Finance SEO differs from other niches in one very important way: it’s a YMYL topic.
What’s that?
‘YMYL’ is an acronym coined by Google that stands for ‘Your Money, Your Life,’ and it refers to web pages that could potentially impact a user’s happiness, health, finances, or safety.
Google takes these topics extremely seriously, because if the information presented is inaccurate or false, it could lead to serious consequences for users (and potential lawsuits for Google).
As a result, Google treats YMYL content with extra scrutiny, giving more weight to ranking factors like:
- Expertise
- Accuracy
- Experience
- Authoritativeness
YMYL pages must also adhere to the strictest safety and trustworthiness standards in order to achieve high rankings.
All this means the heat is on whenever you do SEO for a YMYL niche like health or finance.
In this case study, we’ll tell the story of how we grew a trust company’s organic traffic by 50% in only 6 months.
The results have continued to pour in since, such as ranking for over 1,000 keywords, and there’s no end to their momentum in sight.
Trust services are especially in need of a strong web presence since their reputation is everything. After all, would you hand over your prized assets to a professional trustee with a poor reputation?
We didn’t think so!
That’s why SEO for trust companies has to be on point, as a single inaccuracy or error is enough to get you shunned from the rankings (and by customers).
Stick around to learn how we achieved such impressive results.
The Client: A Professional Trust Company Serving Estate Planners, Attorneys, and Families
Our client is an experienced professional trust company that’s been in the business for over 25 years.
While they had a flawless reputation and provided exemplary service to their clients, their online presence was particularly lacking.
This wasn’t due to a lack of a polished website by any means, as their site was well designed, structured logically, and provided a great user experience.
Still, they weren’t ranking for many keywords, and their organic traffic was in the gutter.
Before working with us, they struggled to generate 50 visitors each month, so they knew they were leaving money on the table.
Once they were getting outranked on Google by other trust companies who weren’t nearly as experienced, they knew they needed to improve their SEO as soon as possible.
They got in touch with us for a consultation after reading a few blogs and checking out our testimonials.
During the initial call, they expressed their desire to generate more leads and sales through their website. They were tired of stagnant growth, and they want to see positive results as soon as possible.
We determined their best course of action was a Star SEO’s campaign, which is our managed SEO service. It’s where we completely take over a client’s SEO and develop a comprehensive strategy that combines several (or all) of our SEO products.
Clients love Star SEO because they get to take their foot of the gas and let us take the wheel, freeing up massive amounts of their time and alleviating stress.
Once the details were agreed upon, we got to work auditing their website.
The SEO Audit: Getting Our Ducks in a Row
Every Star SEO’s campaign starts off the same way: with a detailed SEO audit.
This is where we analyze the client’s current performance on search engines. We also test crucial UX factors like ease of navigation and loading speeds.
The goals of an audit are to A) figure out where the client’s site currently stands, B) identify and resolve any major errors, and C) look for ‘easy-win’ keywords.
We always request access to the client’s Google Search Console and Google Analytics accounts (and we set them up if they haven’t yet) so that we can look at their:
- Current keyword rankings
- Organic traffic numbers
- Index Coverage Report
- Audience demographics
The Index Coverage Report lets us know if the client’s web pages have been properly crawled and stored in Google’s index. If not, they won’t appear in the search results, which is kind of a big deal.
After that’s done, we look for ‘quick win’ keywords, which are keywords the client is already ranking for, just not in the top 3. Keywords in positions 4 – 30 qualify.
In this case, we found quite a few easy-win keywords to capitalize on, which is why the client saw such a dramatic boost in traffic in a short period of time.
The Strategy: Link-Building and Updated Web Copy
Our main strategy for the campaign centered around building backlinks.
Why’s that?
During the audit, we noticed that there was a sizable backlink gap between the client’s site and their competitors. This means competing sites had more quality backlinks than they did, and we were eager to close the gap.
Our tactics were as follows:
- We focused on building links to their priority service pages, which were most important to generating business.
- Outreach and brand mentions (link insertions) were our preferred methods, and we were able to obtain powerful backlinks through both.
Also, the client’s site had some very outdated web copy, which isn’t good for a YMYL page. Remember, YMYL content receives extra scrutiny from Google, so it’s doubly important that it stays updated and accurate.
In this case, we went through a reseller to update the client’s old copy, which paid off in the rankings.
The Results: 50% Jump in Traffic, Ranking for 1,000+ Keywords, Boosted Domain Authority
It didn’t take long for the results to start coming in, especially after we targeted easy-win keywords related to their service pages.
Their traffic quickly shot up by 50%, and it hasn’t let up since.
As you can see, their traffic continues to rise to this day.
As of June 2024, they’re generating 400+ visitors on average, a far cry from not being able to crack 50 before we started.
They’re also ranking for 1,000+ keywords, and 14 are in the top 3.
The sky’s the limit for the client now, as the foundation we established will continue to generate traffic, leads, and sales into the future.
Do you want to achieve similar results for your finance company?
Star SEO is your ticket to SEO success and a ton more free time, so don’t wait to sign up!
