to say about you.

Mainly:

• The reputation of the bank
• Where the sources comes from
• Customer reviews

The Google SQR guidelines emphasize that YMYL topics especially, require careful reputation checks. 

How to establish positive reputation in the financial industry (SEO)

If you are a financial institution though, establishing reputation should be easier than if you are an independent financial blog.

On page 136 of the guidelines, we see comparisons of how reputation is assessed for different brands in the financial sector.

Union Plus, a company with its own credit card issued by HSBC bank has high E-A-T because of its association with the bank.

Compared to Nerd Wallet, a blog providing financial advice – it has high E-A-T and a good reputation because the blog has been recommended by several major newspapers.

Another example of very high E-A-T and very positive reputation of a finance website is a credit report information site. Because there is a Wikipedia article that backs it up.

From an SEO perspective, this seems to be about backlinks.

Particularly Wikipedia links. Getting positively referenced on Wikipedia articles can give your bank’s website a boost of authority and positive reputation.

So here are my thoughts on how to establish a positive reputation and high E-A-T in the finance and banking industry:

• If you are a company in the finance industry, associate yourself with a reputable bank.
• If you are already a reputable bank, maintain your reputation. Protect yourself from negative press.
• If you are an information website or blog providing financial advice, get recommendations and press coverage from newspapers. Also, get positively referenced in Wikipedia articles.

#6. Google Business Profile Optimization

Google Business Profile or previously known as Google My Business (GMB) is crucial for ranking a local bank in the search results and Google maps.

Optimize your bank’s website for Local SEO to target audiences in a specific state, city, or country you serve.

You can target existing or potential new customers looking to visit your bank branch or ATM nearest to their location.

Some keywords they may search for with a local intent are:

(Data from Ahrefs)

Google Business Profile Local SEO Optimization Tips

• Create a Google business listing for each bank branch or location you have operations in
• Ensure each GMB listing is verified and that there are no account issues flagged (e.g, duplication)
• Add your bank branch information such as name, address, and phone number (NAP)
• Ensure your bank branch information is accurate and up to date
• Get customer reviews for your GMB listing. Online reviews are a key local SEO ranking factor.
• Build citations from local business directories in your state / country

For local businesses, having an optimized Google business profile affects your conversion rates such as bookings and phone calls.

For example in Singapore, DBS bank has developed their local SEO optimization strategies for their local branches across the country.

People searching for a bank branch nearest to their location can get the most helpful result on search.

As Google shows bank locations based on proximity, among other factors such as relevance and prominence.

Some banks also create individual Google business listings for their ATMs.

This is quite useful for consumers looking for the nearest ATM closest to their physical location.

#7. Keyword research

We need to do keyword research to find out what search terms people are using on Google before we can drive traffic from those terms.

I like to use the keyword filter in Ahrefs and find keywords with at least 4 words to find long-tail keywords.

Long-tail keywords are more specific terms with a clearer intent on what financial products and banking services users are interested in.

Using best bank as a seed keyword and filtering for at least 4 words in the phrase, we found over 54,000 long-tail keyword ideas.

People are not just searching broadly for best bank.

Instead, they are also searching for best bank topics about best business bank accounts, best bank for small business, for checking account, for saving account, for llc, etc.

Each keyword is a search query with a person behind it.

Your bank’s potential clients are on Google searching with questions, and informational topics around the banking products and services you offer.

Targeting long-tail keywords and informational searches is a great way to attract potential customers to your bank.

#8. Create high-quality educational content that helps your customers

Content is what people are looking for on Google to solve their query.

When a prospective customer searches for a particular keyword about wealth management, you want the bank’s individual pages about wealth management services to rank on the first page of Google.

Having a content strategy will help you match the right pages to keywords consumers are searching for.

Content formats on search results can be:

• Web pages (product, service pages, location pages, etc)
• Blog posts
• Videos
• Images
• Google Business Listings

Blog posts is one of the best ways to educate your audience. For example, on how to choose a bank account, which credit or debit card to sign up for.

Content Marketing Institute defines “Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

Google’s algorithm rewards high quality content that puts the readers’ interests first.

Understanding what consumers are thinking helps you create the most useful content when they consider your banking products and services.

In the financial services sector, another challenge traditional banks face are financial blogs online and independent financial experts who compete for the same audience attention.

For example, reputable publications like NerdWallet, that provide trusted financial advice.

Finance blogs provide educational content that help consumers make a more informed decision about their financial future.

They are able to outrank major news websites like CNBC, Business Insider, Forbes for certain keyword queries.

They also compete with banks directly on Google for their own branded keywords. Thus, driving traffic and potential customers away from the banks to their publication.

#9. Ensure your bank’s website is mobile responsive and secure

Based on this benchmarking report from Google Analytics for the US banking industry, 46% of traffic comes from mobile devices.

That is a huge amount of traffic coming from mobile!

So it is important for your bank’s website to be mobile responsive and compatible for smaller screen sizes.

• For instance, is your bank website accessible on mobile phones? Does it function properly such as the navigation menu, buttons, etc.
• On mobile screen, is your bank website content is easily readable? Check if the text is too small and does it require the user to zoom in to read.

According to a study from Google / Ipsos, 60% of smartphone users use the search results to contact a business directly. So a mobile-friendly website is vital to conversion rates!

An easy way to check whether your bank website is mobile-friendly is to use this test. Also, it is a good idea to check your Google search console’s mobile usability report!

Security and technical SEO

Finally, a bank’s website must be secure to handle financial transactions and sensitive information. It must have SSL security integrated.

You’d also want to include SEO best practices such as a fast-loading site that provide a good user experience.

Conclusion

Securing top spots on search engine results is crucial for banks to succeed online.

Google’s algorithm has many ranking factors. Sometimes it might seem like there is so much information our there.

Most banks have an SEO agency that manages their local SEO optimization strategies and overall bank SEO to ensure their website is ranking at the top of Google’s search results.

But if you are a financial services company or a financial advisor looking to improve your SEO, you might be doing SEO on your own. The good news is, there are SEO experts that can help you.

If you are a business owner in financial services and want some SEO guidance, check out my course or SEO services here!