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Dans le thème par défaut spipeo de MédiaSPIP, les actualités sont affichées en bas de la page principale sous les éditoriaux.
Vous pouvez personnaliser le formulaire de création d’une actualité.
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Revision 30148 : On pousse encore un peu plus loin la conf (toujours pas utilisable dans ...
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SEO for Financial Services : The Ultimate Guide
26 juin 2024, par ErinYou know that having a digital marketing strategy is crucial for helping your financial services business capture the attention and trust of potential customers and thrive in an increasingly competitive digital landscape.
The question is — what’s the best way to go about improving your ranking in SERPs and driving organic traffic to your website ?
That’s where SEO strategies for financial services come into play.
This article will cover everything your company needs to know about SEO for financial services — from the unique challenges you’ll face to the proven tips and strategies you can implement to boost your ranking in SERPs.
What is SEO for financial services ?
SEO — short for search engine optimisation — refers to optimising your content and website for search engines, particularly Google.
The main goal of an SEO strategy is to make your site search-engine-friendly, show that you’re a trusted source and increase the likelihood of appearing in SERPs when potential customers look up relevant keywords — ultimately driving organic visibility and traffic.
Now, when it comes to evaluating the success of your financial services SEO strategy, there are certain key performance indicators (KPIs) you should keep track of — including :
- SEO ranking, or the position your web pages show up in SERPs for specific search terms (the terms and phrases identified during keyword research)
- SEO Score, which shows a website’s overall SEO health and indicates how well it will rank in SERPs
- Impressions, or the number of times users saw your pages when they looked up relevant search terms
- Organic traffic, or the number of people that visit your website via search engines
- Engagement metrics, such as time on page, pages per session, and bounce rate
- Conversion rates from website traffic, including both “hard” conversions (lead generation and purchases) and “soft” conversions (such as newsletter subscriptions)
It’s important to note that the financial services industry is incredibly competitive — especially given the large-scale digital transformations in the financial sector and the rise of fintech companies.
According to a 2022 report, the global market for financial services was valued at $25.51 trillion. Moreover, it’s expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 9.7%, reaching $58.69 trillion by 2031.
Importance and challenges of financial services SEO
The financial services industry is changing rapidly, mainly driven by globalisation, innovation, shifting economies, and compliance risks. It’s crucial for financial service companies to develop effective SEO strategies that align with the opportunities and challenges unique to this sector.
Certain benefits of a well-executed SEO strategy, namely, better search engine rankings, driving more search traffic, delivering a better user experience, and maximising ROI and promoting business growth, are “universal.”
Financial services SEO efforts can provide a number of benefits. It can help you :
- Improve lead generation and customer acquisition ; the more search traffic you get, the higher the chances of converting visitors into potential clients
- Build a strong online presence and brand awareness, which comes as a result of increased visibility in organic search results and reaching a wider audience
- Increase your credibility and authority within the industry, primarily through high-quality content that shows your expertise and backlinks from authoritative websites
- Gain a competitive edge by analysing and outranking your main competitors
That said, financial services companies face some unique challenges :
High competition : The digital arena for financial services is highly competitive, with numerous companies vying for the same business.
YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) content : Google’s YMYL framework places higher scrutiny on financial content, demanding higher standards for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. We’ll cover this topic in greater detail shortly.
Regulatory changes and compliance : The financial services sector is characterised by constant regulatory changes and new compliance requirements that businesses must navigate. Sometimes this makes it difficult to gather insights and market to your audience.
As a privacy-fist, compliant web analytics solution Matomo can provide valuable insights to support your SEO efforts. Matomo ensures compliance with privacy laws — including GDPR, CCPA and more — and provides 20-40% more comprehensive data than Google Analytics.
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8 proven strategies for implementing SEO for financial services
SEO for financial services involves a wide range of strategies — including keyword optimisation, technical SEO, content marketing, link building and other off-page SEO activities — that can help your website rank higher in SERPs.
Of course, it’s not just about better search rankings. It’s about attracting the right search traffic to your website — potential clients interested in your financial services.
Here are some proven financial services SEO strategies you should implement :
1. Build trust and topical authority
Financial services content typically covers more complex topics that could impact the reader’s financial stability and well-being — or, as Google calls them, “Your Money or Your Life” topics (YMYL). As such, it’s subject to much stricter quality standards.
To improve your YMYL content, you’ll need to apply the E-E-A-T framework — short for “Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trust”.
This is a key part of Google’s search rater guidelines for evaluating a website’s quality and credibility.
The E-E-A-T standards become even more relevant to financial topics such as investment strategies, financial advice, taxes, and retirement planning.
In that sense, the overarching goal of your content strategy should be to build customer trust by demonstrating real expertise and topical authority through in-depth educational content.
2. Earn reputable external links through link-building
You also need to monitor your off-page SEO—factors outside your website that can’t be directly controlled but can still build trust and contribute to better ranking in SERPs.
These include everything from social media engagement and unlinked brand mentions in blog posts, news articles, user reviews and social media discussions — to inbound links from other reputable websites in the finance industry.
That brings us to high-quality backlinks as a significant factor for YMYL content that can improve your financial services website’s SEO performance :
Earning external links can improve your domain authority and reinforce your brand’s position as a reliable source in the financial services niche — which, in turn, can contribute to better search engine rankings and drive more website traffic.
Here are a few link-building strategies you can try :
- Use tools like Ahrefs and Semrush to look for reputable websites and then request for them to link to your site
- Demonstrate your expertise and get backlinks from reputable media outlets through Help a Reporter Out (HARO)
- Reach out to authoritative websites that mention your company without linking to you directly and ask them to include a link to your websit
3. Conduct an SEO audit
An SEO audit is a key step in developing and implementing a successful financial SEO strategy. It sets the foundation for all your future efforts — and allows you to measure progress further down the line.
You’ll need to perform a comprehensive SEO audit, covering both the existing content and technical aspects of your website — including :
- Indexing issues
- Internal linking and site architecture
- Duplicate content
- Backlink profile
- Broken links
- Page titles and metadata
It’s possible to do this manually, third-party tools will allow you to dig deeper and speed up the process. Ahrefs and Screaming Frog — to name a few — can help you evaluate your website’s overall health and structure. And, with a web analytics platform like Matomo you can easily measure the success of your SEO efforts.
But this shouldn’t be a one-time thing ; be sure to perform audits regularly — ideally every six months.
4. Understand your target audience
You can’t create helpful content without learning about your customers’ needs, pain points and preferences.
For example, a financial service provider focusing on individuals nearing retirement would prioritise content that educates on retirement planning strategies, investment options for seniors, and tax-efficient withdrawal strategies, aiming to guide clients through the transition from saving to managing retirement funds effectively.
In contrast, a provider targeting small business owners would emphasise content related to small business loans, funding options, and financial management advice tailored to entrepreneurs seeking to expand their businesses and navigate financial challenges effectively.
So, before you dive into keyword research and content creation, ensure you have a deep understanding of your target audience.
Identifying different audience categories and developing detailed customer personas for each segment is crucial for creating content that resonates with them and aligns with their search intent.
Matomo’s Segmentation tool can be of huge help here. It allows you to divide your audience into smaller groups based on factors like demographics and website interactions :
In addition to that, you can :
- Engage with your frontline teams that interact directly with clients to gain deeper insights into prospects’ needs and concerns
- Track social media channels and other online discussions related to the financial world and your audience
- Gather qualitative insights from your site visitors through the Matomo Surveys plugin (questions like “What financial services are you most interested in ?” or “Are there any specific financial topics you would like us to cover in more detail ?” will help you understand your visitors better)
- Watch out for financial trends and developments that could directly impact your audience’s needs and preferences
5. Identify new opportunities through keyword research
Comprehensive keyword research can help you identify key search terms — specific phrases that potential customers may use when looking up things related to their finances.
It’s best to start with a brainstorming session and assemble a list of relevant topics and core keywords. Once you have an initial list, use tools like Ahrefs and Semrush to get more keyword ideas based on your seed keywords, including :
- More specific long-tail keywords — and often less competitive — indicate a clearer intent to convert. For example :
- “low-risk investment options for retirees”
- “financial planning for freelancers”
- “small business loan requirements”
- Keywords that your competitors already rank for. For instance :
- If a competing investment firm ranks for “best investment strategies for beginners,” targeting similar keywords can attract novice investors.
- A competitor’s high ranking for “life insurance quotes online” suggests potential to optimise your own content around similar terms.
- Location-specific keywords (if you have physical store locations)
Google Search Console can provide information about the search terms you’re already ranking for — including underperforming content that may benefit from further optimisation. If you want deeper SEO insights, you can import your search keywords into Matomo.
While you’re at it, try Matomo’s Site Search feature, too. It will show you the exact terms and phrases visitors enter when using your website’s search bar — and you can use that information to find more content opportunities.
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Of course, not all keywords are equal — and it would be impossible to target them all. Instead, prioritise keywords based on two factors :
- Search volume, which indicates the “popularity” of a particular query
- Keyword difficulty, which indicates how hard it’ll be to rank for a specific term, depending on domain authority, search volume and competition
6. Find your main organic competitors
Besides performing an SEO audit, finding your core keywords, and researching your target market, competitor analysis is another crucial aspect of SEO for finance companies.
Before you start, it’s important to differentiate between your main organic search competitors and your direct industry competitors :
You’ll always have direct competitors — other financial services brands offering similar products and services and targeting the same audience as you.
However, regarding search results, your financial services business won’t be in a “bubble” specifically reserved for the financial industry. Depending on the specific search queries — and the search intent behind them — SERPs could feature a wider range of online content, from niche finance blogs to news websites, and huge financial publications.
Even if another company doesn’t offer the same services, they’re an organic competitor if you’re both ranking for the same keywords.
Once you determine who your main organic competitors are, you can analyse their websites to :
- Check how they’re getting search traffic
- See which types of content they’re publishing
- Find and fill in any potential content gaps
- Assess the quality of their backlink profile
- See if they currently have any featured snippets
7. Consider local SEO
According to a 2023 survey, 21% of US-based consumers report using the internet to look up local businesses daily, while another 32% do so multiple times a week.
Local SEO is worth investing in as a financial service provider, especially with physical locations. Prospective clients will typically look up nearby financial services when they need additional information or are ready to engage in financial planning, investment, or other financial activities.
Here are a few suggestions on how to optimise your site for local searches :
- Create listings on online business directories, like Google Business Profile (previously known as Google My Business)
- If your financial service company operates in more than one physical location, be sure to create a separate Google Business Profile for each one
- Identify location-specific keywords that will help you rank in local SERPs
- Make sure that your name, address, and phone number (NAP) citations are correct and consistent
- Leverage positive customer reviews and testimonials as social proof
8. Optimise technical aspects of your website
Technical SEO — which primarily deals with the website’s underlying structure — is another crucial factor that financial services brands must monitor.
It’s an umbrella term that covers a wide range of elements, including :
- Site speed
- Indexing issues
- Broken links, orphaned pages, improper redirects
- On-page optimisation
- Mobile responsiveness
In 2020, Google introduced Core Web Vitals, a set of metrics that measure web page performance in three key areas — loading speed, responsiveness and visual stability.
Given that they’re now a part of Google’s core ranking systems, you should consider using Matomo’s SEO Web Vitals feature to monitor these crucial metrics. Here’s why :
When technical aspects of your website — namely, site speed and mobile responsiveness — are properly optimised, you can deliver a better user experience. That’s what Google seeks to reward.
Plus, it can be a critical brand differentiator for your business.
Conclusion
Investing in SEO for financial services is crucial for boosting online visibility and driving organic traffic and business growth. However, one thing to keep in mind is that SEO efforts shouldn’t be a one-time thing :
SEO is an ongoing process, and it will take time to establish your company as a trustworthy source and see real results.
You can start building that trust by using a web analytics platform that offers crucial insights for improving your website’s ranking in SERPs and maintains full compliance with GDPR and other privacy regulations.
That’s why Matomo is trusted by more than 1 million websites around the globe. As an ethical alternative to Google Analytics that doesn’t rely on data sampling, Matomo is not only easy to use but more accurate, too — providing 20-40% more data compared to GA4.
Sign up for a 21-day free trial and see how Matomo can support your financial services SEO strategy. No credit card required.
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Marketing Touchpoints : Examples, KPIs, and Best Practices
11 mars 2024, par ErinThe customer journey is rarely straightforward. Rather, each stage comprises numerous points of contact with your brand, known as marketing touchpoints. And each touchpoint is equally important to the customer experience.
This article will explore marketing touchpoints in detail, including how to analyse them with attribution models and which KPIs to track. It will also share tips on incorporating these touchpoints into your marketing strategy.
What are marketing touchpoints ?
Marketing touchpoints are the interactions that take place between brands and customers throughout the latter’s journey, either online or in person.
By understanding how customers interact with your brand before, during and after a purchase, you can identify the channels that contribute to starting, driving and closing buyer journeys. Not only that, but you’ll also learn how to optimise the customer experience. This can also help you :
- Promote customer loyalty through increased customer satisfaction
- Improve your brand reputation and foster a more positive perception of your brand, supported by social proof
- Build brand awareness among prospective customers
- Reconnect with current customers to drive repeat business
According to a 2023 survey, social media and video-sharing platforms are the leading digital touchpoints among US consumers.
With the customer journey divided into three stages — awareness, consideration, and decision — we can group these interactions into three touchpoint segments, depending on whether they occur before, during or after a purchase.
Touchpoints before a purchase
Touchpoints before a purchase are those initial interactions between potential customers and brands that occur during the awareness stage — before they’ve made a purchase decision.
Here are some key touchpoints at the pre-purchase stage :
- Customer reviews, forums, and testimonials
- Social media posts
- Online ads
- Company events and product demos
- Other digital touchpoints, like video content, blog posts, or infographics
- Peer referral
In PwC’s 2024 Global Consumer Insights Pulse Survey, 54% of consumers listed search engines as their primary source of pre-purchase information, followed by Amazon (35%) and retailer websites (33%).
Here are the survey’s findings in Western Europe, specifically :
Social channels are another major pre-purchase touchpoint ; 25% of social media users aged 18 to 44 have made a purchase through a social media app over the past three months.
Touchpoints during a purchase
Touchpoints during a purchase occur when the prospective customer has made their purchase decision. It’s the beginning of a (hopefully) lasting relationship with them.
It’s important to involve both marketing and sales teams here — and to keep track of conversion metrics.
Here are the main touchpoints at this stage :
- Company website pages
- Product pages and catalogues
- Communication between customers and sales reps
- Product packaging and labelling
- Point-of-sale (POS) — the final touchpoint the prospective customer will reach before making the final purchasing decision
Touchpoints after a purchase
You can use touchpoints after a purchase to maintain a positive relationship and keep current customers engaged. Examples of touchpoints that contribute to a good post-purchase experience for the customer include the following :
- Thank-you emails
- Email newsletters
- Customer satisfaction surveys
- Cross-selling emails
- Renewal options
- Customer loyalty programs
Email marketing remains significant across all touchpoint segments, with 44% of CMOs agreeing that it’s essential to their marketing strategy — and it also plays a particularly important role in the post-purchase experience. For 61.1% of marketing teams, email open rates are higher than 20%.
Sixty-nine percent of consumers say they’ve stopped doing business with a brand following a bad experience, so the importance of customer service touchpoints shouldn’t be overlooked. Live chat, chatbots, self-service resources, and customer service teams are integral to the post-purchase experience.
Attribution models : Assigning value to marketing touchpoints
Determining the most effective touchpoints — those that directly contribute to conversions — is a process known as marketing attribution. The goal here is to identify the specific channels and points of contact with prospective customers that result in revenue for the company.
You can use these insights to understand — and maximise — marketing return on investment (ROI). Otherwise, you risk allocating your budget to the wrong channels.
It’s possible to group attribution models into two categories — single-touch and multi-touch — depending on whether you assign value to one or more contributing touchpoints.
Single-touch attribution models, where you’re giving credit for the conversion to a single touchpoint, include the following :
- First-touch attribution : This assigns credit for the conversion to the first interaction a customer had with a brand ; however, it fails to consider lower-funnel touchpoints.
- Last-click attribution : This focuses only on bottom-of-funnel marketing and credits the last interaction the customer had with a brand before completing a purchase.
- Last non-direct : Credits the touchpoint immediately preceding a direct touchpoint with all the credit.
Multi-touch attribution models are more complex and distribute the credit for conversion across multiple relevant touchpoints throughout the customer journey :
- Linear attribution : The simplest multi-touch attribution model assigns equal values to all contributing touchpoints.
- Position-based or U-shaped attribution : This assigns the greatest value to the first and last touchpoint — with 40% of the conversion credit each — and then divides the remaining 20% across all the other touchpoints.
- Time-decay attribution : This model assigns the most credit to the customer’s most recent interactions with a brand, assuming that the touchpoints that occur later in the journey have a bigger impact on the conversion.
Consider the following when choosing the most appropriate attribution model for your business :
- The length of your typical sales cycle
- Your marketing goals : increasing awareness, lead generation, driving revenue, etc.
- How many stages and touchpoints make up your sales funnel
Sometimes, it even makes sense to measure marketing performance using more than one attribution model.
With the sheer volume of data that’s constantly generated across numerous online touchpoints, from your website to social media channels, it’s practically impossible to collect and analyse it manually.
You’ll need an advanced web analytics platform to identify key touchpoints and assign value to them.
Matomo’s Marketing Attribution feature can accurately measure the performance of different touchpoints to ensure that you’re allocating resources to the right channels. This is done in a compliant manner, without the need of data sampling or requiring cookie consent screens (excluding in Germany and the UK), ensuring both accuracy and privacy compliance.
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Customer journey KPIs for measuring marketing campaign performance
Measuring the impact of different touchpoints on marketing campaign performance can help you understand how customer interactions drive conversions — and how to optimise your future efforts.
Clearly, this is not a one-time effort. You should continuously reevaluate the crucial touchpoints that drive the most engagement at different stages of the customer journey.
Web analytics platforms can provide valuable insights into ever-changing consumer behaviours and trends and help you make informed decisions.
At the moment, Google is the most popular solution in the web analytics industry, with a combined market share of more than 70%.
However, if privacy, data accuracy, and GDPR compliance are a priority for you, Matomo is an alternative worth considering.
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Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.
KPIs to track before a purchase
During the pre-purchase stage, focus on the KPIs that measure the effectiveness of marketing activities across various online touchpoints — landing pages, email campaigns, social channels and ad placement on SERPs, for instance.
KPIs to track during the consideration stage include the following :
- Cost-per-click (CPC) : The CPC, the total cost of paid online advertising divided by the number of clicks those ads get, indicates whether you’re getting a good ROI. In the UK, the average CPC for search advertising is $1.22. Globally, it averages $0.62.
- Engagement rate : The engagement rate, which is the total number of interactions divided by the number of followers, is useful for measuring the performance of social media touchpoints. Customer engagement also applies to other channels, like tracking average time on-page, form conversions, bounce rates, and other website interactions.
- Click-through rate (CTR) : The CTR — or the number of clicks your ads receive compared to the number of times they’re shown — helps you measure the performance of CTAs, email newsletters and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.
KPIs to track during a purchase
As a potential customer moves further down the sales funnel and reaches the decision stage, where they’re ready to make the choice to purchase, you should be tracking the following :
- Conversion rate : This is the percentage of leads that convert into customers by completing the desired action relative to the total number of website visitors. It shows you whether you’re targeting the right people and providing a frictionless checkout experience.
- Sales revenue : This refers to the quantity of products sold multiplied by the product’s price. It helps you track the company’s ability to generate profit.
- Cost per conversion : This KPI is the total cost of online advertising in relation to the number of conversions. It measures the effectiveness of different marketing channels and the costs of converting prospective customers into buyers. It also forecasts future ad spend.
KPIs to track after purchase
At the post-purchase stage, your priority should be gathering feedback :
Customer feedback surveys are great for collecting insights into customers’ post-purchase experience, opinions about your brand, products and services, and needs and expectations.
In addition to measuring customer satisfaction, these insights can help you identify points of friction, forecast future growth and revenue and spot customers at risk of churning.
Focus on the following customer satisfaction and retention metrics :
- Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) : This metric, which is gathered through customer satisfaction surveys, helps you gauge satisfaction levels. After all, 77% of consumers consider great customer service an important driver of brand loyalty.
- Net Promoter Score (NPS) : Based on single-question customer surveys, NPS indicates how likely a customer is to recommend your business.
- Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) : The CLV is the profit you can expect to generate from one customer throughout their relationship with your company.
- Customer Health Score (CHS) : This score can assess how “healthy” the customer’s relationship with your brand is and identify at-risk customers.
Marketing touchpoints : Tips and best practices
Customer experience is more important today than ever.
Salesforce’s 2022 State of the Connected Consumer report indicated that, for 88% of customers, the experience the brand provides is just as important as the product itself.
Here’s how you can build your customer touchpoint strategy and use effective touchpoints to improve customer satisfaction, build a loyal customer base, deliver better digital experiences and drive growth :
Understand the customer’s end-to-end experience
The typical customer’s journey follows a non-linear path of individual experiences that shape their awareness and brand preference.
Seventy-three percent of customers expect brands to understand their needs. So, personalising each interaction and delivering targeted content at different touchpoint segments — supported by customer segmentation and tools like Matomo — should be a priority.
Try to put yourself in the prospective customer’s shoes and understand their motivation and needs, focusing on their end-to-end experience rather than individual interactions.
Create a customer journey map
Once you understand how prospective customers interact with your brand, it becomes easier to map their journey from the pre-purchase stage to the actual purchase and beyond.
By creating these visual “roadmaps,” you make sure that you’re delivering the right content on the right channels at the right times and to the right audience — the key to successful marketing.
Identify best-performing digital touchpoints
You can use insights from marketing attribution to pinpoint areas that are performing well.
By analysing the data provided by Matomo’s Marketing Attribution feature, you can determine which digital touchpoints are driving the most conversions or engagement, allowing you to focus your resources on optimising these channels for even greater success.
This targeted approach helps maximise the effectiveness of your marketing efforts and ensures a higher return on investment.
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Discover key marketing touchpoints with Matomo
The customer’s journey rarely follows a direct route. If you hope to reach more customers and improve their experience, you’ll need to identify and manage individual marketing touchpoints every step of the way.
While this process looks different for every business, it’s important to remember that your customers’ experience begins long before they interact with your brand for the first time — and carries on long after they complete the purchase.
In order to find these touchpoints and measure their effectiveness across multiple marketing channels, you’ll have to rely on accurate data — and a powerful web analytics tool like Matomo can provide those valuable marketing insights.
Try Matomo free for 21-days. No credit card required.
Try Matomo for Free
21 day free trial. No credit card required.