That’s the plan! However, if you really want to attract prospects to your firm’s website, you need to do more than simply build it; you need to optimize it. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the key to getting your website discovered via search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
The traditional approach to SEO involves two tactics: on-page and off-page SEO. On-page SEO is the strategic use of keywords on your website, including in-page titles, headers, meta descriptions, and more. Off-page SEO, in comparison, refers to improving your website’s overall authority on the web, which is determined by what other websites are linking to you. The goal with off-page SEO is to attract inbound links (or “backlinks”) from relevant, authoritative websites. While on-page and off-page SEO are helpful concepts, they are rooted in an approach that is quickly fading away. In the past, the goal of SEO was to impress (or trick) the search engines so that they’d give you higher rankings -- with the goal being able to achieve the coveted #1 spot in the search results for one of your target keywords.
Now it's About Optimizing for the SearcherToday, search engines are smarter. They can tell the difference between spammy websites that are designed to game the system, and legitimate websites that are providing relevant, high-quality content. Modern SEO is about optimizing for the searchers, not the search engines. |
A page title is the text you see at the top of your browser window when viewing a web page. It’s also the title of a page that is presented in search engine results. Page titles can be found and edited in your site’s HTML. The text that is surrounded with the <title> tag is your page’s title.
Guidelines for effective page titles:
A meta description is a short summary that you can write for a web page, which search engines display in search results. These descriptions don’t count toward search engine rankings, but they are still incredibly useful. When creating a description, the goal should be to write compelling copy that accurately describes what’s on a page, so searchers will be enticed to click.
<meta property="og:description" content="The Inland Academy:Helping Advisors Grow Their Practice Enroll in the NEW Inland Academy Today! As Discussed Inland’s passion for working with financial professionals extends beyond our role as a … />
Typically text that appears larger and/or more prominent than other text on a page is part of a heading. You can verify this by checking the HTML code of your website and looking for text with an <h1>, <h2>, or <h3> tag surrounding it.
Search engines and searchers tend to pay more attention to headings in comparison to paragraph text. For this reason, include keywords in your headings whenever possible.
Images on a web page can enhance user experience. When inserting images into your website, however, you should keep the following in mind:
The URL is the website address (i.e. inlandadvisorsolutions.com). URL structure refers to how the text in a URL is organized, as well as how the different URLs on your website interact with one another.
When structuring your website’s URLs, there are a few best practices to keep in mind:
The topic of mobile marketing is tossed around frequently in marketing circles, often with many different intended meanings. While mobile marketing can mean many things, there is one primary message being conveyed to financial professionals looking to take advantage of mobile: optimization of websites for mobile viewing.
While there are a few different options for providing a mobile web experience, such as creating a separate mobile site or launching an app, the best option -- from an SEO standpoint -- is using responsive design.
A responsive website uses the same URL and HTML across all devices: desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. The only thing that changes is the CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), which is a programming language that describes the style and formatting of a web page.
CSS allows the content on your website to adapt to different screen sizes, which means visitors always get a great viewing and browsing experience. What’s more, Google prefers responsive design to other mobile technologies because it allows for more efficient crawling and indexing.
Pay close attention to the elements of SEO / Website optimization we’ve discussed here and make incremental improvements to your own website, and you will begin to capture the interest of potential new clients and do so at a rate that will be pleasantly surprising. Good luck!