Searchmetrics

2017

Finance Ranking Factors

Data Insights for Performing
on Google
SEARCHMETRICS
INDUSTRY
RANKING FACTORS
STUDY
Table of
Contents
The Finance Industry – More and more activity is happening online........................................................4

About the Study: An Introduction to Ranking Factors..................................................................................6

Infographic................................................................................................................................................7

Dataset and Study Background................................................................................................................8

Analysis and Results – The Ranking Factors where Finance Stands out from the Crowd....................9

Content relevance (Central Area)............................................................................................................10

File Size.....................................................................................................................................................11

Load Time................................................................................................................................................12

Presence of H1 (and H2).........................................................................................................................13

Presence of Unordered Lists..................................................................................................................14

Analysis and Results – The “Fun Facts” we observed for Finance.......................................................15

AdSense/AdLinks....................................................................................................................................16

Keyword in Description/H1/Body/URL...................................................................................................17

Number of Images..................................................................................................................................18

Number of Internal Links.........................................................................................................................19

Social Signals..........................................................................................................................................20

URL Length..............................................................................................................................................21

Conclusions.................................................................................................................................................22

Comparison table........................................................................................................................................ 23
About
Searchmetrics
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Finance Ranking Factors © Searchmetrics 2017

The Finance Industry
More and more activity is
happening online
Bank branches are closing at a steady rate these days. In fact, 2016 saw the seventh-consecutive decline in
US bank locations, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The numbers, however, believe the fact that
total US bank deposits rose to $11.2 trillion dollars in the same period.

Important players in the online finance industry:

Banks (e.g. bankofamerica.com, capitalone.com, bestbank.com)

Insurers (e.g. libertymutual.com, progressive.com, allstate.com)
Credit platforms (e.g. mastercard.com, lendup.com, acecashexpress.com)
Aggregators (e.g. nerdwallet.com, compare.com, thezebra.com)
(Specialist) Journals (e.g. ft.com, thestreet.com, barrons.com)
Info portals/other (e.g. marketwatch.com, oanda.com, forex.com)

73% of US adults prefer online banking

The simple answer to this apparent contradiction is that activity in the financial services industry is now
increasingly taking place online. A 2016 survey by the American Bankers Association found that 55% of American
prefer banking online via their personal computers. Another 18% handle most of their online banking on mobile
devices. The web, put simply, is key to succeeding in the financial services industry.

One major difference between looking for financial advice online and getting it on the Main Street is the
competition. Online – not least on Google – insurance companies and credit institutes are not just competing with
each other – they have to fight off magazines, comparison websites and anyone else who has something to offer
consumers.

4 Finance Ranking Factors © Searchmetrics 2017

Nowadays, consumers are used to searching online for information before making decisions. The more important
a decision is, the more research will be done beforehand. A J.D. Power study in 2016 found that 74% of shoppers for
insurance use insurer websites or aggregrators for quotes and information.

74% of insurance shoppers go online

to get information from insurer
websites or aggregators

Trust matters in the finance industry

Whether it’s looking at stocks, getting insurance or setting up a mortgage plan, financial decisions are always going
to be extremely sensitive, impactful and important.

Because consumers’ money is at stake, business and financial industry consultants must maintain a persistent
and secure presence on Google. Search engine results pages can give even small players an outsized opportunity
against established names, provided they have content and products that appeal to what users are searching for.

Ultimately, trust is the key issue for consumers when it comes to financial services. Today, this trust no longer
comes from a long-term relationship with your neighborhood bank clerk or stock broker – what wins trust in
today’s environment is a high position in Google’s rankings, achieved first and foremost by offering consumers
relevant content and services that meet their needs.
5 Finance Ranking Factors © Searchmetrics 2017
About the Study
An Introduction to
Ranking Factors
This analysis is one in a series of Searchmetrics’ ranking factor whitepapers that focus exclusively on one
specific industry. If you’ve just tuned in, you can get started with our Ranking Factors 101:

What is a Ranking Factor? Rebooting Ranking Factors

Rebooting Ranking Factors

Google.com

Find out more about general ranking factors

General Ranking Factors as a Benchmark for differing Industry Ranking Factors

For each of our industry studies, the general ranking factors, which were published in a separate whitepaper,
serve as a benchmark. Whilst the general ranking factors and rank correlations provide an overview of which
elements are generally the most important in terms of search, and how top-ranking landing pages vary
regarding these elements, the general factors can no longer be considered equally relevant for all webmasters.
Although there is a basic set of factors that can be considered a general requirement for rankings, ranking
factors differ from industry to industry, and are therefore not generally applicable for all websites. Content
demands based on user intent have simply become too differentiated. For this reason, the general ranking
factors act as a comparative benchmark, providing context to the results. By comparing them with the general
ranking factors, we can identify the ranking factors for which the finance industry has its own set of rules, and
where webmasters operating in this industry should focus their attention or at least be aware of.

6 Finance Ranking Factors © Searchmetrics 2017

Ranking Factors for the Finance Industry
Comparison of the Top 10 Average Values
with the Benchmark in %
Finance Benchmark (100%) Finance higher than the Benchmark B Ranking Factors for the Finance Industry I Fun Facts for Finance

 C ontent Relevance Central Area

AdSense/AdLinks
 F ile Size*
 O verall Content Relevance
 P resence of Unordered Lists
 L oad Time*
 U RL Length
 F ont Size (Above the Fold)
 W ord Count
 P resence of H1
TLD is .com
 P resence of H2
 H TTPS
 B ullets per List (max.)
 F ont Size (Central Area)
 B ounce Rate
 C TR
 N umber of .edu Backlinks
 N umber of Backlinks
 N umber of Do-Follow Backlinks
 N umber of Domains Linked from the URL
 N umber of External Links from the URL
 N umber of No-Follow Backlinks
 T ime on Site
 C ontent Relevance (General)
 N umber of External Links
 V ideo Integration
 N umber of Internal Links
 I nteractive Elements
 K eyword in Description
 N umber of Images
 K eyword in Title
 K eyword in H1
 F lash
 K eywords in Body
 F acebook Total
 Tweets
 P interest
 G oogle +1

The data is based on a comparison of Google ranking factors for finance industry websites with the general ranking factors covering all industries (Searchmetrics Whitepaper
December 2016). Download the whole whitepaper at: searchmetrics.com/finance2017

*Values inverted, because better optimized pages have smaller file sizes and faster load times
About the Study
Ranking Factors for the
Finance Industry
The following 10 search queries are examples of the keywords used for the analysis in this whitepaper.
Of course, not all keywords included in the set are equally relevant for all financial industry companies.
Nevertheless, the use of specifically selected data enables a much more precise analysis of the finance
industry than would be possible with a generic keyword set.

• social security
• amex
TRAVEL
• free credit score
FINANCE
• auto loan calculator
• payday loans eCOMMERCE INDUSTRY
RANKING FACTORS
• mortgage rates
• euros to dollars HEALTH

insurance
MEDIA
•
• cost of living calculator
• foreign exchange

Industry-specific keyword set

To analyze the ranking factors relevant to the finance industry, we created an industry-specific keyword set.
Whilst the keyword set for the general ranking factors contained search terms related to all topics and fields –
and primarily included terms with a high search volume – the results for this industry whitepaper are based on
a smaller, more distinct dataset. For this analysis, keywords were only included that are relevant for the finance
industry. In some instances, there is an overlap between the industry keywords and those of the general ranking
factors – but this is by no means always the case. The keyword overlap between this industry study and the
general ranking factors analysis was only around 5%. Overall, the average search volume of finance keywords
is much lower (around 12%) than for the search terms analyzed for the benchmark study. The use of a specially
determined keyword set is essential because each individual industry – in fact, even each individual search query
– has differentiated ranking factors.

8 Finance Ranking Factors © Searchmetrics 2017

Analysis & Results
The Ranking Factors where
Finance Stands out from the Crowd

Content Relevance (Central Area) File Size

Load Time Presence of H1/H2 Presence of Unordered Lists

The most interesting factors for finance – and some “fun facts”

As ranking factors differ for each industry, it’s not always the same factors that are the most interesting. For this
reason, we have used our finance keyword set to first evaluate all ranking factors that were part of the general
benchmark analysis. Based on these results, we have identified some ranking factors that are most interesting for
finance websites from our perspective.

Moreover, we are looking at some factors that show a significant difference in values and/or trends, when
comparing the finance results with the benchmark analysis, though these may not necessarily be true ranking
factors. These are our “Fun Facts”.

9 Finance Ranking Factors © Searchmetrics 2017

Content
Relevance (Central Area)

Across the top 20, finance URLs display a higher content relevance than in our benchmark study.
The highest content relevance is found for positions 3 to 7.

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Content Relevance (Central Area)

For our benchmark study, which did not focus on any particular industry, we developed an index, according to
which the search result with the highest content relevance was assigned the value 100. All other results were then
calculated in their relation to this value.

We observe that high-ranking URLs for finance keywords have a higher level of content relevance on the page’s
central area than for the overall average across all industries.

Compared with this benchmark, all top 10 finance domains have a higher level of content relevance, and therefore
score above 100 according to our index. On average, finance domains on Google’s first results page have a content
relevance score for the central area of 145.5, meaning that this section of the page contains content that is highly
relevant to users.
10 Finance Ranking Factors © Searchmetrics 2017
File
Size

The file sizes of top 10 domains in the finance industry are around 30% lower than the overall average.

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File Size

The average file size for websites in the area of finance is lower than the benchmark level and the level for other
industries – such as eCommerce. One explanation for this could be that pages which provide information or
services related to finance tend to make less use of images and/or videos than websites of other industries.

The lower file size goes hand-in-hand with the quicker site speed, which was also observed for finance domains.

Hint: For finance pages, even on desktop, it’s better to have a technically optimized page and be streamlined and
efficient than include unnecessary pictures or videos.

11 Finance Ranking Factors © Searchmetrics 2017

Load
Time

Finance domains load one second faster than the overall average.

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Load Time

The average load time for finance domains on desktop is a second faster than in our benchmark study.
This applies to all search positions in the top 20.

Additionally, file sizes of URLs that rank highly for finance keywords are 30% smaller than the overall average. This
could indicate that finance domains tend to use fewer images and fewer videos than websites dealing with other
industries.

Hint: Pages that rank well for finance keywords load fast. So see which volume-heavy elements of your page you
can do without.

12 Finance Ranking Factors © Searchmetrics 2017

Presence of
H1 (and H2)

The presence of both an H1 and an H2 headline in the content of a page – as an aspect of technical
page optimization – is more common among finance websites than the overall benchmark average.

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Presence of H1 (and H2)

Content marked with the H1 meta tag is the main headline of the whole page document. Among other elements,
this is a very important source of information and a structural element both for search engines and users, because
it is supposed to carry the main content focus of the whole page.

On average, 89% of finance websites in Google’s top 10 have an H1 (H2: 78%), whereas the benchmark is only 85%
(H2: 77%).
Hint: Finance websites are focused on their main content. Having fewer images, and fewer other elements that get
the reader’s attention, means that the content needs to be structured well and provide the reader with the most
important information.

13 Finance Ranking Factors © Searchmetrics 2017

Presence of
Unordered Lists

The top 10 ranking pages for finance use unordered lists to structure their content 23% more often
than the overall benchmark average.

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Presence of Unordered Lists

Unordered lists are also known as bullet points. They are a formatting element that helps to provide more structure
to the content and therefore improve readability for the user. When it comes to financial decisions, users often want
to get information about the pros and cons of a certain issue or specific information about different types or certain
aspects of a product (different types of bank accounts/insurance options).

On average, 69% of finance websites in Google’s top 10 feature an unordered list in their content, whereas the
benchmark is only 56%.
Hint: Avoid long text passages without providing any structural elements that help the reader’s eye to easily
consume and understand your content. Of course, you can also use ordered (=numbered) lists, as well as headlines
and paragraphs to structure your content.

14 Finance Ranking Factors © Searchmetrics 2017

Analysis & Results
The “Fun Facts” we observed
for Finance

AdSense/AdLinks Number of Internal Links

Keyword in Description/ Social Signals:Facebook Total,

H1/Body/URL Tweets, Google+1, Pinterest

Number of Images URL Length

Fun Facts

In this context, “Fun Fact” focuses on the interpretation that that these factors are obviously not decisive for ranking
highly in google.com’s search results pages, according to our analysis of the online finance industry. However, we
consider those factors to be worth mentioning in the way that they show a significant difference in values and/or
trends, when comparing the finance results with the benchmark analysis.

15 Finance Ranking Factors © Searchmetrics 2017

AdSense/
AdLinks

Significantly more websites from the finance industry (61% more) include AdSense or other AdLinks on
their page than the overall benchmark average.

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AdSense/AdLinks

For finance websites, it’s not a ranking factor to have more ads on the page. However, our analysis shows that it’s
much more common for top ranking websites from the finance industry to include some kind of advertising on their
page when compared with the benchmark.

On average, 16% of finance websites in Google’s top 10 do have an ad on their page, whereas the benchmark is
only 9%.
Hint: Don’t put more ads on your page to rank better. However, our data shows that advertising is much more
common in the finance industry compared to the average.

16 Finance Ranking Factors © Searchmetrics 2017

Keyword
In Description/H1/Body/URL

Finance pages use the searched keyword three times less frequently in the body text
than in our benchmark study.

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Keywords in Body

Finance websites ranking on the first 20 positions use far fewer instances of the search term in their body text than
the overall average. The keyword only appears 2.1 times, whereas the overall average, regardless of industry, is 7.4
more than three times as many. The total word count for finance pages is actually slightly higher than in our
benchmark study. This means that websites ranking highly for finance keywords not only have a lower number
of keywords, but also a lower keyword density than those ranking for our more general keyword set. We observe
similar trends for the meta description, H1 and URL, all of which show far less use of the keyword for finance
domains than found overall, when looking at searches across all industries.

Hint: Even more so than other industries, keyword stuffing is a no-go for finance. Forget keyword optimization and
start focusing on relevant content that holistically addresses the topic.

17 Finance Ranking Factors © Searchmetrics 2017

Number of
Images

Finance URLs on Google’s first search results page use fewer images than URLs of all other industries
analyzed.

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Number of Images

Some search intents are best answered with text, others with image or video content. Our results show that users
who are searching for finance keywords tend to be looking for text. Finance URLs ranking in the top 10 have an
average of just 1.0 images of at least 200 pixels. This is almost 40% lower than the overall average – measured
across all industries.

Hint: In the finance industry, users are rarely looking for images. Successful URLs concentrate on text content.

18 Finance Ranking Factors © Searchmetrics 2017

Number of
Internal Links

Top 10 finance websites have fewer internal links (81%) when compared with
the overall benchmark average.

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Internal Links

Pages ranking for keywords related to finance have, on average, fewer internal links than the number found in our
benchmark study, and fewer than in all other analyzed industries. One possible explanation is that finance domains
tend to be more focused in what they offer the user than websites in other industries. Whereas many eCommerce
pages may provide vast numbers of different products (with links between the pages), finance websites that serve
the user’s needs may be more precise and specific in terms of what they offer.

On average, top 10 finance pages have 102 internal links, whereas the general average is 126.

Hint: Concentrate on making each URL deliver the specific content and related sources the user is looking for. It’s
not having huge numbers of links that’s important. You need a user-friendly link structure.

19 Finance Ranking Factors © Searchmetrics 2017

Social
Signals

Top 20 finance domains display less than 20% of Facebook signals than the benchmark average.
However, they have 70% more signals from the professional network LinkedIn.

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Social Signals

Compared with the overall average, finance domains have very few social signals from Facebook. The average
number of Facebook signals (combining likes and shares) for pages ranking for our finance keyword set on
Google’s first page set is less than 20% of the number from our benchmark study. Similar results are found for
interactions from other social networks, Google+, Twitter and Pinterest.

However, the trend for the professional social network LinkedIn is quite different. On average, top 20 finance pages
have 70% more LinkedIn signals than the overall benchmark average. This suggests that domains ranking highly
for finance-related keywords are also popular amongst users of LinkedIn.

20 Finance Ranking Factors © Searchmetrics 2017

URL
Length

The URLs of high-ranking finance pages are 14% longer on average than in the benchmark study.

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URL Length

Top 10 URLs in the finance industry are 14% longer than the overall average. This trend continues across the top
20. This is likely due to the fact that fewer homepages, and more landing pages at lower levels, are amongst the
high-ranking results.

The overall trend in the finance industry in line with, though more pronounced than in the benchmark study, in that
comparatively shorter URLs tend to rank more highly.

However, the impact of the brand factor is far less visible for URL length for finance keywords, as there is far less of
a difference between positions 1 and 2 than when looking at the average across all industries.

Hint: In finance, don’t worry about long URLs!

21 Finance Ranking Factors © Searchmetrics 2017
Conclusions
The main findings at a glance:

• Across the top 20, finance URLs display a higher content relevance than in our benchmark study. The highest content
relevance is found for positions 3 to 7.

• The file sizes of top 10 domains in the finance industry are around 30% lower than the overall average.

• Finance domains load one second faster than the overall average.

• The presence of both an H1 and an H2 headline in the content of a page – as an aspect of technical page optimization –
is more common among finance websites than the overall benchmark average.

• The top 10 ranking pages for finance use unordered lists to structure their content 23% more often than the overall
benchmark average.

• Significantly more websites from the finance industry (61% more) include AdSense or other AdLinks on their page than
the overall benchmark average.

• Finance pages use the searched keyword three times less frequently in the body text than in our benchmark study.

• Finance URLs on Google’s first search results page use fewer images than URLs of all other industries analyzed.

• Top 10 finance websites have fewer internal links (81%) when compared with the overall benchmark average.

• Top 20 finance domains display less than 20% of Facebook signals than the benchmark average. However, they have
70% more signals from the professional network LinkedIn.

• The URLs of high-ranking finance pages are 14% longer on average than in the benchmark study.

The keyword density for high-ranking finance URLs is much lower than the overall average. Other
page elements, including the body, meta description, URL, H1 and page title, also see less frequent
usage of the actual searched term.

At the same time, the content relevance for finance industry websites is much higher than in our
benchmark study. This clearly indicates that relevant content – not content which simply makes
liberal use of the keyword – is even more important for finance domains than for websites in general.

22 Finance Ranking Factors © Searchmetrics 2017

Comparison
Table
The table summarizes the percentage differences between the top 10 averages for finance pages and the
benchmark average values from the general ranking factors.

Top 10 Top 10 Correlation Correlation

Ranking Factor Difference (%)
Benchmark Finance Benchmark Finance

Content Relevance, Central Area (Index) 90.0 145.5 162% 0.02 0.03

File Size (bytes)* 150,302 103,476 145% 0.00 0.04

Presence of Unordered Lists (%) 56% 69% 123% 0.00 0.03

Load Time (s)* 7.8 6.8 115% 0.00 0.01

Presence of H1 (%) 85% 89% 105% 0.10 -0.01

Presence of H2 (%) 77% 78% 102% 0.01 0.02

*Values inverted, because better optimized pages have smaller file sizes and faster load times.

Top 10 Top 10 Correlation Correlation

Fun Fact Difference (%)
Benchmark Finance Benchmark Finance

AdSense/AdLinks (%) 9% 15% 161% -0.02 0.01

LinkedIn 22 32 143% 0.08 0.18

URL Length 53.0 60.4 114% -0.03 -0.11

Number of Internal Links 126 102 81% 0.07 0.05

Keyword in Description (%) 52% 33% 63% -0.02 0.01

Keyword in URL (%) 67% 41% 62% 0.00 0.00

Number of Images 1.6 1.0 61% 0.09 -0.03

Keyword in H1 (%) 38% 23% 59% -0.06 -0.02

Keywords in Body 7.5 2.2 29% -0.01 0.02

Facebook Total 5,552 920 17% 0.20 0.21

Tweets 888 99 11% 0.17 0.17

Pinterest 153 11 7% 0.19 0.18

Google+1 4,026 33 1% 0.17 0.19

23 Finance Ranking Factors © Searchmetrics 2017

If you have any questions regarding this whitepaper or the Searchmetrics SuiteTM, please
do not hesitate to contact us at www.searchmetrics.com/contact/