SEO and Financial Services

The search engine marketplace for financial services is just as competitive as it is in the real world. There are giants that have a powerful presence and the rest live in their shadows. It's easy to lose sight of the fact that many of these top ranking sites have achieved their status through hard work and much expense. This is not apparent unless you know the company or you can look behind the scenes at their Web site.

There are many niche categories in the consumer and business financial services sectors, including investment banking, wealth management stock trading, real estate mortgage, insurance, mutual fund management, stock and securities exchange, foreign exchange, credit, financing and accounting. These categories as you usually understand them are not the same as search engine categories. This is because searchers use a different vocabulary than industry professionals and insiders do. Your SEO provider is required to make that interpretation within your Web site.

The high number of service categories allows companies to pursue niches and therefore divert some of the search engine traffic controlled by the search engine leaders. There are many small competitors who seize opportunities to rank up there with the high volume players. They are your next big success stories.

Yes, it is a daunting challenge, however if a client is dedicated to the task and appreciates the return on investment a high ranking will produce, the rankings and the referrals will come.

Who are some the search engine powerhouses in financial services?

Sector	Estimated Search Engine Referrals/year	Estimated cost to purchase these clickthroughs
Stock Trading - eTrade	2,500,000	$10,000,000
Banking - Bank of America	4,000,000	$10,000,000
Finance - Kiplinger.com	1,000,000	$2,400,000
Foreign Exchange - Oanda.com	200,000	$600,000
Mutual Funds - Morningstar.com	300,000	$1,500,000
Insurance - Statefarm	4,000,000	$24,000,000
Credit cards	3,000,000	$47,000,000

The above revenue estimates indicate why search engines have been desperately trying to monetize search engine usage for a decade now. Most have failed trying. Of recent, Google, Yahoo and Overture have had success in introducing paid placement in their listings. They are making hundreds of millions of dollars in profit. Most leading finance sites are players in the PPC advertising arena.

How do the leading ranking sites do what they do?

They build valuable content that other Web sites are only too happy to link to. The link is a form of customer service that adds value to the company's Web site, even though a certain number of visitors exit through that link. So when companies build focused, valuable content for consumers and business partners, they will enjoy a very popular site in search engines. Search engines rely on the gross number of links (and something called PageRank) pointing to a Web site to assess that site's credibility and worthiness to rank highly. Search engines just want to give searchers access to the best sites on the Web and make a little money at it.

High ranking sites also have owners who are willing to partner with other competing or non-competing Web sites. This type of co-marketing is rarely done in other industries, however "co-opetitiion" as it's known, is often what separates the winners from losers.

High ranking sites are often optimized to whatever level the search engines will allow or accommodate. Search engines attempt to delete Web sites that are deliberately or excessively optimized to appear in their listings. That means a professional SEO who knows how to scale the strategy and implementation to the requirements of the search engines is also a key asset these companies have.

Search Engine Marketing ROI

With all the hype surrounding search engine marketing ROI, the search engine's now believe they deserve a bigger slice of the revenue pie. If Google does issue its IPO this spring, it is almost certain they will monetize their search engine to improve profit. They're already profitable but shareholders will demand a good return on their investment.

Bid prices on keyword phrases will rise rapidly to a price that companies will only be able to afford to advertise for one day before they've used their budget. As the price of PPC bidding rises, the natural or editorial search engine results pages will become even more sought after. Those who are establishing a strong presence now will reap the benefits when the prices skyrocket.

If your company is a financial services provider you may want to consider our SEO services. Not only will you maximize the worth of your current site, we can also help you build or advise you on which types of content will give you the kind of results you need.

SEO review of mutual funds search marketplace.

Search engines are global marketplaces despite the fact that your competition may be in your own country or state.

Check out Google stock for prices and news.

Pictured above is the Toronto stock exchange now with a new brand name, TSX. Gone is the trading floor bustling with traders. It is now entirely electronic and digital. The office has a public viewing and education centre and a television studio shared by 6 television networks.

Cambridge Mercantile provides low foreign exchange rates for major global companies. They transact billions of dollars yearly. In the UK endowment trading is big business for mortgage finance companies. Selling endowments provides homeowners with value for their endowment policies rather than a straight surrender to the issuing insurance companies. Endowment Express is a UK-based company that specialized in selling endowments UK.

Other hot online sectors: search engine marketing, online travel, and real estate marketing.

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