SEO and financial content marketing practices are constantly changing, with one of the most recent changes being Google’s emphasis on the E-A-T, or Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness content score. We look at how Google’s E-A-T content score opens up opportunities for financial services brands to show off and truly stand out.
Show expertise via financial content marketing
Positioning your finance brand as an expert isn’t something that can be done with a single piece of content. It’s achieved through the creation of consistent content that demonstrates the brand’s depth of knowledge and original thought, backed by the weight of internal experts, analysis and custom research.
At risk of being a Jack of all trades, master of none, finance brands need to identify the areas of expertise they want to own and channel content and distribution to these areas. Not simply a case of identifying the areas that are relevant for the brand, the areas of expertise your brand chooses to pursue should align with what’s of most interest to your target audience.
At risk of being a Jack of all trades, master of none, finance brands need to identify the areas of expertise they want to own and channel content and distribution to these areas.
One of the best ways to identify the topics of greatest relevance to your audience is to conduct keyword research using the Google Keyword Planner or other similar tools. You want to find “long tail” keywords that are getting traffic but aren’t as competitive as one or two-word phrases. Optimising your well-written content with these keywords will help it rank on the first page of Google.
When researching trending topics your audience needs assistance with, consider their needs at different times of the year or at different life stages.
Authority through financial content marketing
What is the difference between an expert and an authority? An expert is someone who is knowledgeable in a field, but an authority is recommended by other experts in the same field.
The next best step for your financial content marketing strategy is to get links from other experts in your field. Obtaining these links will improve your credibility from Google’s standpoint, which will lead to higher rankings and traffic.
Some great ways to become an authority are to write guest posts on other relevant experts’ sites such as industry publications, as these links will point back to your site. This is commonly referred to as a “backlink” and you can use Moz’s free SEO tool, or MozBar, to see the domain authority (DA) of each site on Google.
Turn on SERP overlay and it will show you the backlinks and redirects of each website as you browse.
Gain trust with financial marketing
Trust is extremely important when it comes to financial services marketing. One great way to build trust is to ensure your institution is or has gone through a digital transformation. Having a website with a good design and user experience (UX) will show your firm is serious about providing the best financial services in a way that’s efficient and clear for customers to understand.
Another easy way to gain trust with financial marketing is to produce regular white papers that show off your expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. White papers can provide great opportunities for customers to learn about your services in a clear and concise way, positioning your brand as a thought leader in the industry.
Want to learn more about how you can build authority through effective financial content marketing? Get in touch.
Related articles
- What Google’s BERT update means for finance marketers
- Another reason why finance brands should produce podcasts
- What Google’s new search feature means for finance marketers
Image: DreamWorks Animation
