Independent Banker - April 2020 - 39

Next: Your chance to meet face-to-face with lawmakers
" You need at least 250 characters on your
homepage, " explains Derek Baker, an account
manager at Mills Marketing. " And copy that's
designed into images does not count, because
Google can't pick that up. "
Beyond information about your bank and its
products, consider posting articles that demonstrate
the expertise of your staff and those that
highlight your local connections.
" You want content that makes the customer
feel the bank is local and there for them and
trustworthy, " Jurukovska says.
Use natural keywords
You've probably heard that keywords are
important to your search engine ranking, but
remember to consider them from the customer's
perspective. " When you're thinking about keywords,
you might think about products the bank
has, but instead you might want to think about
what the customer is trying to solve, " Jurukovska
says. She suggests that instead of writing an article
about credit cards, you use something like
" how do I build up my credit, " which a person
might actually type into a search engine.
If you want to learn what keywords are working
for you now, set up an account at Google
Search Console, a free tool that explains what's
driving traffic to your site. Your content agency
should also do keyword research as part of the
planning process.
3
Keep your community bank's contact
details up to date
An incorrect listing on sites like Yelp and Google
Maps can damage your search rankings.
" There are over 75 online directories, and
some work like Wikipedia in that a consumer can
put in the information about your bank, " Baker
explains. " They can go in and say, 'I bank at XYZ
Bank and they are located at 123 Main Street,'
but you're really at 143 Main Street. "
This was an important issue for VeraBank,
a $2.4 billion-asset bank in Henderson, Texas,
because it changed its name from Citizens
National Bank in 2019. The bank hired an outside
consulting firm to help ensure the new name
was disseminated among all the directory sites,
says Jeremy Cartwright, VeraBank's vice president
of digital banking. " We used that service
Quick stat
67%
of clicks on
Google search
results pages go
to the first five
organic results
Source: Zero Limit Web
Ed Avis is a writer in Illinois.
independentbanker.org Q 39
2
" Imagine your listing in a
search engine website. Is
it enticing? ... And then
once I go in, does it serve
what I need? "
-Michael Marriott, ICBA
because we knew it was a daunting task to visit
each and every site that could have had a listing
for our branches, " he says.
4
Get backlinks to your site
A backlink is when another webpage links to
your site. So, if your bank sponsors a local charitable
event, for example, and the charity writes
about the event on their website, ask them to
include a link to your bank in the article.
" Creating that link back to your site elevates
your bank's presence, " Jurukovska says. " It's
really about showing [Google] that you are a valid
entity and have valuable content. "
It's also important to include relevant internal
links, notes Max Prokell, founder and CEO of
Venta Marketing, the digital marketing partner
of The Callaway Bank in Columbia, Mo.
" The most successful banks have helpful links
placed throughout their well-organized content, "
Prokell says. " Linking pages within your website
will help customers navigate the information and
spend more time on your site to find the answers
that they are looking for. Internal links also help
search engines crawl your site and establish a
trusted hierarchy of information, making your
site more rank-worthy. "
Don't think SEO is a one-and-done
You need to regularly work on SEO for your
site to maintain a high ranking. " SEO is always
evolving because search crawlers are always
changing the algorithms they use, " Marriott says,
" and what people search for is also constantly
changing, so you have to stay ahead of both. "
5
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