How to Improve Website SEO to Drive High-Quality Business Leads

The latest SEO trends your business needs to know about

As you mentioned, the field of search engine optimisation is continually evolving and adapting to changes in technology, search behaviours and algorithm updates. We’ve highlighted some of the latest SEO trends you need to keep track of to ensure you’re taking the right approach to improve your website performance.

Create targeted content based on data

With Google making quality a priority for SEO, reflecting the needs of your target personas in your content is a must. When your website content revolves around your audience’s pain points, you will see better results in both your rankings and conversion rates.

Start by researching your audience and find out their search intent for key queries you’d like to target. Once you’ve gathered enough information, you can create content with a clear purpose to satisfy your target personas’ needs.

Keywords are not everything

Your research should cover more than just the queries you’d like to target. Keywords are essential, but so is the intent – do searchers want to buy, investigate or compare services? Understanding this will help you approach content strategically and outline paths for your visitors to follow.

Keep track of AI and algorithm SEO trends

As a marketer, you’re probably already aware of new technologies entering the digital space at a fast pace. Bear that in mind when putting together your SEO strategy. You’ll need to stay up to date with the latest tech trends. Keep an eye out for things like AI and smart devices that are changing how search engines generate results. Voice search and predictive technology already play a part in search algorithms and their importance will grow.

Create in-depth content

Products and services that are complicated to understand need content that covers more than just the highlights. The Financial Services industry is a great example of this, as it deals with complex concepts that people may not know much about.

To help your visitors navigate complex information, you can break it down into a series of pieces on a certain topic. Once you have all the separate articles, you can create a long-form guide and link to the relevant content you’ve already published.

Using video as a part of your content strategy

Creating video content can help businesses simplify and explain complex ideas. Moreover, it allows marketers to harness the power of YouTube’s very own search engine and reach new audiences. Video is a format that many users actively look for, and video search results have a 41% higher click-through rate (CTR) than text-based results, so it’s one to keep track of among other top SEO trends.

Learn more about video SEO in Wistia’s Guide to Video Marketing.

It's all about quality for Google

Key factors that Google evaluates content by include purpose, quality and detail. While the amount and purpose of content are relatively straightforward, quality may feel subjective. But Google’s content evaluation framework is known as E-A-T (expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness). EAT considers how often the information on a page is updated, who its author is and how qualified they are to offer expertise on a subject.

Additionally, Financial Services companies need to pay extra attention to YMYL (your money, your life) pages. They are pages that can impact financial decisions, so their quality and relevance are a priority for SEO.

Adding structure with pillar pages and topic clusters

Using pillar pages and topic clusters is one of the best ways to add hierarchy to your content and help website visitors follow a distinct path. Pillar pages are long-form content pieces that cover a topic in depth. They link to smaller topic cluster pieces about different aspects of the main topic and help marketers create a powerful internal linking structure. Pillar pages can also help Financial Services companies establish themselves as thought leaders and attract leads through multiple search queries.

Find out more about pillar pages and topic clusters in our blog on the Proven Inbound Marketing Strategies Financial Companies Are Using to Grow.

Website health and optimisation

Website health is a prerequisite for all top SEO strategies. Businesses should ensure their websites are safe, quick and easy to navigate if they want their pages to rank highly.

Mobile optimisation is also a priority - almost half of the web traffic in the UK comes from mobile devices. So, ensure your site content renders well on all devices and screen sizes and delivers a good browsing experience.

Google emphasises the importance of these factors and introduced its Core Web Vitals update to measure them back in 2020. The three key metrics are:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) - measuring loading performance
• First Input Delay (FID) - measuring interactivity
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) - measuring visual stability

Marketers should work with a trusted web development team to ensure your website meets Google’s standards.

Don’t forget about backlinks

Backlinks are an essential part of successful long-term SEO strategies. Having high-authority websites link to you is one of the best ways to climb the rankings. You need to be strategic in planning your outreach strategy. Use email templates you can quickly send to potential backlink opportunities.

The growing influence and impact of backlinks are clear. A sophisticated backlinking strategy can take your SEO efforts to the next level.

Check out our article about the 10 Top SEO Trends FinTech Companies Need to Know About for more SEO industry news and insights.

Some quick-win SEO strategies to boost your performance

SEO is a long-term strategy that needs to be monitored and updated, and it can take months to deliver substantial results. But for all the impatient marketers out there, we have good news. You can implement quick-win strategies to boost performance and start ranking well without waiting months. We’ve highlighted some of the top SEO strategies to help you quickly boost your website SEO below.

Optimise your images and visual content

Images are a vital part of your website and your SEO. If not optimised, they can slow down a website and harm the user experience. As page speed is a ranking factor for Google, you need to ensure all the images on your website are optimised. A few steps to take are resizing large images, serving next-gen formats (WebP, JPEG 2000, JPEG XR), and using a plugin to compress image sizes.

Also, you need to add and optimise filenames and alt text, to incorporate focus keywords and signal to search engines what the image reflects. Apply this to your video content too - there are options to add descriptions, titles and tags, etc. This helps to demonstrate the purpose of the content to crawlers.

Repurpose relevant content

Repurposing your content is a no-brainer. Not only will it save you time and money, but it can help boost your SEO quickly. You can use your blog content to create infographics, videos and even podcasts. Or slice and dice long-form content, like ebook guides, interviews or podcasts, into shorter articles or pieces of content that focus on more specific subtopics.

Another thing to consider is updating older pieces of content with new data and more timely stats, sources and internal links. You should also optimise them for relevant keywords identified in your strategy, where possible.

Add FAQ Schema to pages

FAQ Schema is one of the top SEO trends. It’s a markup you can add to your website’s code on relevant pages. It contains a list of questions and answers, which allow Google to crawl your website and use it as a rich snippet. Many websites can qualify for it without restructuring much of the code, which makes it a great quick win for businesses.

Schema, in general, is a key part of your website’s technical setup. It is structured data that sends signals to search engines about the type of pages on your site. Learn more about Schema and how it works.

Find ‘low-hanging fruit’ keywords

Low-hanging fruit keywords are those that your competitors are already ranking for but for which you could easily create better content and gain an advantage. To find these keywords, research what competitors are ranking for and identify weak points. From there on, all you need to do is create better content based on the insights you’ve gathered.

It may sound too simple but sometimes pages only rank due to a lack of better alternatives. If you create this alternative and do it well, you’ll quickly take over your competitors’ rankings.

Add internal links to new and existing content and pages

Internal linking is becoming one of the most important ranking factors for website SEO. It allows Google to crawl pages quicker and understand your page hierarchy and navigational flow. Additionally, by using internal links from high-ranking pages, you can boost the ranking of new pages - transferring the link juice. Another key benefit is that it keeps users on your website longer and can lead them down specific paths, meaning a lower bounce rate and greater opportunities for conversions.

How Inbound FinTech can help you to improve website SEO

If you’re looking into how to improve your website SEO, the best way to achieve results is to find an agency with proven expertise in your industry. At Inbound FinTech, we’ve worked with a wide range of Financial Services clients to help them increase their organic traffic and drive high-quality leads.

With the help of our experienced SEO experts, you can discover how well your website is performing and fix any issues that may be setting you back. Moreover, various services will help you climb the rankings and attract your target audience to your website content, across the buyer’s journey.

Here are just some of the search engine optimisation services we offer:

• Comprehensive SEO audits
• SEO gap analysis
• In-depth technical SEO reports
• SEO best practice recommendations
• Quick-win SEO strategies
• Technical SEO fixes/improvements
• Keyword research & website optimisation plan
• SEO roadmap for inbound marketing campaigns
• Ongoing SEO support
• Outreach & backlink strategy
• SEO monitoring tools and support
• Topic cluster and pillar pages development and implementation
• Monthly SEO ranking reports

Explore our SEO services and how Inbound FinTech can help transform your website performance.