Why FinTech Site Content Should be Optimised for Users as well as SEO

With Google introducing massive changes to how optimised content works for both your search rankings and also how users interact with your website, there has never been a more important time to ensure that your content is up to scratch! 

To help you get ahead of your competition with your website content strategy, we discuss why user-first content is so important within the FinTech industry!

Google’s Helpful Content Update

With over 8.5 billion Google searches every day, website content has never been more valuable when it comes to ranking well and providing users with the absolute best result to their query; poor quality content can lead to an increased bounce rate and a higher chance that users will not visit your site again in the future.

Many websites have previously seen SEO success in creating content specifically to rank high in the search engine, featuring keyword stuffing. However, Google’s recent Helpful Content Update has spotlighted user-centric content, ensuring it is created for users instead of search engines.

When creating your website content, Google recommends keeping it:

• Useful and informative
• More valuable and useful than other sites
• Credible (E-A-T)
• High Quality
• Engaging

In other words, your content needs to be meaningful and have a relevant purpose for your target audience. Creating content for the sake of it simply isn’t going to get your FinTech website the impactful results you’re hoping for, whether you’re adding irrelevant sections to blogs to increase word count or introducing new landing pages to your website that have little overall user interest. The new Google update is putting valuable, engaging, useful content on a pedestal, and we’re thrilled about it!

So, how do you create useful content that will reach users, capture their interests and convert them? 

You need to have an in-depth understanding of user intent, which will then inform your content strategy so that you can create targeted, relevant content.

Understanding user intent can be done in a number of ways:

1. Competitor research - Take a look at your industry, organic and local competitors to understand what they’re doing in the content space and who they are targeting. Learn more about how to conduct an efficient competitor analysis.
2. Market research - Gathering information about your consumers’ buying habits, needs and pain points will enable you to understand what exactly your customers are looking for. As a result, you can then identify opportunities to meet consumer needs on your website through impactful content.
3. Create personas - Based on your market research, you can create personas that indicate your target audience. Creating personas allows you to tailor content specifically to their interests, needs and behaviours. For a persona-driven marketing strategy that drives results, chat with a member of our brilliant Customer Experience team.
4. Keyword research - By doing keyword research, you can better understand the motivations of users searching for relevant keywords. Whether your audience is in the ‘consideration’ stage of the buying process, e.g. ‘best online payment systems’ or simply in the awareness phase, e.g. ‘what is contactless payment?’, understanding the intent of users will enable you to create content accordingly. Our favourite tools for collecting keyword data include SEMrush and Google Ads Keyword Planner!

Want to learn more about competitor analysis and keyword research? Take a look at our recent blog on the best SEO FinTech tactics for generating conversions.

Once you understand your user’s intent, you can undertake a content audit to identify gaps on your website. This will form the basis of your content roadmap, which will help you create relevant, useful content that’s impactful and likely to convert. If you manage to tick all of these boxes, then not only do you have a higher chance to improve your keyword rankings, but also have a happy user that is more likely to revisit your site or recommend it to others!

Trust Signals

Google’s Helpful Content Update is one of the biggest reasons every business should take a person-centric approach to content. So, let’s think about your FinTech business in particular. Why should your FinTech company be optimising your content for users and SEO?

Particularly with social media platforms such as TikTok growing in popularity for search and educational purposes, there has been a huge increase in spreading false information, especially in finance. As a result, Trust has become one of the most important factors for customers when investing in FinTech companies. You know better than anyone that building trust is key to converting users and encouraging them to buy your products or services. It is no surprise that your website's content provides you with an opportunity to interact with users and gain their trust!

While Google wants your content to be reliable, trustworthy and authoritative, so do potential customers. This is why including trust signals across your website is so important. So, how can you incorporate these trust signals into your content and show users that your business is trustworthy?

Awards and Case Studies

One of the key indicators that your FinTech business is trustworthy is whether it is recommended by others. This follows two behavioural principles; Herding follows the idea that people tend to do what others are doing, while Social Proof indicates that people are influenced by what they see others doing. As a result, seeing case studies and customer testimonials on your website is a surefire way to build trust with users and encourage them to invest in your services. Mastercard has been smashing the customer success stories on their website, enticing users to learn how they’ve supported customers to reach FinTech success!

Similarly, awards highlight that you’re a leader in your field and have a step up from your competitors which will appeal to users as it implies you are the best of the best. Our advice: Be proud of your success and splash it across your website in content, whether you include award logos on your landing pages or release press releases detailing your big wins. Monzo are nailing the awards game on their website, with their award for ‘Best British Bank of 2022’ being one of the first things you see on their homepage.

Data-Led and Expert Content

Another way of including trust signals on your website is to ensure your content is data-driven. It’s a fact, anyone can write content if they want to, particularly with the developments in AI technology such as ChatGPT. Your job is to stand out from the crowd and make users listen to what you have to say. The best way to do this is to create user-centric content focusing on data, facts and expert comments.

By incorporating data into your content, you are proving what you’re saying is true and giving users a reason to trust you. You may include data from reports, surveys, online trends (for example, Google Trends) or anywhere else that you can collect reliable information from.

Alongside data and statistics, it’s also important to show users that you’re an expert within the FinTech industry. You can demonstrate this by adding expert comments to your content. Whether you’re writing a roundup of the most recent FinTech trends or a blog about the importance of cybersecurity, giving your expert opinion positions you as a leader and builds authority around your brand. With so much content for users to choose from, becoming a trustworthy source has never been so important!

If you plan on becoming an authoritative voice in the FinTech industry, you might also consider integrating Digital PR into your SEO strategy. Successful Digital PR campaigns can provide trust signals to users, particularly if you’re targeting relevant publications that your target audience is likely to read. This is because if you’re being featured in news publications as an expert commenting on a recent topic, readers are likelier to remember you and trust you as they know journalists trust you too. As a result, ensuring the content you create for your Digital PR campaigns is user-centric, relevant, reliable, data-led and engaging is important as it will reach a wider audience and develop trust between you and your audience. Find out more about building trust through Digital PR campaigns.

User Accessibility

We’ve discussed why your site content should be optimised for users because of Google’s Helpful Content Update and also to provide trust signals…why else?

One of the core reasons why your FinTech website content needs to be optimised for users is for website accessibility. With the world moving online and the FinTech industry specialising in services such as online payment services, it’s important to ensure everyone has access to the latest forms of digital finance. 

If you’re writing powerful content with relevant information, opinions, and data, everyone should have the right to learn from it. If your blogs, landing pages and product pages aren’t easy to navigate, simple and well-structured, you will create inaccessible content and prevent potential customers from investing in your services.

So, how do you optimise website content for accessibility at the same time as SEO? Here are our top 3 tips:

1. Use easy-to-understand language - The FinTech industry is no stranger to abbreviations. Even ‘FinTech’ is short for ‘financial technology’. If your content is filled with acronyms and technical jargon that only a few people will understand, users will quickly lose interest and become disengaged.When writing your content, use easy-to-understand language and be sure to explain anything that someone without insider knowledge most likely wouldn’t know. In doing so, your content will be accessible to anyone who reads it and is more likely to convert.
2. Create appropriate image descriptions - If you’re planning on using images throughout your content, you need to be careful that you aren’t making them inaccessible to users with visual impairments. Graphics are a great way to create captivating content, whether you use them to present information in an engaging way or to illustrate a point you’re making. However, it’s important to make them user-friendly by adding alternative descriptions so that screen readers and other technology can interpret them.Want to understand how to distinguish between informative and decorative images and create appropriate alternative descriptions for them? Download our whitepaper on how to elevate customer relationships with website accessibility!
3. Make your content digestible - If your content is in a single block without any paragraphs, headings or images to break it up, it can be difficult to read and digest, particularly for people with visual impairments or dyslexia. Also, it’s boring and unappealing to read - think about it, would you be engaged by a single block of text? To ensure your content is digestible, use paragraphs, headings, lists, bullet points and graphics appropriately. This way, you’ll create snappy, actionable content that’s easy to understand and more likely to be remembered by users. Revolut uses a mixture of short paragraphs, heading tags and images to create simple, engaging content!

Key Takeaways

Content is a fantastic way to get in front of your target audience, convey your authority and dominance within the FinTech industry and position yourself as a market leader. This is why it’s more important than ever to ensure the content you’re creating is engaging, relevant, meaningful and captures user intent.

When you thinking about optimising content for users as well as SEO, consider the following:

• Create content that follows as many of Google’s guidelines as possible, ensuring that the content being created on your site is meaningful and created for users, not search engines:
  • Useful and informative
  • More valuable and useful than other sites
  • Credible (E-A-T)
  • High Quality
  • Engaging
• Incorporate strong trust signals onto your website through case studies, customer testimonials and press releases about award wins. 
• Ensure your website has been optimised for accessibility as well as SEO, to make your content available to everyone who wants to view your products and services, learn about your business and become one of your customers.

Want support with elevating your website’s content? Our Content and SEO services will help you move the game on and rise above your FinTech competitors. Get in touch with us today to discuss how we can collaborate with you and implement an effective, market-leading SEO strategy with humans at its core!