If you’re running a financial website, you can learn a thing or two from Google. At Google, they always try to serve their customers the best they can and they know how to do it. If you follow the spirit of Google’s content guidelines, you’ll also please your visitors.
Stay up to date with Google. You will drop in rankings if your site’s content and design meet the ever-changing content requirements. When you do something that goes against Google’s guidelines, you are penalized. Their goal is not to punish you, but to elevate content that their users will like and push the rest down in the rankings.
When Google updates, it does so for good reason. These changes, however, can force poor quality content out of the map. One example is the 2012 Penguin update, described as a web spam algorithm, which affected 1 in 10 search results.
Since 2012, the Penguin update has gone through several iterations. It works in real time, which means startups can no longer get away with shoddy content or site design for a few months until they improve their offering. Google will detect and deal with these sites immediately.
And Penguin is just one of many algorithms Google uses to maintain the quality of its search results. Since Google can take down a business with the push of a button, you better be aware of what they’re doing and when.
If you’ve been working hard on your site, but it’s still not ranking well, you may have inadvertently been penalized for something. If you search for your brand name and your site ranks poorly, or if the positions from page one have slipped to page two or three for no apparent reason, chances are you’ve been penalized.
Google doesn’t always announce the changes it makes. However, there are common reasons for being penalized, so we recommend checking them out first.
duplicate content
Whether it’s within your domain or across the web, duplicate content makes Google annoyed.
Some people deliberately create duplicate content for non-malicious reasons. For example, you can have a content page and a duplicate page that is formatted simply for printing.
In this type of situation, you need to indicate your preferred URL to Google. This is called canonicalization. One way to do this is by using Search Console.
Google prefers this if it doesn’t try to prevent its spiders from viewing the pages (for example, by using a robots.txt file). It’s much happier when you use canonicalization to tell you which pages are duplicates and which page you prefer.
You can also avoid being penalized for duplicate content by:
be consistent with the format you use to link to pages internally;
use 301 redirects if you have restructured your site;
Minimize boilerplate, for example by avoiding long copyright text at the bottom of each page and replacing it with something shorter that links to your main copyright information page;
avoid placeholders if you are in the process of (re)designing your site;
consolidate or differentiate pages with similar content.
Some people create duplicate content on multiple domains to deliberately increase keyword usage and move up the rankings. However, Google does not want its users to see a page full of links that offer the same content.
Google does not suffer from this type of deception. It will penalize these domains without a second thought.
purchase links
Having more sites linking to yours used to be taken as evidence of the usefulness and quality of your site. These days, however, one link from a high-quality website is worth much more than many links from low-quality websites.
If you are buying links, the standard of sites linking to you is likely to be very low. Not only does this not help your ranking, it will actually work against you.
Too many reciprocal links
As with buying links, Google takes too much reciprocity, it is a sign that it is trying to manipulate rankings instead of providing a quality experience to its visitors.
The answer? Penalty fee.
Not enough outgoing links
Google expects high-quality websites to understand that they don’t exist in isolation and that there are other sites that their users might find useful. Almost all companies have complementary products, services and information. Google rewards companies that take a broader view of their customers’ needs.
Broken Internal Links – If you have broken links on your website, it means your visitors are falling into potholes and bumping into each other at dead ends. Since Google wants the best possible experience for its users, it penalizes websites that don’t take care of their infrastructure.
Broken external links: Google looks favorably on links to quality sites. However, if the details of those pages change, that leaves you with broken external links, frustrated visitors, and a possible penalty from Google.
Keyword Stuffing: Since the Penguin update in 2012, keyword stuffing and other attempts to manipulate search results have quickly gone out of style.
The best approach to SEO is to be aware of the keywords that your target audience will search for and use them naturally in really useful content.
Excessive use of meta keywords: This is similar to keyword stuffing, but, in this case, you have been stuffing the meta tags instead of the main content. Essentially, your meta keywords are meant to help search engines and your users understand the content on your site.
Going overboard with meta keywords is the equivalent of those envelopes where advertising messages are printed all over the envelope. You don’t even need to open the envelope to know you’ve received time-wasting spam. Do this to Google and they will blacklist your site and move on.
Spun Content: Spun content is reformulated content. The only originality you can expect from these articles is the creative use of a thesaurus. Threaded articles can push the boundaries of grammar as writers strive to rewrite existing content for the sole purpose of evading anti-plagiarism software.
There are many articles written about how much content you need for your website and how often you should post. Very few articles talk about how quality beats quantity.
A site that offers original, helpful and expert advice will serve its visitors better than websites that pay cheap writers to spin content.
Google agrees.
Poor Mobile Websites – Google loves mobile devices. As is typical of Google, this is because Google users like mobile devices.
Mobile Internet searches surpassed desktop searches in 2014. The percentage of web pages visited through mobile devices is increasing worldwide.
With access to mountains of data and a direct line to the wishes of its users, Google knows that mobile devices are critical. If you’re not meeting the needs of mobile users, you can expect your site to drop in rankings in favor of sites that feature mobile versions or a responsive design.
One of the most recent additions to Google’s idea of what makes a good mobile site concerns pop-ups. Popups can be effective for lead generation, capturing many email addresses. However, they are also very intrusive and can hinder a visitor’s experience, especially through mobile devices.
Thanks to the ‘Intrusive Interstitial’ update, pop-up windows that cover an entire page are considered a barrier to the content being searched. Sites that use them face penalties from Google.
In addition to getting your site up the rankings, you need to maintain best practices to avoid going the other way. The Internet landscape is always evolving. While some factors in delivering quality and useful websites are common sense, others require some expertise to understand, decipher, and repair.
Having financial expertise and the ability to deliver it to your visitors is essential to your success, but that’s not enough to guarantee you’ll do well in the rankings.
To ensure that your financial website provides the best possible experience for your visitors and avoid unnecessary penalties from Google, contact a financial web design professional with years of experience in financial services and web design.
