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.

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.

The post The SEO benefits of showcasing your in-house experts appeared first on Financial Marketer.

The importance of SEO

In today’s fast-paced digital world, SEO is more than just a trendy buzzword—it’s a critical component for any finance brand looking to stand out in the competitive online landscape. According to research by First Page Sage the number one SEO agency in the USA, after 3 years of effective SEO, financial services can expect to see a 1031% ROI.

So, why is SEO crucial for financial marketers? Let’s explain.

• Enhancing visibility – By incorporating relevant keywords, excellent content, and solid backlinks into your SEO plan, you raise your chances of ranking well in search engine results. You can draw potential customers’ attention by increasing your visibility to people looking for financial services.
  Build trust and credibility – An effective SEO strategy can help you establish and enhance clients’ trust by improving your online reputation. Potential customers view your finance brand as credible and reliable when your website consistently ranks in the top search results.
• Improve traffic and leads – SEO acts as a magnet, attracting visitors who are actively seeking financial information or solutions. By strengthening your SEO strategy you can draw in a targeted audience more likely to convert into clients or leads.
• Expand market reach – SEO opens doors to a wider audience, allowing your finance brand to expand its reach beyond geographical limitations. By targeting specific keywords and incorporating local SEO techniques, you can tap into regional markets and reach potential clients who are searching for financial solutions in their area.
• Increase brand awareness – By staying up-to-date with the latest SEO best practices, algorithm updates, and user preferences, you can adapt your online presence to meet evolving client expectations. This agility ensures your finance brand remains relevant, competitive, and visible amidst the ever-changing tides of the digital world.

What not to do

Not repurposing content

Your finance brand’s overall marketing strategy may suffer if you ignore the importance of content repurposing in the world of search engine optimisation. In addition to limiting your audience, failing to reuse content reduces your chances of achieving higher search engine ranks.

By transforming current content into new formats, such as infographics, videos, or podcasts, you can give it new life while taking into account the preferences and platforms of a variety of audiences. By repurposing material, you raise awareness of it, draw in new audiences, and promote engagement across media. Repurposing material can also result in beneficial backlinks, social media shares, and an increase in website traffic, all of which help to establish a stronger SEO presence.

Over-optimising your keyword strategy

Despite the fact that keywords are essential to a successful SEO strategy for finance brands, it’s necessary to prevent over-optimisation. It might be detrimental to your search engine optimisation strategy to overstuff your website with keywords or to target the same ones repeatedly.

The ability of search engines to identify genuine and valuable material has grown, and they now penalise websites that use keyword stuffing or other unnatural keyword usages. Instead, concentrate on producing engaging and informative content with important keywords woven throughout. Finding the appropriate mix will help you increase website visibility, boost user experience, and achieve long-term SEO success.

Not creating a mobile-friendly website

In an increasingly mobile-oriented world (in 2021, there were 7.1 billion mobile users), failing to optimise your finance brand’s website for mobile devices is a grave oversight. In fact, Adobe’s 2021 Digital Trends: Financial Services & Insurance in Focus report found 54% of financial services and insurance firms surveyed had reported unusual growth in mobile visitors in the six months prior to the survey. At the end of the day, search engines penalise websites that provide a poor mobile experience.

To ensure a smooth user experience across all devices, your finance brand must prioritise responsive design, fast loading times, and intuitive navigation. By embracing mobile optimisation, brands can maintain their relevance and navigate the SEO landscape more effectively.

Improving your SEO strategy

To thrive in the competitive digital landscape, your finance brand must learn from common mistakes and implement effective SEO strategies. By avoiding these pitfalls, your brand can enhance its search engine rankings, increase online visibility, and strengthen its digital presence.

Your financial brand may maximise the effectiveness of its online marketing initiatives and find lasting success in connecting with its target market by using a strategic approach to SEO.

The post The SEO strategies holding your finance brand back appeared first on Financial Marketer.

The nuts and bolts of SEO for finance brands

Put simply, search engine optimisation, or SEO, is about getting your finance brand to appear at the top of search engine results. Ranking on the first page is critical to generating meaningful leads, with the first five results of searches accounting for 67.06% of all clicks.

While paid advertising has a time limit, SEO doesn’t. Improving your search engine optimisation strategy can ensure your finance brand continues to generate leads, build brand awareness and strengthen your credibility for years to come. This strategy is known as evergreen content, as it’s timeless and will capture the attention of interested consumers even once your paid advertising is over.

Improving your SEO strategy is simple

Improving your SEO strategy may seem daunting, but it can be as easy as:

• Repurposing old content to maintain the top spot in search engine rankings, by updating the information to keep it fresh and relevant
• Producing high-quality and informative research
• Gaining backlinks
• Creating an always-on content marketing strategy that aligns to target audience search queries

By applying these four key strategies, combined with utilising keywords and phrases, your search engine optimisation strategy can be improved significantly.

Still don’t believe the importance of search engine optimisation? Here are some key statistics to highlight just how game-changing SEO can be for your finance brand.

The post Benefits of SEO for finance brands appeared first on Financial Marketer.

Everything you need to know about Google MUM

Powered by AI technology, MUM is here to help users with complex search queries. Today, users have to provide thoughtful search queries to find the right answers. For example, a user looking into investing for the first time will have to individually search each question like ‘the difference between ETFs and a mutual fund’ and ‘the best asset manager in the UK’. In real life, a person looking into investing could ask an expert ‘what do I need to know as a first-time investor?’ and be provided with a thoughtful and illuminating response that takes every question into account. This is what Google MUM is recreating.

The entire premise is Google wants it to take less time and effort for users to get the answers they need. Using the T5 text-to-text framework, MUM is trained across 75 different languages and tasks enabling it to provide a more comprehensive understanding of information and global knowledge. To add to this, it’s also multimodal, meaning it can understand the information in images, with the aim of it being to also understand audio and videos too.

But what does this mean?

While it’s a complex technology to understand unless you’re a tech guru, there are a number of things MUM will change in regard to search engine mechanics. Now, Google will be able to provide more accurate and complex answers to your questions by identifying keywords. In the above example, Google MUM will identify the words ‘ first-time investor’ and understand the many different questions somebody like that will have and provide a pool of answers.

Secondly, MUM will have access to even more information with the ability to translate over 75 languages. This means if there’s key information about investing written in German, Google will provide this as an answer to an English-based query.

At the heart of it, Google’s new update will be able to better understand language to provide clearer results to more complex search queries.

What does this mean for your financial marketing strategy?

The good news is Google MUM won’t mean you have to suddenly reinvent your marketing strategy. However, there are some important things to note:

• There will be less reliance on written information – Which means your finance brand should expand its content strategy to include images, videos, and audio. Taking a multimodal approach to your content strategy will be vital to remain relevant and competitive.
• More competition for search engine rankings – It will be more important than ever to develop and strengthen your SEO as well as provide valuable content across your website.
• Must keep end-users at the forefront of content – As MUM is set to benefit the end-users search results, to continue to appear high on search engine rankings your content needs to be designed with them in mind. As exact responses are beginning to be scrapped in favour of users’ intent, it’s important your content reflects this shift.

At the end of the day, your finance brand will remain competitive after MUM launches if you continue to provide value-driven content. With no date in sight for MUM’s launch as of now, there’s no time like the present to begin creating exceptional, multimodal content that will give you a competitive edge in the future.

The post Make way for Google MUM appeared first on Financial Marketer.

The hub and spoke model

Like the name suggests, if you take a look at the diagram below a hub and spoke model looks similar to a bike wheel. On your website, you will have the main page (the hub) with branching sections that relate to sub-topics (the spokes). This method can help you rank higher in the search engine results as you aren’t trying to rank individual pages with keywords. Instead, you have a central hub that can improve your relevance and authority on a variety of different financial topics.

At the core of it, a hub and spoke content model targets an entire topic rather than just individual keywords. This not only benefits your SEO strategy but also your target audience as they gain more enriching content helping to strengthen customer and brand relationships and brand perception. Here are three more ways a hub and spoke model can benefit your finance brand:

• It offers a better site structure and UX design that’s intuitive and easy to use
• It ensures you cover a topic extensively enabling your finance brand to be seen as an authority
• It can enable your brand to generate more backlinks and nurture meaningful leads

How to approach a hub and spoke SEO model

You don’t need to redo all of your content on your website to create a hub and spoke model strategy. Instead, you need to create pathways that diverge from your hub page. This will look different for every finance brand.

Once you decide what your hub topic will be, let’s say investing, for example, you then need to plan out your spokes. If your main topic has less than 10 sub-topics it’s recommended you find a more comprehensive content idea.

So, your main page is about investing. Here you will explain investing generally and within your page have links to other content on your site which explains sub-topics such as asset classes, responsible investing and asset allocation.

In this example, your page on investing will live at the domain level, so it may read similar to this www.thefinancialmarketer.com/investing. Your sub-topics will branch off of this, helping with SEO, and may read like, www.thefinancialmarketer.com/investing/ETFs.

Structuring your SEO around a clear goal

To decide how to scope out your hub and spoke model it’s important you decide what the aim of your website is. Ask yourself:

• Am I looking to collate new leads? – If this is your finance brand you may instead give the important information about a topic before redirecting them to purchasing.
• Am I aiming to become an authoritative voice in this area? – If this is your finance brand then creating more dense and sophisticated content will benefit you.
• Am I aiming to improve brand awareness and image? – If this is your finance brand then you may look to inform your audience about what they need to know while proving how you can help them.

NerdWallet nailing the hub and spoke model

A hub and spoke model can sometimes be tricky to visualise. To demonstrate just how significant the SEO benefits are, we take a look at NerdWallet.

NerdWallet utilises subfolders as a part of their site architecture which helps create keyword rich URLs and web pages. This strengthens their SEO strategy and sees them rank number 1 across a range of finance topics. As an example, NerdWallet’s credit card hub is split into a variety of spokes such as ‘best credit cards for 2021’ which they rank on the first page of google for.

Their UX design aids their site architecture as it’s easy to use, offers a basic summary at the forefront for users, and creates meaningful lead pathways to purchase products. While it’s important your finance brand is on the first page of Google if your website then doesn’t support the user and direct them to purchase it becomes futile.

NerdWallet’s engagement speaks for how successful a hub and spoke model is for SEO and ranking on the first page, achieving 22.03 million visitors a month, 86.81% of which came from search engine results.

What you can do to strengthen your SEO

While your finance brand web design may not look the exact same as NerdWallet, what you need to identify are key topics you can become an authority on. These should align with your target audience and reflect your content marketing goals. While the content you produce may be high quality and keyword dense, you still may not be maximising it through a traditional web page structure. A hub and spoke model can amplify your SEO marketing strategy and ensure you generate meaningful leads that can be nurtured into loyal and trusting customers.

The post NerdWallet: Nailing SEO for finance brands appeared first on Financial Marketer.

While there are actually hundreds of different search engines and directories accessible on the internet, Google dominates with more than 90% of market share in almost all countries (China excepted). 

While Google’s decision to stay is probably a good result for Australian consumers and businesses, it raises concerns for content marketers globally who have been solely focused on optimising their content for Google search with nary a thought to the other search engines.

So, is Bing a worthy contender? And if so, what do financial content marketers need to do to ensure their content performs well on the search engine?

Putting Google and Bing in the ring

From the end user’s perspective, both Google and Bing present nearly all of the same features and search functionality bar a few exceptions. 

However, as financial content marketers it’s the content ranking systems that really matter. Understanding how a search engine ranks its listings is crucial for any content marketer if they want to ensure their business’ brand, products and services are visible. 

Google has always been notorious for being a closed book about its search algorithms, and a whole industry has sprung up trying to decipher exactly how Google search works. To make things harder, Google’s algorithms are constantly updated and so trying to understand them and take advantage of that knowledge is a constantly moving target. We’ve already started preparing for Google’s page experience update scheduled for some time in 2021. 

While we won’t go down the rabbit hole of unpacking Google’s algorithms here – it’s something we cover regularly on the Financial Marketer – in short, the way it works is that a number of algorithms are using multiple criteria to determine the appropriate search ranking for any particular piece of information or content on the internet. 

Some of the more important ranking criteria include:

• The keywords/phrases used in the search engine query
• The relevancy of content to the query
• The authority of the source of the information
• The geographic location of the source of the information

So, how does Bing do it? And what are the key differences that can help financial marketers drive relevant traffic to their content?

Well, for a start, Bing is much more open about how the search engine works, even publishing technical explanations for those wanting to get stuck into the complexities.

Where the differences lie

While there are a lot of similarities, some of the key differences between Google and Bing that content marketers should be aware of are:

• Bing pays more attention to on-page SEO and so things like H1 tags and title tags which have been becoming less important on Google are still important on Bing. 
• Bing does use user click signals (for example CTR – click through rate) as a ranking factor which is something Google has denied many times over the years (although some people suspect it may still be the case).
• Bing favours backlinks from older domains with official domain suffixes like .gov or .edu over newer or even commercial websites which is not necessarily the case with Google.
• Bing favours content with positive social signals such as shares, likes, tweets etc to a more direct and greater extent than does Google.

How to SEO optimise for Google and Bing

So what do these differences mean in terms of the actions financial marketers can take to optimise content for both Google and Bing?

The first thing that stands out is that if a brand ranks well on Bing it will probably do well on Google also, but not necessarily vice-versa. It makes sense to include Bing differences into our SEO plans, and if we do we kill 2 birds with one stone.

While some content marketers have paid less attention to on-page SEO optimisation as it has been thought that Google’s AI is smart enough to interpret content without rigorous page labelling and titling using well researched keywords, maintaining these practices would ensure that both Google and Bing understand exactly what your content is about.

Content that attracts high click-through-rates (CTR) and ongoing engagement across a website is something all marketers strive for. Also significant both to Google and Bing, financial marketers should pay attention to call to actions and clear copy that helps encourage a deeper user journey. 

Having authoritative backlinks from respected and reputable channels such as .gov or .edu domains is positive on a number of levels. Google isn’t going to penalise brands for not having them and Bing will reward you, so it makes sense to include these in your PR outreach strategy. 

And lastly, if your content is good enough and popular enough to be shared, liked and commented on across social channels, this ticks one of the high priority boxes as a financial content marketer. Finance brands should always be aiming to produce content that resonates and hits the mark with their target audience, and if you are hitting it, Bing rewards you for it.

While Google certainly still rules the roost, putting some time and thought into what matters to Bing will only further elevate your finance brand’s content marketing. At The Dubs, we understand the ever-changing minefield of SEO and employ best practice to ensure your content gets found, get in touch. 

To find out how your website SEO is performing, use our free SEO website audit tool.

The post Is Bing a worthy contender for Google search? appeared first on Financial Marketer.

Quick and dirty mass link acquisition

Link acquisition has always been, and continues to be vital to SEO success. Backlinks are a recognised Google ranking factor, and in the wake of algorithm updates such as the Penguin update, ranking correlates more closely with quality rather than quantity. High volume links such as mass directory submissions may seem like a quick way to bolster link numbers, but they will at best make little impact on your rankings, and at worst, actually negatively impact them. There’s no such thing as a quick fix when it comes to building up your link profile, the hard truth is they must be earned and this will take time and effort.

Not linking to other websites

The drive to acquire strong backlinks has led to confusion around whether sites should link to external sources or related content from within their own content. There is a concern that you are either diluting the authority of your page by linking out, or potentially passing on authority to competitors or related pages that may rank over you. In fact, not linking out to other sites is more likely to negatively impact your ranking than linking to them. Google’s own John Mueller explained the value of external linking in an Ask Google Webmasters video, “Linking to other websites is a great way to provide value to your users. Often, links help users to find out more, to check out your sources and to better understand how your content is relevant to the questions that they have.”

Sites that have no external links appear unnatural to the algorithm, which recognises that external linking is a natural part of writing great, useful content. 

An over-optimised keyword strategy

SEO is traditionally associated with targeting exactly the right keywords in order to rank for a specific term. While keyword research is still a key part of your content process, targeting one specific keyword per page is unlikely to yield high traffic results. With the advent of machine-learning like Rankbrain within the algorithm, Google is now able to take into account user intent as part of the query and this means queries are spread across a broader range of relevant keywords and phrases. Instead, consider including synonyms and medium to long-tail keywords as part of your keyword research, diversifying your content targeting and ensuring your content is of increased relevance to the user.

Tunnel vision for a number one ranking

The quest for the elusive number one position may no longer yield the best traffic results. The SERPs are so varied, potentially including a host of different results including, but not limited to: the Knowledge Panel, Google Ads, Featured Snippets, Maps, Video and Image results for any given search term. This makes it difficult to narrow down exactly what ‘number one position’ actually means for your brand. A number one organic result could get less clicks than a number two result that stands out within the featured snippets. Combine this with the number of long-tail keyphrases and there’s a lot of traffic to be won without gaining the number one position. Rather than focusing solely on rank tracking and positions, consider looking at impressions and click-through rate data to gauge your success; all of which is readily available in Google Search Console. 

Optimising for search engines

What each of these SEO practices has in common is that they put the search engine before the user, making them outdated and ineffective in the eyes of Google. Google’s regular updates combined with the search engine’s increased use of machine learning over the past few years have marked a shift designed to better emulate and understand user intent. 

To make best use of time, financial marketers should review the SEO practices they’re employing – from keyword research through to link acquisition – and take the approach of out with the old, in with the new. For help developing an effective SEO strategy that puts your audience, not a search engine first, get in touch.

To find out how your website SEO is performing, use our free SEO website audit tool.

The post 5 SEO practices that aren’t worth your time appeared first on Financial Marketer.

With 2021 set to bring even more SEO changes and trends, we look at how financial marketers can adapt their SEO strategy to stay ahead of the competition. 

Put users at the centre of your SEO strategy

Google’s algorithm updates have increasingly focused on user experience (e.g. the BERT update) and this trend looks set to continue in 2021 with greater emphasis on site performance, and higher prominence given to Featured Snippets in the SERPs. This year more than ever, financial marketers should be putting the user at the centre of their SEO strategy and this means a shift in how you approach your SEO planning. As Google’s technology continues to evolve, SEO is becoming less about traditional keyword density or metadata implementation and is instead taking a more macro overview that includes search intent, site speed and performance, mobile-friendliness and UX. 

With Google’s user-centric Page Experience algorithm update finally rolling out in May this year, there’s never been a more important time to look at your site as a whole from the user’s perspective. A great place to start is directly within the search results pages – review the queries you want to rank for, what the SERP looks like, what brands are ranking and in what type of result (e.g. Featured Snippet, Knowledge Graph, Video, Voice) then consider the content you’re producing. Where does your content sit within this ecosystem, and how does it satisfy the user’s intent? Integrate this data into your content and SEO strategy from the beginning.

Your content will set you apart

With the focus squarely on user experience, your finance brands’ ability to provide informative, authoritative and trustworthy content has never been more important for SEO success. E-A-T (Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness) and YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) are part of the Google Seach Quality Rater Guidelines and give an insight into the type of content that Google may consider of higher value.  

These concepts are particularly important as some finance brands’ content may be considered YMYL content by Google, described in their guidelines as: “Some types of pages or topics could potentially impact a person’s future happiness, health, financial stability, or safety. We call such pages “Your Money or Your Life” pages, or YMYL.”

Although not actually a direct ranking factor, understanding and considering E-A-T and YMYL within your content strategy could lead to SEO gains. Essentially, Google may review pages with YMYL content in greater detail to determine whether the content provided is written by a trusted expert in their field. YMYL pages that have a low E-A-T score are highly unlikely to rank. Clear author bios, referenced sources and verifiable factual content are all important considerations for ranking finance content. This is also a great opportunity to review your existing content and see what you can improve or fix. 

Get comfortable with technical SEO

Google’s roll out of regular Core Updates is unlikely to slow in 2021. Financial marketers  should expect more smaller unofficial algorithm tweaks and larger official core updates, in addition to the big Page Experience update. Getting comfortable with the more technical aspects of SEO, even at a basic level, will be hugely beneficial for financial marketers and can be a great way to work closely with broader product and development teams. Some useful tools and explanations to start with include:

• Mobile-friendliness (mobile-first indexing will be rolled out to ALL sites from March 2021)
• Site speed (Core Web Vitals ready for the Page Experience update in May)
• Structured data (great to better understand how and why your results appear the way they do in the SERPs)

SEO in 2021 will continue to evolve and adapt rapidly to technological advances. To kick off the year in the best place you can, ensure you’re keeping the user at the heart of your financial content and SEO strategy, and aim to combine this with strong technical foundations.

Best-practice SEO is at the core of what we do. If you need helping shaping your SEO strategy for the year ahead, get in touch.  

To find out how your website SEO is performing, use our free SEO website audit tool.

The post Setting your finance brand’s SEO strategy for 2021 appeared first on Financial Marketer.

The technical side of SEO can seem daunting, but a few tweaks in the right area can make all the difference to the visibility of your content. It’s not enough to write great content, search engines need to be able to easily find it. Here we break down some simple steps to stay ahead of technical SEO.

It’s not enough to write great content, search engines need to be able to easily find it.

1. Check your speed

A topic that you’ll never hear the end of – the page load speed of your site can have a huge impact on whether or not search engines will see your content. It’s also a confirmed ranking factor in the Google algorithm. Use the Google PageSpeed Insights tool to see how your site compares and what you can do to improve it.

2. Get to know robots directives

Accidental blocking of crawlers through misuse of robots directives is a common issue that is often simple to fix. Look out for:

• Nofollow and noindex robots tags – These html tags can be added to specific pages to either tell search engines not to include them in search results (noindex) or not to follow links to the page (nofollow). These directives are generally used on larger sites to limit time spent on pages that are not beneficial to the reader, but can also accidentally cause the removal of vital pages from the index if used incorrectly.
• X-Robots tag – Similar to the standard tags above, the x-robots tag works on the same principle but can be used with greater flexibility to control a page as a whole or through specific elements.
• Robots.txt file – Predominately used to tell Google when not to crawl a page, the tags and implementation are similar but are implemented at a folder level as opposed to a page level. Go to www.yoursite.com/robots.txt to review yours and use the Robots.txt tester tool in your Search Console (only available in the old version).

For more on this topic, you can find great resources on which to use and how to implement the right tags over at Yoast and Moz.

3. Understand your response codes

It’s important to not only find the page errors on your site but also understand what these errors mean in order to fix them correctly. Use your search console to uncover crucial site errors that could be affecting your ranking potential. Some of the most common ones include:

• 4xx: Client errors – e.g. 404 – The page is not found and the error is on the website’s side. Often due to content being moved or a URL being updated without the correct redirect being implemented.
• 5xx – e.g. 503 – service unavailable – This can be caused by too many people trying to access a site or maintenance. This means there is a server issue which is preventing access to the site and needs emergency review.
• 3xx – e.g 301 – the page has been redirected permanently. This is the correct redirect that should be used in the majority of cases as opposed to a 302, which suggests the page has only been moved temporarily and won’t pass the link authority to the new page. It’s also good to check whether the crawlers are being sent through multiple redirects before reaching their final destination, as this will have a negative impact on ranking. Try using a simple tool like Redirect Path to check this.

4. Don’t be browser blind

Chrome is currently the most popular desktop browser, owning close to 80% of the market. Safari also remains huge thanks to the iPhone dominance in key markets. But what of other often forgotten browsers like Firefox or Internet Explorer? It’s easy to assume they’re less important due to their smaller percentage of users, but failing to ensure your content renders correctly in ALL browsers is a quick way to lose vital customers. Ensure you check your site across all browsers and device types to optimise your traffic potential.

5. Crawl crawl crawl

Many of the above checks can be quickly and easily undertaken using a crawler tool. There are a range of options, from the relatively inexpensive Screaming Frog to more in-depth tools that are great for larger sites such as Deepcrawl. Or you can even trial some of the all-in-one SEO tools out there to give a quick overview of your technical SEO.

Related articles

• 7 SEO best practice tips for finance marketers
• The SEO tools every finance marketer needs
• SEO trends to watch in 2019

The post Where to start with technical SEO appeared first on Financial Marketer.