Search engine optimisation in financial services is no longer just about keywords and backlinks. It’s about trust, precision, and relevance in an environment where both users and search engines are more discerning than ever. Whether you’re a forex broker, fintech brand, or PSP, your SEO performance directly impacts your ability to acquire high-value clients, build authority, and compete in increasingly saturated markets. But still we see many financial brands continuing to struggle with the same underlying SEO issues. Misaligned content strategies, weak technical foundations and missed intent signals are hurting your financial SEO. In this guide, we break down 10 of the most common SEO issues affecting financial services brands and how to fix them.
#1 Ignoring Search Intent
When your content doesn’t match what users are actually searching for, it won’t rank or convert. Google prioritises content that satisfies intent, not just keywords. In financial services, where users are often researching complex topics or comparing providers, failing to align with intent leads to high bounce rates, low engagement, and lost acquisition opportunities.
How to Fix It:
Start with search intent before you start writing. Analyse the top-ranking results for your target keyword and identify whether Google is prioritising informational, comparison, or transactional content. Financial brands should create content that answers real user questions such as regulatory requirements, trading conditions, or product comparisons. Structuring articles around clear questions, subtopics and FAQs helps align content with what users, and search engines, actually want.
Speak to the team at Contentworks about developing a 12-month data-driven content plan and the execution.
#2 Targeting Only High-Volume Keywords
High-volume keywords are very competitive and often too broad to drive meaningful conversions. Financial brands that focus only on these terms miss out on qualified, high-intent traffic. This results in wasted resources, slower ranking progress, and traffic that doesn’t translate into leads or deposits.
How to Fix It:
Build a keyword strategy that combines high-volume keywords with long-tail and niche financial queries. Phrases like “forex trading platform for beginners in Singapore” or “regulated crypto brokers EU” may have lower search volume but much higher intent. These keywords often convert better and are easier to rank for. A strong financial SEO strategy focuses on topical authority across clusters rather than chasing a handful of competitive terms.
#3 Neglecting Technical SEO
Even the best content cannot perform if search engines struggle to crawl, index, or load your website. Technical issues such as slow page speed, poor site architecture, or indexing errors can severely limit visibility. For financial websites with complex structures, these problems can compound quickly and undermine all other SEO efforts.
How to Fix It:
Run regular technical SEO audits to identify crawl errors, slow loading pages, broken links, or indexing issues. Financial services websites are often complex with multiple landing pages, regulatory pages and language versions. Ensuring fast load times, clean URL structures, structured data markup and mobile optimisation is essential. Technical SEO creates the foundation that allows your content and authority signals to perform.
See a brief example of a technical SEO report Contentworks did for this broker.
#4 Publishing Thin or Generic Content
Generic content fails to differentiate your brand or demonstrate expertise. In a sector where users are making high-stakes financial decisions, shallow content erodes trust and reduces engagement. Google also deprioritises low-value content, meaning your pages are unlikely to rank against more comprehensive, authoritative competitors.
How to Fix It:
Focus on depth, expertise and usefulness. Financial audiences are looking for trusted insights, not generic summaries. Invest in long-form guides, research-backed articles, regional market reports and data-driven content. Include expert commentary, examples, and real-world insights from the industry. High-quality content signals expertise and aligns with Google’s emphasis on E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness).
#5 Ignoring E-E-A-T Signals
Google holds financial content to a higher standard because it can directly impact users’ financial wellbeing. Without strong Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) signals, your site may struggle to rank regardless of keyword optimisation. Weak credibility signals also reduce user trust and conversion rates.
How to Fix It:
Strengthen your credibility signals across the entire website. Include author bios with financial expertise, cite reputable sources, reference regulatory bodies, and highlight industry credentials or awards. Financial services content falls into the YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) category, meaning Google applies higher standards for trust and authority. Demonstrating transparency and expertise is essential for ranking in this sector.
Go to the end of this article to read more on how important this point is for your AI Optimisation.
#6 Poor Internal Linking
Without a clear internal linking strategy, search engines cannot easily understand your site structure or content relationships. This weakens your topical authority and makes it harder for key pages to rank. It also creates a poor user journey, limiting engagement and reducing the likelihood of conversion.
How to Fix It:
Create a structured internal linking framework that connects related articles, guides, and landing pages. This helps search engines understand your content hierarchy while also guiding readers through deeper educational journeys. For example, a blog post on forex spreads should link naturally to articles about liquidity, broker models, and trading costs. Strategic linking strengthens topical authority and improves crawlability.
Ask Contentworks about running a comprehensive technical SEO audit on your site and strategies for an internal linking outline.
#7 Forgetting Local and Regional SEO
Financial services are highly localised, with regulations, language preferences, and search behaviours varying by region. Ignoring localisation means missing highly relevant traffic and failing to connect with users in key markets. A generic global approach often leads to poor visibility in competitive regional SERPs.
How to Fix It:
Optimise content for regional search behaviour, especially if you operate in multiple jurisdictions. This includes targeting location-based keywords, referencing local regulations, and creating region-specific landing pages or reports. Financial services search behaviour varies significantly across markets, so localisation is critical for effective international SEO.
#8 Ignoring SERP Features
Search results are no longer just a list of links. Featured snippets, FAQs, AI overviews and other SERP features dominate visibility. If your content isn’t optimised for these elements, you’re missing valuable opportunities to increase click-through rates and capture attention.
How to Fix It:
Structure your content to capture featured snippets, FAQs, and other search result enhancements. Use clear headings, concise definitions, numbered lists, and structured FAQ sections. Implement schema markup where appropriate. These optimisations increase visibility even if your page isn’t ranking in the number one position and can significantly improve click-through rates.
#9 Weak Backlink Strategies
Backlinks remain a critical ranking factor, but not all links are equal. Low-quality or irrelevant links can harm your credibility, while a lack of authoritative links limits your ability to compete. Financial brands that neglect strategic link building often struggle to build domain authority and gain traction in search.
How to Fix It:
Focus on authority-driven link building rather than volume. Financial brands should prioritise placements in reputable financial media, industry publications, and credible blogs. Digital PR, thought leadership articles, data-driven reports and expert commentary are effective ways to earn high-quality backlinks that strengthen domain authority and improve rankings.
#10 Treating SEO as a One-Time Task
SEO is not static. Search algorithms evolve, competitors improve, and financial markets change. Brands that treat SEO as a one-off project quickly lose relevance and rankings. Without continuous optimisation, even well-performing content will decline over time, reducing traffic and lead generation potential.
How to Fix It:
Build SEO into an ongoing marketing strategy rather than a one-off project. Regularly update older articles with fresh data, expand high-performing pages, and monitor ranking performance. Financial markets, regulations, and search trends evolve constantly, so maintaining visibility requires continuous optimisation and content refreshes.
Bonus Tip
For AIO or GEO, the single most important point from the list above is point 5, ignoring EEAT signals. AI-driven search (Google SGE, ChatGPT-style answers, Perplexity, etc.) is fundamentally built around trustworthy source selection. These systems choose which brands to cite, summarise, or ignore entirely. If your site lacks strong Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, you simply won’t be included in AI-generated answers. So while in traditional SEO, weak E-E-A-T might push you down a few positions, In AIO, it can mean complete invisibility.
How to Fix it:
Create content with clear authorship, credible sources, strong brand signals, and consistent topical authority. A close second to this is point 1 above, ignoring search intent. AI’s like direct answers (not link lists) and are heavily shaped by query intent.
If your SEO strategy isn’t delivering the visibility, traffic, or conversions your brand needs, it’s time to rethink your approach. At Contentworks Agency, we specialise in fixing the SEO issues that hold financial brands back. From technical audits and content strategy to authority building and AI-ready optimisation, book a 15 minute zoom with our team.