Late last month Google released its latest algorithm changes which affect the way that websites appear in search results.  Following their last major update by the name of Panda, this latest change is known as Penguin.

Major impact on financial websites
While previous Google updates haven’t had a huge impact on financial websites here in Australia, the Penguin update has made some dramatic changes to the top of the Google search results.

Two of the most competitive search terms in Australia both relate to the financial services industry.  The two terms, unsurprisingly, are life insurance and credit cards.

You could expect that the top positions for these ultra-competitive and highly lucrative terms would be taken by the large corporations, but instead they are both owned by small businesses offering referral and affiliate services.

Well at least they were until the big bad Penguin came along and stole their rankings along with a massive chunk of revenue.  Not only did they lose their position one rankings, but both of them fell into the abyss and are nowhere to be seen in the first few pages.

Whilst the news for these two websites was nothing short of devastating, their loss is someone else’s gain, and these latest Google changes are throwing up more opportunities for financial advisers.

What changed?
The world of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a tricky one, and most financial advisers engaging an SEO firm for their company website will be paying hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars per month without really knowing what they’re getting.

Although there are some really great SEO firms out there performing great work for their clients, many of them do little more than spamming links to your website across a range of blogs and link farms in an effort to trick Google into thinking your website is very popular.

Google are quickly catching onto this game, and the Penguin update has been the biggest effort yet by Google to penalise website owners who put more effort into tricking the search engines instead of creating great content for their visitors.

The jury is still out, but most people in the industry agree that the latest changes have benefited those with good content and penalised those who concentrated too much on SEO with little regard to website visitors.

How can you benefit?
For years I have been trying to tell financial advisers and anyone else who will listen that content is king, but unfortunately many advisers seem to think that spending money on SEO and Google advertising is a better investment than quality content.

While I have heard countless other website owners complaining about their lost Google rankings over the last couple of weeks, I have sat quietly smiling in the knowledge that many of the websites owned by my company have actually boosted their rankings over the same period.

Increased rankings lead to increased traffic, increased traffic yields increased leads, and ultimately the increased lead numbers equal more clients and more revenue.

So how can your financial planning firm benefit from the Penguin updates?  In my view the answer is simple, and all it takes is to concentrate on generating good quality content that your ideal client needs.

If you create and distribute content that your potential clients want and need, they will find that content via Google and hopefully your website will then be effective enough to convert their visit into a contact.

While your competitors are still out there pouring more money into SEO and link building to regain their lost rankings, you need to be getting great content onto your site which Google and its penguins will reward you for.

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