Financial advisors are always looking to rank higher in Google search results. But the common question is “How?” Join Indigo CEO Hugo Fernandez in this quick video as he gives a high-level overview on how Google search works and discusses strategies related to SEO, paid advertising, and consistently posting to rank higher. He’ll walk you through a live Google search and show how you can use it to drive new traffic, new leads, and new clients for your wealth management firm.
Transcript
0:00 Hey there, financial advisor. In this video I’m going to walk you through Google search and how you can use it to drive new traffic, new leads, and new clients for your wealth management firm.
0:15 My name is Hugo with Indigo Marketing Agency and we help financial advisors and wealth management firms better market online and grow their firms.
0:35 Of these Google screened, it says sponsored. So these are ads that Google is promoting now called a local service ad.
0:43 So if you just do a little bit of research on local service ads, what they are is, Google is trying to make it easier for people to pick up the phone and find the local businesses that make sense for them.
0:53 So in this case, I’m looking for a wealth management firm. And so you’ll see that the first two placements here are the main call to action is for me to call the business.
1:02 And it takes up the first batch of real estate here in Google search results. To run those, you need a Google Ads account, and you need to verify your business, send over some quick documentation, and then you’ll be approved.
1:15 The cool thing about local service ads is you only pay for results. And a result for them, as opposed to a click, is an actual phone call, because when somebody’s searching for services, they need to get in touch with the business, and that way is through a phone call or a form submission.
1:36 So this tool is really cool because it allows consumers to get in touch with those businesses. So running those types of ads can be really, really effective.
1:46 The second thing that you’ll notice is the standard text ads. Now these are your normal PPC ads or Google ads that people have been running for years.
1:56 Those can be really, really good as well. You’ll notice that this one takes up quite a bit of real estate because it is using, you know, extensions inside of Google Ads.
2:07 Then there’s a couple of things that you can do to customize your ads so they take up a little bit more real estate.
2:11 They make it easier for people to click and get in touch with you. The next thing you’ll see here in Google search is the local pack or the Google Business Profiles.
2:21 Now, most advisors have a Google Business Profile. If you don’t, go create one. It’s a no-brainer, it’s free, and you want to make sure you’re consistently updating it with posts, with consistently getting reviews, and make sure your information is up to date and all your links are working as they should.
2:39 So go ahead and set up your Google Business Profile. You’ll see they take up the most real estate and then the second action item there is two request reviews from your clients, if you’re allowed to do that. Most financial advisors now are starting to do that.
2:52 So if you can get ahead of the curve and start asking for reviews, you’ll be able to get some business here pretty quickly.
2:59 So when I click that and see more search results, it’ll bring up the map, but then you’ll also see these two Google screened up at the top left.
3:08 And if you keep scrolling down, you’ll see the free placements and the free free listings here that are showing up.
3:16 So I’m going to click back and we can keep going down the list. The next thing that really catches my attention is this Yelp page.
3:23 So make sure you have a Yelp profile and same thing there. You’re getting reviews because they’re showing up. But then you have the organic search results for people’s individual websites. 3:35 And so I like this keyword because it allows you to still show up for a competitive keyword. So this, presumably, is an independent financial advisor or a small firm.
3:44 Same thing with this one, and these are local businesses or local firms in my area. So it’s still a good opportunity.
3:52 Then you’ll see some sponsored ads. If you keep scrolling, it will then sort of repeat that process. This is now page two.
4:01 Let me type in a different keyword, “financial advisor, Los Angeles.” And you’ll see the same type of search result. Sponsored ads at the top, specifically these local service ads that I’ve talked about.
4:13 And then you’ll see some more sponsored ads here, your standard local text ads. Let me zoom back out.
4:20 All right, and the next thing that you’ll notice is SmartAsset is showing up here. Now, SmartAsset is sort of what I call a lead aggregator, which, basically, they work on their own SEO and their own ads and they run their own marketing campaigns. And then if I were to click that, it takes me to a sort
4:38 of listing for that advisor or that investment firm, or that wealth management firm, and so you can follow them along and then they collect the leads and then they resell them to you.
4:53 So take a page out of their playbook and optimize your own content. Now, you might not be able to compete with the likes of SmartAsset, or if I keep scrolling, you’ll see some of the other competitors, but you’ll still be able to show up.
5:05 Google is consistently shuffling these search results to let the individual businesses show up, right? And so you can see here, we have some individual businesses that are still showing up in addition to the main big brands.
5:19 The Morgan Stanleys and so on and so forth. So you want to show up for a nice mix of keywords in a separate video.
5:30 I’ll talk about keyword strategy and what keywords you should be targeting in order to give yourself the best chance. But I wanted to shoot a quick high-level overview on how Google Search works so you can start thinking about mixing in some SEO, some paid advertising, and consistently posting
5:49 on your Google My Business to try to get that to rank higher. I hope you found this video helpful. If you have any questions, drop them in the comments below. I’ll see you in the next video.