The financial sector is a dynamic, challenging, and highly regulated space. Businesses in this field must optimize their local search presence, particularly Google Business Profile listings, with a higher level of sensitivity and specialization than industries like retail or hospitality. The challenges arise from various factors, including internal branding guidelines, accessibility considerations, regulatory measures, and governance considerations across different lines of business within the financial organization.
This complexity means that local listings in the financial sector are not “one size fits all.” Instead, they vary based on function and can be categorized into several types, such as branches, loan officers, financial advisors, and ATMs (which can include walk-up ATMs, drive-through ATMs, and “smart ATMs”). Each of these listing types requires a unique set of hours, categories, hyper-local content, attributes, and an overall optimization strategy. The aim here is to explain why a unique optimization strategy is crucial for businesses in the financial sector and discuss best practices for listing optimization.
Financial Brand Listing Type Considerations
Listing optimization in the financial sector is nuanced due to varying business functions and Google’s different classifications (or types) of listings, each with its own set of guidelines. This includes distinctions between a listing for an organization (like a bank branch) and that of an individual practitioner (like a loan officer, who may or may not be based at a branch). In some cases, there may also be a need for a department listing (such as for consumer banking vs. mortgages). Each classification has specific rules regarding how many listings can be created for a given address and how they are represented. Ignoring these guidelines can result in disabled listings or even account-level penalties, which can have catastrophic impacts on revenue and reputation in a highly regulated and competitive industry.
Google Business Profile Category Selection
Category selection in Google Business Profile (GBP) is one of the most crucial activities involved in creating and optimizing listings. Proper category selection affects rankings, visibility, and traffic attributable to the listing. You can’t “keyword optimize” a GBP listing unless you choose to violate Business Title guidelines. Therefore, the primary and secondary categories you select send strong cues to Google about who should see your listing in local search results and for what queries. Quality and specificity are more important than quantity. Overloading the secondary category field with many entries can confuse Google’s algorithm, leading to poor alignment with users’ needs, driving the wrong traffic, and causing the listing to rank poorly.
Governance Vs. Cannibalization
The distinction between classification types and the appropriate targeting of categories, according to the business functions and objectives represented by a listing, are critical for forming a governance strategy within the organic local search channel. This strategy aims to create separation between lines of business (LOBs) to prevent internal competition over rankings and visibility for search terms that don’t align with one or more LOBs. Users searching for a financial advisor should not be served a listing for a consumer bank branch and vice versa; this creates a poor user experience and potential revenue loss.
The Importance of Category Selection
For example, a large investment bank might have different recommended categories for branches and advisors. Branch categories might include:
- Investment Service
- Investment Company
- Financial Institution
Advisor categories might include:
- Financial Consultant
- Financial Planner
- Financial Broker
Branch categories signal relevance for the institution as a whole, whereas advisor categories align with individual practitioners. When optimized strategically, their visibility aligns with users’ needs. Besides the appropriate category selection, all other data fields and content within listings should also be strategically planned and optimized to align with governance considerations and the overall content strategy for the associated LOBs.
Specialized Financial Brand Listing Attributes
Google Business Profile attributes are data points about a listing that help communicate details about the business being represented. Attributes can vary by primary category and offer an opportunity to enhance user experience and differentiate against competitors. Some useful attributes for the financial sector include:
- Online Appointments
- Various leadership attributes (such as Black-Owned, Family-Led, Veteran-Led, Women-Led)
- Appointment Links
- Accessibility features (like Wheelchair Accessible Elevator, Entrance, Parking Lot)
Managing Hours of Operation
Including accurate hours of operation in listings is crucial. Different services offered at the same address might have different operating hours. For example, a bank branch might be open from 10 am to 5 pm, while a drive-through ATM might be open 24 hours. Separate listings with accurate hours can prevent user frustration and help Google serve accurate information on a location’s availability.
Appointment URL with Local Attribution Tracking
Especially relevant for practitioners like financial advisors and loan officers, appointment URLs in listings can significantly impact lead generation and revenue. These URLs can be tagged with UTM parameters to track conversions, leads, and revenue linked to this feature.
Leveraging Services
Services can be added to a listing to let potential customers know what is available at a given location. Services are displayed prominently within mobile search results and can enhance engagement by providing more complete information.
Google Posts
Google Posts offer a valuable content marketing opportunity. Organizations can post relevant content optimized for key localized phrases, services, and product offerings. Though Google hasn’t explicitly stated that post content impacts rankings, listings with well-optimized posts do appear in local search results for related queries. This can increase visibility, traffic, and click-through rates.
Additional Post Benefits
Beyond increased visibility and CTR, Google Posts can share relevant information about the location, including products, services, promotions, and events. For example, consumer banks can feature benefits like free checking, while financial advisors might offer free initial consultations.
Specialized Financial Brand Listing Attributes
Google Business Profile attributes help distinguish a listing and improve its performance. Attributes like "family-led," "black-owned," and various accessibility features enhance user experience and feed Google’s algorithm more relevant information.
Concluding Thoughts
The financial vertical requires a highly specialized and precise optimization strategy, which must be carefully planned to meet the needs of users, various lines of business, and regulatory compliance. Considerations like primary and secondary categories, hours, attributes, services, and content all play critical roles in defining the strategy. Addressing these elements holistically allows financial institutions and practitioners to maximize visibility, engagement, traffic, revenue, and overall performance while minimizing internal competition, user frustration, and compliance issues.
