SEO For Financial Advisors: A Guide & 21 Strategies

Financial Advisors SEO 101

Let’s start by understanding how SEO in general works. 

It can be broken down into 3 key pieces: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO.

On-Page SEO

On-page SEO encompasses everything you do on your website in order to improve your visibility in search engines. This usually entails:

• Creating high-quality, optimized content
• Optimizing your URLs
• Adding internal and external links to your content, etc.

Off-Page SEO

Off-page SEO refers to boosting your visibility in search engines by taking certain actions on other websites — such as:

• Building backlinks
• Publishing guest posts
• Getting digital PR, and so on.

Technical SEO

Finally, technical SEO refers to improving the technical aspects of your website, such as page load speed and website architecture, in order to improve your visibility in search engines.

It’s important to improve all of these aspects of your SEO to get tangible results.

Benefits Of SEO For Financial Advisors

There are many ways in which investing in SEO can help financial advisors. 

However, we’ll focus on the three benefits that financial advisors are usually looking to attain: 

1. Rank Higher In Search Engines

SEO helps your website rank higher in search engines. 

This leads increasing your brand’s visibility, credibility, and click-through rates, as well as two other benefits we’ll discuss below:

2. Get More Traffic On Your Website

Additionally, ranking higher in search engines also helps you get more organic traffic to your site. 

• Organic traffic is the traffic you get for free, i.e., without paying for ads or sponsored posts and links. It primarily refers to the traffic that lands on your website from the SERPs (search engine results pages).

Apart from getting organic traffic, by working on your off-page SEO, you can also get more referral traffic.

• Referral traffic is the traffic that comes to your site by following links on other websites, such as social media, news publications, blogs, and so on. 

Of course, by getting more traffic on your site, you indirectly also get a better chance of selling your financial advisory services. 

3. Outrank Competitors & Steal Their Traffic

Finally, the benefits we’ve already mentioned also lead to an added benefit — outranking your competitors and getting their traffic. 

Imagine that your competitor ranks as the number one result for “financial advisor.” You, however, manage to steal their spot, pushing them back to position #2. 

Well, according to some studies, you will now get almost 40% of total traffic in the SERPs, while your competitor will get just under 19%. 

That means you won’t just “steal” their traffic, but also likely their paying customers.

21 Ways To Improve SEO For Financial Advisors

Now that you know why it’s important, let’s look at how you can improve SEO for financial advisors.

On-Page SEO For Financial Advisors

We’ll start with ways to improve your on-page SEO:

1. Write Content For Popular Keywords

On-page SEO starts with keyword research. This entails finding the keywords you want to rank for, such as “what does a financial advisor do.” 

Our guide on the top 61 keywords for financial advisors will give you a headstart. 

You can also search for the right keywords yourself. Here’s how to do it:

• Enter a relevant seed keyword, such as “financial advisor.”
• Check the keyword variations and their search volume. Find keywords that enough users search for.
• Finally, consider the KWs’ difficulty. If you have a new page with few backlinks, go for KWs with lower difficulty.

Once you settle on a keyword you want to target, it’s time to write content that is optimized to rank for it. Here are some basic guidelines, but we’ll give you more below:

• ✅ Add your main keyword to your H1 heading.
• ✅ Add your main keyword or the variations of your main keyword (KW) to your H2 headings.
• ✅ Add your main KW to your URL.
• ✅ Add your main KW to the intro.
• ✅ Satisfy user intent. Cover the topics your users want to read about when entering a particular keyword.

2. Publish Content Regularly

Showing search engines that you keep your site up-to-date can also help you improve your SEO. 

It’s especially important not to go too long without publishing any new content on your site.

Ideally, though, you would publish the same amount of content every day, week, or month. The more (often) you publish, the better.

3. Update Your Old Content When Needed

As mentioned, search engines want to know that you maintain your site and keep it up to date. That’s why updating old content can be especially beneficial. 

Here’s what to prioritize: 

• Content referencing past dates. 

For example, perhaps you’ve published a post titled “Top Debt Management Strategies in 2023.” 

Such content will no longer be relevant, so update it with strategies that work in the current year or opt for a more evergreen angle.

We have similar articles that we try to update regularly. 

• Content with outdated information.

For example, perhaps you’ve published information on student loan forgiveness in 2023. 

However, most or some of it may no longer be true or relevant. Consider updating it.

4. Add Internal And External Links

Adding internal and external links to your content is extremely important:

• Adding internal links helps search engines discover, crawl, and index your other pages faster, as well as gain more context about them. This can lead to better rankings. Additionally, internal links entice users to stay longer on your website.
  
  
• Adding external links increases the credibility of your content and impacts your overall SEO results.

However, you shouldn’t just add any internal or external links. 

Prioritize the ones that are relevant to your topic. 

👉 For example, a blog post titled “What Does a Financial Advisor Do” could benefit from links to your case studies. However, a post titled “Debt Management Strategies” may not, so don’t include it. 

Additionally, prioritize high-authority external links. 

These are links that come from sites with a high domain rating or authority scores (depending on the tool you use to check these metrics).

For example, Yahoo Finance has a very high domain rating (DR) score of 92, making it a good site to link to from your content.

5. Correctly Format Your Headings

Always format your headings according to the hierarchy of the topics in your content. 

• There should always be only one H1 heading per page. 
• All subheadings should be formatted as H2 headings.
• Subheadings of the subheadings should be formatted as H3 headings, and so on.

6. Add Visual Interest To Your Content

Visual elements boost user experience and impact your SEO. So, consider adding the following elements to your content:

• Images
• Videos
• Charts
• Quotes
• Embedded posts from social media, etc.

7. Optimize Smaller Elements: Alt Text, Meta Description…

Optimize supporting elements on your site, such as:

• Alt text — The text that substitutes non-textual elements on your site (such as images) if they fail to load. This text also helps users with visual or cognitive disabilities understand non-textual elements, so make it descriptive.
• Meta description — A brief description of your page that will show up in the SERPs below the title. Keep it up to 160 characters.
• Meta title — An alternative title of your page that you write specifically for the SERPs.
• File names — The names of the files you upload to your site, like image files, matter too. Separate individual words with hyphens.

These elements should ideally contain some of your target keywords (but don’t overdo it). 

For example, you could name an image file “5-roles-of-financial-advisors.”

8. Build E-E-A-T

Financial advisor sites should demonstrate Expertise, Experience, Authority, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T). To do so, consider doing the following: 

• Create a company page explaining your expertise and experience in the financial industry. 
• Add images of yourself and/or your time to your site.
• Showcase any awards, customer testimonials, and other credibility-boosting elements on your site. 
• Add author bios to your blog posts.

Of course, you may showcase E-E-A-T in other ways, depending on your unique position and business.

Off-Page SEO For Financial Advisors

Now, let’s see how you can boost your off-page SEO.

9. Set Up A Google My Business Account

Google lets you create free Business profiles that not only boost your off-page SEO but also improve your local SEO. So, registering on Google Business can be a double win and bring much more organic traffic to your site.

For example, you may start showing up in the SERPs for local-specific keywords, such as “financial advisors in los angeles:”

Ranking for local keywords and especially getting featured on Google Maps can significantly boost your traffic.

Make sure to add all relevant details to your Business profile, enter the correct business address, and verify your ownership of the business.

10. Work With Link Building Agencies

The easiest way to improve your off-page SEO is to invest in backlinks. 

You can buy them yourself on a link building marketplace. However, such marketplaces can be havens for spammy links that may actually hurt rather than help your site.

So, the safest way to buy backlinks is to work with reputable link building agencies who will build them for you.

Agencies can help you select and build quality backlinks that help you achieve your specific SEO and business goals. 

Our agency also offers a lifetime guarantee on all backlinks we build for you. Check out our link packages here.

11. Offer Expert Advice On Other Sites

Another way to build backlinks is to work with reporters and journalists who may benefit from your expert commentary. 

You provide commentary in exchange for mentions and backlinks in publications, such as Yahoo Finance or Forbes. 

You can connect with editors, journalists, and reporters on one of these sites:

• Connectively 
• SourceBottle
• ProfNet
• Qwoted

Check your inbox and notifications for any relevant requests for commentary or advice, then reach out and seize the opportunity.

12. Promote Your Content To Bloggers

Alternatively, you can try building backlinks to your content by reaching out to relevant bloggers who may want to reference and link to it.

This strategy consists of two main steps:

• Find bloggers that cover topics that are relevant to you, such as financial bloggers. 
• Create a pitch that explains who you are and what you do and links to a piece of content you want to promote. Make sure you also explain how your content benefits them and/or their audience.

To find relevant bloggers, try looking up niche-specific keywords on Google or social media platforms, like X or LinkedIn. 

For example, you can try typing in “cryptocurrency expert,” “financial influencer,” or even phrases that you think may be relevant, such as “i started investing:”

13. Build A Social Media Presence

Being active on social media boosts your credibility and may positively impact your SEO. 

Start by choosing platforms that are the most relevant to you. 

For example, X and LinkedIn may be better choices for most financial advisors than Instagram or Pinterest.

Then again, either of these platforms may be a great choice if you, for example, want to work with interior designers, Instagram models, or another audience that is present on these platforms. It all depends on your unique situation.

Either way, make sure to add your business address there, as well as link to your social accounts from your website:

14. Optimize Your Anchor Phrases

Maximize the benefits of your link building efforts by optimizing the anchor phrases that point to your site. 

For example, ask the bloggers and journalists you partner with to avoid non-descriptive phrases such as “click here” or “website.” 

Instead, instruct them to use descriptive anchor phrases that preferably contain some of your target keywords. 

For example: 

• If a blogger is linking to your post titled “Top Debt Management Strategies in 2024,” ask them to use an anchor phrase such as “debt management.”
• If a journalist is linking to your website, ask them to use an anchor phrase like “financial advisor in New York.”

15. Disavow Toxic Links

Finally, some SEO experts suggest disavowing spammy / toxic backlinks pointing to your site to avoid potential negative effects. 

Google recommends doing so only if:

• you have a considerable number of toxic backlinks OR
• if they have or are likely to cause a manual action against your site.

To do so, upload a list of links you want to disavow to Google’s Disavow tool.

Technical SEO For Financial Advisors

We saw how you can improve your on-page and off-page SEO. Let’s now look at the last piece of the puzzle — technical SEO.

While technical SEO isn’t likely to improve your rankings in and of itself, you can consider it a prerequisite to ranking. For example, if your website takes ages to load, search engines aren’t likely to recommend it to their users. 

They may not even index some of your pages.

16. Optimize Your Page Load Speed

As mentioned, fast loading times are important for SEO. However, they also impact user experience.

Users want fast results. If they can’t access your content within 1-2 seconds, they’re likely to exit your website.

You can check your current load speed with free online tools, such as PageSpeed Insights. 

If it’s slow, work on improving it: 

• Optimize images and compress image files
• Remove unnecessary code
• Limit redirects

17. Make Your Site Responsive

Making your website mobile-friendly is more important than ever. Today, almost 96% of users access the internet via mobile phones, while only 62.2% access it via laptop or desktop.

So, what does it mean that a website is “mobile-friendly?”

Mobile-friendly websites are websites that are accurately displayed and fully functional on mobile devices.

They’re essentially adapted for smaller and different screen sizes.

There are several ways to make your site mobile-friendly. However, Google officially recommends opting for responsive web design.

It’s also the easiest one to implement, since it uses the same content and metadata for both the mobile and the desktop version of the site.

18. Optimize Your Images

Optimizing your images can entail two things: 

• Reducing their resolution and dimensions and compressing image files to improve load times
• Optimizing images for search engines by refining captions, image file names, and alt text

We’ve already touched upon image SEO in a previous chapter on on-page SEO. 

When it comes to reducing the resolution and dimensions of your images, consider using image optimizer tools. 

19. Use Descriptive, But Short URLs

Short URLs are better for SEO and user experience than long URLs. However, they should still be fairly descriptive. 

To check both boxes, we recommend customizing your slugs so that they only contain your target keywords. 

Take one of our blog posts as an example:

The full title of this post is “Forum Link Building: The Ultimate Guide,” which means that the slug that was automatically created for it was “/forum-link-building-the-ultimate-guide.” 

However, our slug currently just says “/forum-link-building,” leveraging the main keyword we’re trying to target with this article while being shorter and easy to remember.

For you, this may mean creating slugs like “/debt-management” instead of “/top-debt-management-strategies-in-2024.”

Short URLs are easier to remember and helps users understand where they are on your website more easily. Long URLs also increase the chances of broken links to your site.

20. Avoid Duplicate Content

Duplicate content refers to identical or highly similar content that appears in multiple online locations. For example, it may appear on multiple pages on your website or on your and other websites.

Duplicate content on your website is bad for SEO for three reasons: 

• Search engines want to show users original content. Publishing duplicate content can hurt your rankings or, at the very least, not do anything for your website.
• Duplicate content may also weaken your backlink profile. For example, if you have two pages with similar content on your site, some sites may link to one page while others will link to the other. This means you’ll get weaker benefits than if all sites linked to one of your pages.
• Finally, duplicate content will waste your crawl budget since crawlers will review several versions of the same content.

With that in mind, here’s what you should do: 

• Avoid publishing duplicate content. (Duh!)
• If you must publish the same piece of information in multiple places, try to make it less similar. For example, consider presenting it in different ways. 
• If you’ll publish identical content in several places, use rel="canonical" link annotations to mark the canonical page, i.e., the representative URL.

21. Use Structured Data

Our final tip is to use structured data on your website. Structured data, also known as schema markup, makes it easier for search engines to understand what your page is about.

Additionally, structured data also turns “regular search results” into so-called rich results. 

On top of containing a title and description of the target page, rich results also contain relevant information extracted from structured data. Here’s what that looks like:

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So, structured data also helps your pages grab more real estate and stand out in the SERPs.

What structured data you should implement highly depends on the content on your website. 

For example: 

• If you have a product page, you may want to use review, price, and FAQ schemas. 
• If you have an event page, you may want to use location and organizer schemas.

You may need to work with a developer to implement structured data on your website. 

Visit Schema.org to find different schema types you can use.

Need Help Improving Your Off-Page SEO? Let’s Talk.

You can improve your on-page SEO yourself. However, improving off-page SEO for financial advisors is much more difficult. 

It requires dedicating a substantial amount of time to prospect research and outreach and doesn’t come with any guarantees. It also often requires you to have existing connections with other bloggers, influencers, and publications.

‍Working with link building agencies can help you avoid these challenges. Whether you want links, digital PR, or both, we can help you reach most of your goals in under 5 days.

Contact us today to discuss your next link building campaign and take advantage of our lifetime guarantee on all links.

FAQs

Does SEO work for financial advisors?

Yes, SEO does work for financial advisors. There are many keywords related to financial advisory services that have significant search volumes. This means that investing in SEO can help attract a large number of users to your website. 

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In general, SEO can help drive immediate conversions as well as build long-term brand visibility and credibility.

What is SEO for financial services? 

SEO for financial services refers to optimizing websites that promote financial services for search engines. This entails on-page and off-page optimization, as well as optimizing technical aspects of websites. 

SEO helps websites that promote financial services gain more visibility on search engines like Google, Bing, or DuckDuckGo.