Financial advisers are still underestimating, and under-utilising, the power of search engine optimisation (SEO) to drive traffic to their websites, according to an industry expert.

President and Founder of i-Impact Group, Claudio Pannunzio, said by implementing a few simple SEO strategies, advisers could gain more visitors to their website. By doing so, Mr Pannunzio says advisers will attract more new business and client engagement opportunities.

He described search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo as the “librarians of the Internet”, adding that their core task is to collect and catalogue information in a way that helps people immediately find what they’re searching for.

“To store information, every search engine employs an algorithm; and advisers should think of it as a secret recipe that turns information into search results. Therefore, SEO is the process of ensuring that adviser websites possess all the ingredients that match search engines’ recipes (algorithms). For financial advisers, like other business owners, search results are very important, as they increase the odds that their business is easily found on the Internet,” Mr Pannunzio said.

An easy way to test whether a business has a suitable online presence, said Mr Pannunzio, is to conduct an internet search using both the business name and terms that a potential client may use to find the business. If the business does not appear on the first page of the search results, SEO should be implemented.

Mr Pannunzio recommended four zero-cost activities to improve SEO:

1. First, go to Google and set up Google Analytics (www.Google.com/analytics) to find out the most common terms/search words people use to find a financial adviser (it is free), and ensure that such terms are included in the practice website and social media interactions.

The more specific the adviser gets with his/her keywords, the better the chances of ranking high in search engines. The key words should be placed strategically throughout the website content. For example, if the key phrase is “a comfortable retirement,” make sure to create content about it and provide ideas and tips on how to achieve this objective.

2. Advisers can optimize their website for local search by ensuring they have a detailed listing of their practice on Google Local (www.Google.com/local/add) and other engines such as Yahoo, Bing, etc.

3. If advisers do not have a blog yet, they should consider creating one as way to increase their website ranking in the search engines and boost brand exposure.

Managing a blog can be time consuming. However, it will help to attract potential clients.

4. Advisers should consider using videos on their website and/or blog. It will enable the achievement of two key strategic goals: increase the time visitors spend on the site, and boost SEO ranking.

Google’s algorithms assign higher ranking to those web pages more frequently visited and where surfers spend above-average time. Algorithms work on the assumption that the longer a visitor stays on a page, the higher the quality of that page’s content must be.

“Consequently, creating a video that addresses an adviser’s key audience’s problems and issues and provides tips and actionable ideas will help drive prospects to their website, keep them on it and achieve their SEO goals,” Mr Pannunzio said.