Internal experts are an unmined resource for many finance brands. Promoting your in-house expertise can support your broader SEO strategy – crucial as further evidence shows generative AI is heaping pressure on organic search.
It’s no secret creating content with experts is valuable for financial brands. But too often, the SEO advantage is missed.
A Backlinko study found expert-led content tends to rank higher in search results. Google is increasingly placing importance on credible and relevant content sources when ranking search results.
The search giant’s addition of ‘Experience’ to its ‘E-A-T’ search quality guidelines, plus a number of other author-first introductions last year, are further proof points of the value of incorporating expertise into content.
Building an author’s reputation, authority and credibility may not be a direct ranking factor, but it has an important role to play in SEO best practice.
Competition heats up amid AI
The need for finance marketers to be responsive to changes in SEO is arguably more important than ever. Contentsquare’s 2024 Digital Experience Benchmark Report found brands have suffered slumps in website traffic and engagement across the board.
55% of all sites saw lower traffic, while 58% saw session engagement fall in 2023. Reading through the numbers: there’s fewer eyeballs amid fiercer competition, largely due to search generative AI.
Analysing the impact of your drive to showcase expertise isn’t easy. But the efforts behind it need to become commonplace: it’s an important cornerstone of an always-on SEO strategy, alongside relevant backlinks, high-quality research, and more.
Make author profiles stand out
Speak with your webmaster or agency about creating an author landing page for your internal experts – complete with concise biographies. Each author’s social media presence should be up-to-date, and linked to from their author profiles.
If you already have author pages, look to fill any gaps in existing biographies.
“ All industry qualifications should be spelled out clearly, both on the individual’s author page and across their social media platforms.”
Finder’s author page does this effectively. The same goes for its individual experts.
Audit your experts’ professional social media profiles. It’s okay if your top asset manager isn’t yet active on LinkedIn, X, Link.Tree or other relevant platforms.
But their experience or qualifications need to be up-to-date.
Add profile-building to your strategy
When looking at your overall marketing strategy, build expert-led content into your planning.
Marketing expert Olaf Kopp has identified the SEO wins behind “co-occurrences” of experts (or “authors”) across a range of content formats – such as podcasts, videos and on blogs.
Your content mix should include touch points that underpin your goal of building an expert’s profile.
Expertise can be shared through:
- Thought leadership statements on whitepapers
- Expert quotes in blog posts
- Ghostwritten op-eds
- First-person articles.
Social posts can also be used – carve up longer interviews with bite-sized insights. These would naturally have a home as reels on Tiktok or Instagram. But they could also be shared in a regular newsletter.
Bigger picture, have experts present webinars, masterclasses and other speaking events.
The way experts contribute to compelling content is important too. Make sure they address the real pain points and interests of your audiences.
Support your experts
There are likely barriers to entry when it comes to promoting your in-house experts.
Of course, not everyone will want to be featured, but there are ways around this – be it through training or having the marketing team take ownership of a C-suite’s profile.
The wider goal is to drive greater confidence in your experts, and even simple activities can help support this and ensure quality of content.
This could include:
- Guide to capturing images and tweeting at an event
- Templates to help authors expert articles
- Exercises to help build confidence presenting to camera
- Best practice guidelines for building a top LinkedIn profile
- Guidelines for filming opinion pieces via Zoom or a phone to create a lower-pressure environment.
In addition to the SEO benefits, you can score wider benefits of positive brand perception and more trust from your customers.
Given the increasing impacts of generative AI, a human touch, through the showcasing of experts, is an essential component of your wider digital marketing strategy to drive success.
