The Importance of SEO for Fintech Companies

Over the past several years, fintech companies have disrupted the global economy perhaps more than any other industry. They’ve reshaped the way people spend and save, and, ultimately, they’ve changed our perception of how money works.

Fintech companies have made money more accessible to more people by removing brick-and-mortar banks from the equation. In fact, nearly 90 percent of existing financial institutions believe at least part of their business will be lost to fintech companies within five years.

But, as is the case with any burgeoning industry, more demand equates to more competition, and the fintech industry is no exception.

In 2019, there were nearly 2,700 VC deals with fintech companies worldwide. The previous year, VCs invested a record $141 billion in fintech companies. Given the current state of the world and the increasing need for contactless services in general, the numbers can only go up from here.

But no matter how much money is invested or how much demand there is for financial services, the total addressable market is finite — at least, in the short term. Not every company will make it, and many won’t even become profitable. The best way to ensure you’re one of the companies that do is to invest in the right marketing strategy.

As financial services continue making their way online, it only makes sense to invest in your online marketing. Search engine optimization should be at the core of your online marketing strategy.

What is SEO?

SEO is the key to getting more users to your website organically, from search engine results pages (SERPs). A website that is well optimized has a better chance of ranking for relevant keyword phrases in the SERPs. And better rankings translate into more organic traffic. From there, your sales funnel takes over: more traffic means more leads, and more leads typically mean more conversions. Got it?

It may sound like a straightforward process, but the initial step of getting more traffic to your website can be difficult. That’s why so many companies seek out an experienced SEO agency with the skills to get you a return on your SEO investment.

When it comes to SEO for fintech companies, the end goal is similar to any company: get the right pages ranking as high in SERPs as possible for the highest value keyword phrases. More specifically, your goal should be to rank in the top three in the SERPs because 75 percent of Internet users do business with one of the top three search results.

Your page rankings depend on how well you understand and follow Google’s ranking factors — the variables considered when determining a website’s position in the SERPs. But there are more than 200 ranking factors, and Google updates them on a whim. Needless to say, getting your pages to the top of SERPs is no easy feat, which is why it’s important you invest in a high-quality fintech SEO strategy. The sooner you start, the more of a leg up you’ll have on the competition.

Survival is the name of the game in the fintech sector, especially for startups. The startup failure rate for tech companies is 63 percent, but fintech companies are at even greater risk with a failure rate of 75 percent.

Your goal is to be the one-in-four fintech companies that make it. But how? You can start by increasing your visibility online with an effective fintech SEO strategy.

As we’ve already touched on, competition in the fintech industry is brutal, to say the least. You’re going up against nearly 21,000 fintech companies worldwide, many of which offer the exact same services, albeit with different branding.

It’s a hostile environment for fintech companies, and if you don’t do everything in your power to beat your competitors, you simply won’t survive. But when you invest in fintech SEO, you’re taking an important step toward ensuring consumers and businesses see your name first when looking for fintech services online.

Being first on the SERPs is great, but it’s even better if you can push your competitors further down the SERPs. In a recent study, results on the second page got less than 1 percent of clicks. And the more you dominate the first page for specific keyword phrases, the less likely your competitors will be there.

A key part of any marketing strategy is targeting the right audience, whether it’s B2C, B2B or both. The same applies to SEO, and every strategy we execute is pinpointed at specific users, based on where the most value is.

It starts by identifying the right keyword opportunities. Once we understand your customers, we can identify what they’re searching for. This important information will help guide the initial fintech SEO strategy we create, and ensure you’re seeing results in the SERPs as soon as possible.

And while we always work with our clients to learn about their target audience, we keep an open mind as to who else your audience may include. By keeping a close eye on which visitors are converting and how they’re behaving on your site, we can hone the targeting even further to ensure you’re getting the most out of your investment.

Having a solid understanding of your target audience will allow us to not only target the best keywords; it will allow us to tailor all of your content so it’s appealing to the users you’re most interested in engaging. This goes for updating existing pages, as well as creating new ones.

It’s important we always create content that’s compelling and understanding your target audience enables us to do that. And with a subject matter like finance, putting together content around topics users are interested in reading about shouldn’t be a problem.

An integral part of any fintech SEO strategy is content creation whether it’s service pages, product pages or blog posts. If we can understand your customers well enough, we can help you develop content that users actually want to consume.

It’s difficult to compare fintech to other industries because it’s evolving so fast, and it’s still relatively new compared with other industries. The services that fintech companies provide are unlike any other and they require SEO strategies that are just as innovative and unique.

The numbers say there’s only a 25 percent chance your fintech business will survive. So shouldn’t you do everything in your power to make it happen? Partnering with an SEO company that understands the fintech industry inside and out is one step in the right direction.

And at Sure Oak, our high-quality fintech SEO strategies will help you beat your competitors in SERPs, hone in on your target audience and set you up to create high-quality, compelling content.

Contact us today for a free SEO strategy review to learn how we can positively impact your business.