When Does it Make Sense for a Fintech Company to Work With an SEO Agency?
If we had to summarise this post with one sentence it would be this: you really only need to work with an SEO agency or freelancer if you’re publishing and refreshing a lot of content.
And if you do sign a retainer, make sure you know what the retainer consists of, what type of work your SEO partner will do on a monthly basis and elaborate on whether this is what you need.
There is no denying that some SEO agencies take advantage of their clients’ lack of know-how. We’ve seen too many fintech companies pay £1,000+ per month retainers for a simple audit that is unnecessary and does not bring as much value as it could.
In this article we’ll look into when it does and doesn’t make sense to work with an SEO agency as a fintech company.
Note: every month we send out a newsletter with our latest articles and other great stuff on fintech and content marketing. Join now to get it in your inbox.
When it doesn’t make sense to work with an SEO agency
Ultimately, it all comes down to what the SEO agency does.
SEO agencies usually focus on the technical side of SEO with your company. They will:
Help your product pages rank on Google by building backlinks.
Do regular audits on your website to ensure everything is working correctly.
Help you create an SEO strategy to improve site speed and get you ranking for the right keywords
Share reports and track performance.
Optionally, they might also:
Put together a content calendar and create content.
Help with PPC.
Web development.
Design.
Here’s when it might not make sense to work with one:
You want someone to help you generate SQLs
A good agency should start with targeting keywords that are at the “bottom of the funnel”, in other words, targeting people who are already looking for a solution like yours and are close to converting. They will likely use product pages to then target those keywords.
However, in our experience, blog posts do a better job of ranking for certain keywords (because they have more text), and they also do a better job of converting (because you can inform the reader and make a case for your argument).
That means that if you’re focused on SQLs, ideally you want to work with an SEO agency that also creates content. However, as we’ll see below, in the B2B fintech industry, you need to ensure that the agency you pick has the means to research and understand your industry (or specialises in your industry) to then write as a professional, especially after Google's Helpful Content Update.
Your website is relatively new and doesn’t have many pages
The technical SEO consultants we work with say that it doesn’t really make sense to have a technical SEO agency on retainer if you don’t have many pages – unless they’re also helping you with content creation.
But if there is no content creation happening, then your website isn’t changing much and therefore it’s not necessary to have an audit every month to ensure everything is working fine.
Instead, an audit every 6 months is probably enough.
You want to rank for keywords your customers are searching for
Sometimes, the SEO agency will put together a list of suggested keywords and content to rank for these keywords. However, you want to be careful about how they come up with the keywords. If they just do an export of the keywords your competitors are ranking for, that’s not enough. You’ll end up ranking for the same keywords as theirs, and it’ll often be Top of the Funnel rather than what your real customers are searching for.
Ideally, you want the agency to do some in-depth research into what your customers might be looking for. They might sit down with your sales or customer service team, listen to customer recordings and do research on forums.
Sure, keywords targeting competitors might be fine in order to influence how you are perceived in the field, but make sure they are targeting keywords that will bring in sales first, rather than just traffic.
If you’re working with an SEO agency that also does content, you want to be sure about their methodology. Are they outsourcing it to a generalist writer who will paraphrase what others have written? Will they get AI to write it? Or will they hire specialist writers that write based on an interview with an expert?
Some agencies will outsource to cheaper freelance writers who are not experts on the topic and are not trained or assessed. When that happens, they’ll create content that is based on desk research and produce content that is not aligned with your ideal customer, product or market. (FYI, there’s nothing wrong with working with freelancers, the issue is outsourcing to “cheap” freelancers who won’t be trained or incentivised to do great work).
In the B2B fintech world – where expertise and technical knowledge is even more important – this type of content won’t work. You can see this with Google’s recent update which added another E to their ranking criteria (EEAT). The extra E stands for Experience, which means Google is looking for content that is written by someone who’s had real experience.
This is extra important with fintech companies that might be offering financial advice (called Your Money or Your Life topics), and that will need to show that the person writing the content is an expert and your website is trustworthy.
When does it make sense to hire an SEO agency?
Depending on your situation, it makes a lot more sense to hire an SEO freelancer, or a small SEO agency. Not only do they offer a better ROI, but you’ll also be able to talk directly with the person who does the work. In large SEO agencies, account managers or sales reps often don’t take the time to fully understand what your business does and how best to target and acquire customers, which can lead to a lot of frustrating back and forths.
Based on conversations SEO consultants and agencies, here’s when they recommend working with an SEO agency:
You rely A LOT on SEO and are publishing a lot of content
This is uncommon in the B2B fintech world, and perhaps more common for B2C companies that are direct to consumer and rely a lot on Google for customer acquisition. If SEO is super important (think of brokers, comparison websites, etc), then it makes sense to have an SEO agency that is solely dedicated to getting you to #1 as quickly as possible
If you’re updating and publishing a lot of content, then you might want someone to keep an eye on how your pages are doing and maintain your levels of acquisition.
You want a one-stop shop support with web development, design, etc
If you’re looking to work with a company that can help you with multiple services as well as technical SEO, such as web development, design and content creation, an agency will make more sense as they’ll be able to support you across the board. Freelancers might not be able to support multiple services.
You don’t have in-house web developers and it’s crucial to keep the website up
A lot of companies hire an SEO agency to take care of the website in case it goes down. As a fintech, you’re a tech company and the website is incredibly important. You likely have web developers, but if you don’t, the SEO company can help ensure you sleep well at night and your website stays up.
They specialise in fintech and also do content creation
If they work only with fintech companies and also do content creation, then they could be a good fit. This will help solve multiple problems mentioned above:
Since they create content, they can rank for the keywords that will bring in SQLs.
Since they specialise in fintech, they’ll have people on the team that can write about advanced finance related topics.
If you’re going down this route, you want to ensure a few other things:
They do in-depth research before creating a strategy. Meaning, they’ll sit with your product person, growth person, salesperson to understand who would be the best people to target.
The content will be based on interviews with experts, not based on desk research.
What’s the recommended path?
When we talk to people, most of them understand that SEO is important and that they should take care of it.
Here’s the path we recommend:
If your website is under two years old, focus on creating content and ensure your website structure has all the basics. At this point, it might be good to get an SEO freelancer involved early on to make sure you are on the right track, just to avoid doing things that you later have to “un-do”.
After two years, hire a freelancer to do an in-depth audit to make sure there is nothing wrong with your website. After that, it depends on your priorities. If content is a big part of your marketing, then you might opt for a content marketing agency that also does SEO. If you’re more product focused, then an SEO agency that does content might work better for you.
In any case, it’s a good idea to do your due diligence on an SEO agency and ensure that you are aligned on the KPIs that you care about – ideally that are correlated with sales. If you do sign a retainer, double check what the retainer is about, i.e. what you are going to do every month and why. And if you’re not sure, it might be better to start with a freelancer so you have the basics down, before working with an SEO agency.
Thanks to:
For reviewing this piece. If you’re on the lookout for a trustworthy SEO consultant and agency, I’d recommend checking them out!