FINRA and the SEC have done an amazing job making it difficult for Financial Advisors to market online.  Anyone who has had the pleasure of obtaining their FINRA Series 7 & 63 licenses like I have is probably aware of FINRA Rule 2210.  Obviously you have to be careful what information you put out on your website & social media pages.  There is definitely plenty of wiggle room though.

FINRA Exceptions

FINRA defines retail communication as any communication (written or electronic) that is distributed or made available to more than 25 retail investors within any 30 calendar-day period.  A retail investor is any person other than an institutional investor. Regardless of whether the person has an account with the firm.  The rule also stipulates that all retail communications must be approved by an appropriately qualified registered principal.  Luckily there are exceptions to this stipulation.

The following retail communications are excluded from the filing requirements:

• Communications that refer to types of investments solely as a listing of the products or services offered by the firm.
• Retail communications that do not make any financial or investment recommendation or promote a product or service of the firm.
• Any reprint or excerpt of an article issued by a publisher that has not been materially altered in content.  Except to comply with regulatory standards or correct errors and when the member has not commissioned the reprint and is not affiliated with the publisher.
• Retail communications that do no more than identify the member or offer a specific security at a stated price.
• General market commentaries or economic discussions that are not used for the purpose of promoting a product or service of the firm would be considered retail communications that do not make any financial or investment recommendation or otherwise promote a product or service of the member.

Another important aspect of creating an online presence for your financial advisory business is reputation management.  If you do not set up profiles on all of the major platforms, what’s to stop someone else for doing that for you and then leaving you a bunch of negative reviews? 

Having a robust online presence allows one to get out of front of these conversations and create a narrative that paints a positive picture of your brand and creates a pipeline of future client leads.  It’s a lot better to be proactive than reactive when it comes to reputation management.  A negative review can really hurt you, especially if you don’t know it exists.

It is driving me crazy every single day thinking about how untapped the SEO & Digital Marketing space is to Financial Advisors.  These are both long term strategies.  There is no quick payoff, but just like any other great idea, the first ones to cash in always make the most. 

In the near future, people are going to be able to research financial advisors like they research their next big purchase.  Instead of asking a wealthy friend who manages their money, they will go online and ask their facebook friends.  The advisors that embrace this and are the first to create an online presence on these platforms will quickly become an authority. 

Think of the possibilities of no longer being limited to your geographic location when it comes to client prospecting.  The internet is global, becoming an authority online helps you cast a much wider net than just being the authority in your local community.  Quality leads are really hard to come by. The internet gives you the ability to scale these leads in a big way.  

Hopefully I’ve convinced you this is a viable strategy at this point.  Let’s break down how it actually works and list actionable steps that you can take right now.

Financial Advisor SEO

Local SEO is going to be a crucial part of your strategy.  While not all clients are going to need to be able and sit down with their financial advisor, let’s assume that most of them will.  The search term “Financial Advisor + Your City” is going to be gold.  There are a lot of factors that go into local seo.  You’ll need to focus on being in the organic listings as well as the “Maps”. 

To get the ball rolling you will need to set up Google My Business.  From there build out as many citations as you can.  Research what citations your competitors are utilizing and duplicate their efforts.  Then start to develope a link building strategy by commenting on niche related blog posts.  Commenting on these Blogs also helps doing outreach to get guest posts.  Guest posts are a big part of the secret sauce for Financial Advisor SEO.  You can also implement more advanced strategies like PBNs (Private Blog Network) or sniping broken links.  You may want to outsource some of this to an expert as some of these strategies are complex and time consuming.

Create A Blog

Creating a blog is the key piece in generating authority online.  It also feeds into every other aspect of building your online presence, from SEO to Social Media Marketing.  Consistently creating blog content greatly enhances the SEO of your advisor website.  It’s also great because it easily creates content that you can share across all of your social media platforms. 

Roll out a blog post once at least once a week.   Then simply share it across all of your social media pages.   This creates a huge digital paper trail.  Doing this consistently over the long term is not only a great way to communicate with existing clients, it can also create a long lasting pipeline to future clients as well. 

Investopedia

Creating a profile on Investopedia can boost your online presence in several ways.  Finding and answering questions posed by other investopedia users is great way to demonstrate your knowledge in a way that brings real value to people.  Becoming an authority is a way to build up trust with your audience and potential clients.  Commenting on these investopedia threads and creating your own posts are both great ways to generate backlinks to your website.  Having backlinks from an industry relevant  website like Investopedia will be a big boost to your local and global SEO.

Social Media Marketing

Once you have a blog that is consistently rolling out content on the latests financial trends and current market conditions, you will need to set up all your social media profiles.  Every time you post a new article, tweet about it, share it on Facebook & LinkedIn.  Through up an Instagram post, pin an infographic on Pinterest.  If you’re an allstar, you will have a video element to your blog which you can then share on Youtube as well.  Rinse and then repeat.  Your blog is where your content lives, but social media is where you spread it to the masses.  Social Media is also a great opportunity to interact with your peers and build connections.

The truth is this strategy is not for everyone.  If you are an Advisor who’s completely content with the status quo, then this definitely isn’t for you.  However, if you’re an Advisor that is still looking to grow your book of clients.  If you have your eye on long term sustainable growth, then you can’t afford to miss out on this opportunity.  The market is still wide open for financial advisors online.  The next generation of wealth grew up on Twitter and Instagram and they are definitely in need of common sense financial advice.  Grow your online presence, create authority, build trust and create a never ending stream of client leads.

If your business has a location or a service area, ranking your website locally is imperative to your long term success.  Doing local SEO is one of the most cost effective ways to generate leads over the long term.   There are two areas to focus on when it comes to local SEO, ranking your website organically and in Google Maps.  By doing so, you make it that much easier for people who are looking for your goods and services to find you.  The first step in making this happen is understanding the difference between the two.

Organic Vs Maps

When searching on a desktop computer, the first thing that pops up on the corresponding results page is a group of Map rankings.  This is commonly referred to as the “Snack Pack” in SEO communities.  Once you scroll past the map or Snack Pack rankings, you will see the organic rankings.  Ideally you will rank your site in both.  That way potential clients and customers will have two chances to click on your site. 

A common mistake is only focusing on the organic listings and ignoring the Map.  This is a crucial mistake because not only do the Map rankings appear before the organic listings, but when searching on a mobile device, they completely dwarf the organic listings because the screen size has limited space compared to a desktop.  A lot of people do not take the time to scroll past the Map rankings when they’re searching on a mobile device.

Before you start blasting your site with links, it’s important to optimize your website.  The first and most important thing you do is to set up your NAP.  NAP stands for Name, Address, and Phone Number.  I can’t stress enough how important that your NAP is consistent.  Not only across every page on your site, but on every profile you create in the name of your business, whether it’s Social Media or a business directory.  The most common place to list your NAP is on the footer of every page.

Another tweak you can make to make ensure you’re ranking in Google Maps is putting an actual google map on your about us or contact page.  Integrating a map into your site helps paint a picture that Google’s algorithm can pick up.  When someone does a mobile search in your area looking for goods or services that your business offers, your site will be that much more likely to appear in the results.

The next step in ensuring your site ranks locally is setting up Google My Business.  This one just makes too much sense.  If you want to rank in the world’s most popular search engine, it’s probably a good idea to register your business in their database.  As I mentioned in the previous section, make sure your NAP is consistent and accurate here.  Once you fill out a robust profile, take the steps to verify your business.  This entails Google actually mailing a code to the physical address of your business.  Once you receive the code in the mail, login to your Google My Business profile and enter the code and your business will officially be verified.

Another step you can take is uploading photos to your profile that have been Geo tagged at your location.  Obviously over time your client’s and customers will do this for you when they share their awesome experiences at your business.  In the beginning it will be up to you to get the ball rolling.  It’s as easy as taking a few photo’s of your store or office with your mobile device or anything else that geo tags your location.

The definition of a citation in the world of local SEO is any website that allows you to reference your NAP and links back to your website.  In most instances these are sites allow their users to review your website as well.  The most popular sites out there that can be used for citations are websites like Yelp and Foursquare.  Any site that allows you to clearly list your NAP and also links back to your website can be used as a citation to improve your local SEO efforts.

One of the best citations strategies is to first identify your biggest competitors.  Next find out where what citations they utilize and duplicate their efforts.  Make sure you manage any pages that allow for customers to review your business.  Response times are imperative on sites that allow you to interact with them directly.  That is more relevant to reputation management and customer service, but still worth mentioning.  We all know how a bad Yelp review can influence a potential client or customer’s opinion of your business.  Setting up these profiles is never enough.  Ensure that you also actively manage these profiles to safeguard your business’s sterling reputation.

Getting quality backlinks to your site is one of the more difficult parts of SEO.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s easy to go out and buy a bunch of links to your site that are coming from irrelevant sources.  That’s a great way to get your website penalized in today’s local SEO landscape. 

As I’ve mentioned before in previous posts, Google consistently updates their algorithm to penalize anyone who implements strategies that violate their terms of service.  Here are few ways you can safely build links to your website that will stand the test of time.

Guest Posts

Getting a guest post on a blog relevant to your industry is a huge win.  It allows you to place a link on a site that discusses information that directly relates to your business.  Doing outreach to bloggers in your niche/industry can pay huge dividends in improving your local SEO rankings.  Getting a quality guest post on a high authority blog is not always easy though.  Sometimes it’s as simple as paying a price or simply just writing a killer piece of content.  

Snipe Broken Links

There are a lot tools out there that allow you to find broken links relevant to your field.  Once you locate the broken links, reach out to the author of the content informing them of the broken link and also provide them with a replacement link.  A lot of website do not actively monitor broken links on their aged posts.  Most of the time they will take you on this offer because you are doing them a favor that also helps you out, so it’s mutually beneficial.

Business Listings/Directories

There are so many directories and listings based on niche/industry and location.  By simply searching for “your city” & “your niche/industry” you will find quite a few that are relevant to your business.  Go through each site and follow the prompts to getting your business and website listed in their directly.  In most cases it’s as simple as paying a one time fee, but in exchange you get a long lasting highly relevant backlink.

Niche Relevant Blog Comments

Almost every blog has a comment section to promote interaction with their readers.  Most blog comment sections have a field where you reference your own website.  This is a great way to create a niche relevant backlink. 

Just remember that most of these comments have to be approved by a moderator before they go live, so make sure you are providing real feedback and adding value in any way that you can.  Otherwise your comment will simply be deleted or ignored altogether.  If you consistently comment on a blog, it’s also a great way to gain authority with that blogger and potentially get a guest post on their blog. 

Private Blog Networks

Private Blog Networks (PBNs) are a staple to any SEO strategy.  They are a bit more complex than most of these strategies and can land you a penalty if not done correctly, so I don’t recommend them for beginners.  Building a PBN starts with purchasing a recently expired or expiring domain that already has a lot of links pointing at it, ideally that are relevant to your niche. 

Once the website is in your possession, refurbish it and put a post with a link pointing at the website you are trying to rank.  Doing this effectively requires making the PBN look as natural as possible and removing any footprint that may exist between your PBN and the page you are actually trying to rank.  The most common mistake is utilizing the same host on your PBN that you use for your money site.  

There are a lot of key factors that go into local SEO.   Always keep in mind that SEO is a marathon, not a sprint.  Knowing all the factors and how they tie into how you rank is definitely important.  Over the long term however, the most important thing is generating quality content.  Lee Oden, a seasoned digital marketer at TopRank Marketing, once said, “Content is the reason that search began in the first place.”  Google’s mission is to help its users find and utilize the most relevant content. 

If you consistently generate top notch content, you won’t have to convince people to read and share it.  They will want to all on their own because it’s worth sharing.  Then you won’t have to develop some sophisticated backlinking strategy!  People will start linking to your site on their own because you have become an authority in your niche and your amazing content is worth referencing.