Your finance firm’s discoverability and online reputation is everything in this digital world. Having your site or your ads hit with Google penalties carries quite a sting that can take a while to recover from. And in this industry, as any finance marketing agency worth their salt will tell you, time is money. In this article we’re looking at some common mistakes finance firms are making that set them up for Google penalties and how to recover from them.
Why is Google Penalising My Ads?
Violating Google’s Search Essentials (formerly Webmaster Guidelines) is a sure fire way of getting hit with SEO penalties. These penalties can either come from the Google team flagging your site, or through their algorithmic updates like Panda, Penguin or Helpful Content. Read more here about recent Google SEO updates.
Some of the more common reasons for Ad penalties arise from Google attempting to protect users from harmful content, our Director Charlotte recently discussed this issue over at Semrush. YMYL stands for “Your Money or Your Life”—a phrase Google uses to distinguish any content that can potentially impact people’s happiness, health, financial stability, or safety. Google recognizes that YMYL pages providing inaccurate or low-quality information have the potential to do harm.
Here are the most common reasons finance companies get hit with ad penalties:
- Violating Financial Services Policies: To promote financial services and products, firms need to comply with the local regulatory authority that the ads are targeting
- Misleading claims: Making promises of wealth, or guaranteed returns, or instant credit, are terms that can trigger penalties. Google prioritises accuracy and transparency in the content of your ads
- Issues with landing pages: The landing page content needs to be related to the banner ad that led the user there. A bad landing page experience, lack of clear navigation or missing necessary content like disclaimers or privacy policies are all red flags
- Not meeting verification requirements: As a finance company you need to submit to Google’s advertiser verification process.
How Do I Know If My Site Has Google Penalties?
If you’re seeing a significant drop in your rankings then there’s a big chance it’s due to penalties. A sudden drastic drop in organic traffic and falling in SERPs is a sure sign. Not only is this damaging your ability to attract users to your site, but you may also lose trust from users that cannot find your site on Google. For finance companies reliant on SEO for lead gen, then these penalties can result in a significant loss of revenue.
Some of the most common reasons finance firms get SEO penalties
- Low quality content: Generic, thin content that doesn’t deliver relevance or value is a common mistake finance firms make. Google’s EAT (expertise, authority, trustworthiness) metric has been around for a while now yet is still not given the respect that its impact on your site deserves
- Overdoing keywords: You’ve done your keyword (KW) research and now all your content is about that. Stuffing your pages with KWs to manipulate rankings can backfire. If you’re writing an article about YMYL and targeting the KW ‘savings’ you don’t have to push it – it should come out naturally as part of the reader-focused, flow of your discussion
- Aggressive backlinks: Googles Penguin algorithm in particular penalises spammy backlinks. Finance companies developing link-building strategies need to look for quality over quantity
- Duplicate content: Copying content from other sites or even across multiple pages within your own site a ‘no’ for Google. Aim for unique content in every instance
- Hidden content: This is what you do if you want to be in direct violation with Google’s guidelines. Displaying different content to different users and search engines is not a good practce. Finance and forex firms with global regulatory licenses need to think carefully about how they set up their regional sites to ensure they don’t run up against this policy
- Improper use of structured data: Misleading reviews or pricing, or inaccurate structured data can result in Google penalties
- Technical issues: There’s a gamut of technical issues that can result in penalties that need a specialist SEO agency to help you uncover. For example slow loading website, a particular issue that came out in Google’s Core Web Vitals update.
A specialist finance SEO agency can help new sites get the correct fundamentals in place to ensure an optimised website. They can help existing brands develop effective SEO strategies that can scale. And they can identify why you are seeing a drop in traffic and what needs to be done to recover from Google SEO penalties. Ask Contentworks Agency about a comprehensive SEO audit, or for strategic direction for your content.
Why You Don’t Want a Google Ad Penalty
The consequences of violating Google policies can range from minor to quite extreme. You might have a non-compliant ad disapproved and it won’t be shown until the issues are resolved. In worse-case scenarios, you might face account suspension. Repeated ad violations, like promoting fraudulent services can lead to you losing your account making it impossible to advertise on the platform without being reinstated.
Google Ads Management in Finance
To ensure your ad campaigns are effective and don’t get hit with ad penalties you need to understand Google’s financial services advertising policies. Review these policies on a regular basis and audit your content to ensure it complies. Before you start your ad campaigns, make sure you complete the verification process. Read about the most up-to-date process on Google here. As a finance company, you will need to provide proof of license or regulatory compliance.
Other points to ensure your ads stay compliant:
- Check ad copy is transparent, accurate and has correct disclaimers
- Optimise landing pages to align with Google standards including disclaimers, fast loading times and user-friendly design
- Monitor compliance with tools like Google’s Policy Manager. Regularly run an audit of your campaigns to resolve any potential issues
- Fix any violations by following these steps from Google
How To Recover from Google SEO Penalties
Once hit by a Google penalty, the road to recovery is not as straightforward as you’d like. It requires a systematic approach of identifying potential culprits and testing to see what makes a difference.
Tip to identifying penalty type: Check your Google search console under ‘manual actions’ for notifications. Also, review your analytics for spikes in drops after major algorithm updates by Google.
After identifying the issue, and keep in mind you might not always be 100% certain of what that is, conduct a comprehensive SEO audit. The audit will cover a wide range of technical areas like crawl errors, broken links, loading speed etc. It should also assess content quality and backlink profile using tools like Ahrefs or SEMRush.
Next you need to get to work fixing these issues, and this can include:
- Upping your content game by creating better quality, more engaging content
- Removing spammy links, or including DNFs (do not follow) links
- Structuring data correctly by ensuring your schema markup complies with Googles’ guidelines.
Once you feel you’ve done everything to rectify the situation, submit a ‘reconsideration request’ for manual penalties via the Google search console. Explain what steps you’ve taken to resolve the issues and show your commitment towards compliance.
Finally, once you’ve recovered from the SEO penalty, you can’t sit back and relax. SEO monitoring and adjusting is a ongoing process. Use your analytics tools to keep monitoring your site and heading off any potential issues at the pass!
Bonus Actions To Prevent Google Penalties
To prevent future Google penalties, finance companies need a proactive SEO strategy. It should focus on
- Quality content
- Ethical link-building
- Staying updated on Google updates
- Conducting regular audits
- Partnering with an SEO agency with experience in the finance sector.
Need a partner for your SEO? Ask for a 15-minute zoom with the financial content experts at Contentworks.
Google Penalties Wrap-Up
Marketing departments in finance companies have a lot to contend with. Navigating Google SEO and Ad policies can be time and resource consuming. By understanding the most common pitfalls, encompassing best practices and getting guidance from financial marketing experts, companies can build effective campaigns and increase their SERPs. Balancing creativity with compliance has always been the challenge. Ensuring your content and advertising resonates with your users and remains complaint of Google standards is critical.
Need the help of a financial marketing agency? Speak to the team at Contentworks for effective strategies, compliant content and financial advertising.