6 Steps to Higher Google Rankings

Written By : Clifford Blodgett

You’re not the only financial advisor in your area, and a large part of your business comes from getting out there and promoting yourself. One of the best ways to do this is through digital marketing. You may already know that your website is like your billboard on the internet. But like a billboard, which needs to be seen by thousands of drivers every day in order to be effective, you need consistent traffic to your website.

One way to drive traffic to your site is through Search Engine Optimization (SEO). You’ve likely heard about “SEO” and that it helps your Google rankings, but what’s really involved in a successful SEO campaign?

In order for SEO to be effective, these are a few factors that must be addressed:

Keyword Density. Your keywords are the terms you expect your intended audience to use when searching for your services. For example, a financial advisor who works in Anchorage, Alaska, would want to include the keywords “financial advisor in Anchorage” within his web content. Keyword density refers to the percentage of occurrence of these keywords in relation to the text in the rest of your website. In addition to the text on your site, keywords should be included in page headings, titles, descriptions, tags, and even the specific URL’s of each page. The right keyword density can help your website be relevant to the search engines and improve its rankings. Caution: overuse of keywords is actually considered a form of spam and can hurt your rankings or get you penalized by the search engines.

Blogging/Content Updates. Remember that Google wants to provide its users with relevant and useful search results. If you are providing original content that answers common questions, it’s more likely that your website will show up in search results. Your blog is the place to add valuable, keyword rich content to your website.

Quality Backlinks. When another website links back to your website, this is called a backlink. These can help your SEO ratings, but not all backlinks are created equally. Backlinks from well-established sites with high rankings are far more beneficial than links from poor sites. Also, the anchor text used in the backlink should be a relevant keyword. Caution: Low quality backlinks can get you penalized by Google and hurt your rankings.

Social Media Integration. Google is now looking to social media to decide whether a particular website or page has authority and relevance. If your content is being shared via social media, the search engines will take notice. So be sure to build your social media presence, and encourage your friends, family, and clients to share your content with their friends.

Sitemap Submission. Once you’ve put forth the effort to create great content, don’t skip this important step. Creating an XML sitemap tells search engines that you have new content on your site and you want them to index it. This ensures that all of your other efforts aren’t in vain. Do this once per month or whenever new content is added to your site.

Error Elimination. As your website ages, it may develop problems such as duplicated content, pages that have been deleted improperly, internal links that are broken or do not lead anywhere, duplicated page titles, and duplicated or non-existent page descriptions. All of these problems can hurt your SEO rankings, so it’s important NOT to view your website as a set-it-up-and-forget-about-it prospect. Regularly maintain your website by using diagnostic software to catch these errors, and remove or repair them to keep your SEO rankings high.

A few caveats: As effective as SEO strategies can be, it’s important to remember that a quality SEO plan must incorporate all of the above points. Otherwise, focusing on some facets of SEO while neglecting others can hurt your results.

It’s also important to remember that your rankings also depend on your competitors. Search Engine Optimization for financial advisors is becoming more popular and competitive.  As this happens, getting to the top of search results may be much more difficult. You’ll need to out-work them.

Finally, remember that no SEO strategy is foolproof. Search engines can be picky, and their algorithms for determining search results often change. All of the above points combined together can give you the best shot at turning up in search results. However, there is no way to guarantee SEO results. If a SEO company guarantees you page one rankings, you should be very leery of doing business with them.

FOR INSURANCE PROFESSIONAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR USE WITH THE GENERAL PUBLIC 14188 – 2015/3/5

Filed under: Financial Advisor Marketing