If your financial marketing gets your website into a “Featured Snippet” on Google for one of your audience’s search terms, then you have scored big.
Achieving this is a great way to secure a top spot in the search engines, but it is very challenging. You have to really earn that top position. After all, a “Featured Snippet” is Google’s way of telling users:
“You searched for an answer to this question? This answer here is THE answer you’re looking for.”
If you’re not sure what a Featured Snippet is, then type a search into Google. For instance, I just typed “How strong are apes” into the search bar, and here is the Snippet it threw up:
Wouldn’t it be great to get your financial advisory business into a “Featured Snippet”, for instance, on a subject related to retirement planning or pension transfers? As you can imagine, the potential is quite significant. Let’s look at how you can take this aspect of your financial marketing to the next level.
Step #1: Research Keywords
This part is fairly straightforward financial SEO stuff. You’re going to need to make a list of keywords which your target audience are plausibly using to find your services in the search engines.
There are few different ways to do this. The first step is to put yourself in your potential client’s shoes. If you were looking for a financial adviser, what would you look for? Make a list of any ideas, and then try typing them into Google.
Take note of what search suggestions Google puts forward as you type into the search bar. This gives you an idea of popular searches related to your niche or topic.
After you have done this, make a list of the questions at the bottom of the first page of search results. They will be listed under the heading: “Searches related to…”
For instance, if I type “What’s involved in a pension transfer” into Google, here are some of the questions the search results list at the bottom:
Why is this useful to know for your financial marketing? Well, because over 40% of Featured Snippets comprise answers to questions from users. “How” questions, in particular, are very prominent. Bear all of this in mind as we enter the next phase.
Step #2: Check Your Rankings
At this point, you’ll want to take your list of target keywords and evaluate where your website appears in the list for each of them.
You can do this the manual, long-winded way if you like (typing each keyword into Google and trawling through the results in search of your financial website – not recommended!).
Or, a more efficient way would be to invest in a software solution like Moz, SEMrush or Agency Analytics to run the searches for you. They’ll put all of the data in a nice spreadsheet for you, lovely and digestible.
At this point, once you have your data, you’ll need another spreadsheet. Your columns will need to include the following:
Keyword
Average monthly search volume
Current Featured Snippet URL
Is there an image for the Featured Snippet? What type of image is it?
Featured snippet type (i.e. Is it a list, paragraph or a table?)
Your website ranking for the keyword
At this point, you’re armed with the data you need to begin targeting the Featured Snippets you want.
In the coming articles, we’re going to go over how you actually start doing that in your financial marketing.