Finance SEO Case Study
- Colette Nichol
- Nov 15, 2024
- 9 min read
Updated: Dec 18, 2024
Finance SEO Case Study
Written by Colette Nichol, SEO Expert and Story Strategist, Founder of Story Envelope Media
SEO Organic Traffic Case Study for a Niche Wealth Management Firm
This finance SEO case study covers one of our ongoing projects.
We work with a cross-border wealth management firm in Canada that now dominates Google and YouTube in its niche.
Before we started working with this advisory firm, it was growing due to referrals from its circle of influence and client referrals. Growth was slow and steady. Now, the majority of their new clients come from organic traffic. They have a robust stream of prospects, and the business continues to grow yearly at a rate well above the industry average.
Should they set their sights on a $1B book, they will easily achieve that with this current marketing and lead generation channel.
Finance SEO Case Study Success Highlights
Organic traffic from 100/month to 16,000/month in 4 years
From 1-2 discovery calls per month to over 30 in the first 24 months
Client minimum increased from $500k to $2.5M due to an excess of leads
Position #1-5 on Google for the most important keyword
Booked doubled in under 4 years, with the majority of leads coming from organic traffic
High-value clients with investable assets over $5M coming from organic website traffic
Important Note about Story Envelope’s Secret Sauce
While this case study gives you a basic overview of what we did to achieve success, I won’t reveal any industry-specific secrets or technical tactics that allowed us to outperform the competition.
We keep our tactics confidential because we don’t want a client's competitors to know how to replicate our successes. We offer non-compete contracts to all our clients so they can feel secure that we will not work with anyone who is directly competing against them within the same market.
Our secret sauce is that we are obsessed with deeply understanding our clients’ ideal clients and using great design and high-quality visual and text-based content that’s enjoyable for visitors to read and interact with.
Custom video is another ingredient in our secret sauce. High-end videos that create a connection and feeling of trust with the visitor are often a key element in our website strategies.
We’ve created a process called the Traffic for Experts Method that we use for every client. This method allows us to understand the essence of a business and craft a strategy that helps business owners achieve their goals.
Who & What
This case study focuses on SWAN Wealth Management, a cross-border wealth management firm based in Kelowna, BC.
It is owned and operated by Tiffany Woodfield and John Woodfield, a husband-and-wife team. Focusing on the cross-border niche, they have created a robust website that provides massive value to their clients and prospects.
Through our SEO-guided content, we’ve created a resource center that drives over 16,000 to 20,000 organic visitors per month.
If paid ads were used to capture this traffic, it would cost over $16,000 US per month. Fun fact: their SEO strategy doesn’t cost $16,000 per month!
Before Doing SEO
Before doing SEO, SWAN Wealth has a small website with a few pages. It didn’t rank for any of the key cross-border terms and was not generating leads from organic traffic.
They received 1-2 new discovery calls per month, and the majority of their business came from referrals.
Goals
Tiffany and John had an ambitious vision.
They wanted to rank at the top of Google for everything related to cross-border. And that’s what we’ve done!
They didn’t have specific goals around how many new leads they wanted. Instead, they wanted to make sure that anyone searching for cross-border information could find them. This “getting found” goal is smart. Because they already had a successful and growing business, we could hunker down and focus on building the foundation properly.
We only work with growing successful businesses that are interested in long-term growth. This allows us to take the time needed to build a foundation that will allow for massive growth over the medium and long term.
Call to Action
We integrated Calendly into the website to allow for a smooth booking experience.
Our most important goal was to increase the number of 15-minute calls.
However, at a certain point, we became too successful. We decided to filter out the calls to only allow the most qualified leads to schedule a call. SWAN increased their client minimum, and we increased the filtering on the call booking page.
We require that all our clients use Calendly as it is the highest-converting call scheduler on the market. There’s no sense in getting a ton of traffic if you aren’t going to convert it to a discovery call.
In addition to improving the call conversion rate, we implemented a few different lead magnets. Based on the lead magnets that we integrated throughout the website, SWAN has built a robust cross-border email list. They went from no cross-border email list to over 2000 cross-border leads.
What Worked
We created service pages for all the most relevant cross-border services.
We ensured these pages were robust and helpful, focused on providing useful education and service information.
These pages all began to rank quickly, and calls started coming through.
We have a comprehensive method that allows us to create the “perfect” service page based on our understanding of your ideal client and what the Google algorithm needs to surface pages. Basically, we’re perfectionists when it comes to strategy and execution, which is why we are able to get outsized results for our clients.
After creating the new service pages, we created pillar pages, which are long and helpful guides that give potential clients useful education and information. By being a guide to your potential clients, you build trust and traffic at the same time.
Next, we crafted premium videos and launched a YouTube channel. We also started a blogging strategy to boost traffic further.
The winning strategy includes the following:
Service pages for all the most important services and client types
Pillar pages (guides) for all the most important problems clients face
Complete upgrade of the home page - turning it from a brief overview to a comprehensive SEO-optimized “sales page” for the business
New website design
Custom video strategy, including a sales video and multiple educational videos
Lead magnet creation and execution to capture email addresses and start building an email list of ideal clients
Blogging to support service pages and guides
Custom graphics to support engagement
Full ideal client avatar assessment
Ongoing strategy calls to pivot as necessary
Other secret things ;)
Results/Wins
This project has seen major wins throughout the process.
The first big win was increasing monthly organic visitors from 100 to 1000. When that happened, we saw 10+ discovery calls booked each month. As the project progressed, the discovery calls increased to 30 per month, and we decided to increase the filtering.
SWAN bumped their client minimum from $500K to $1M. They still had too many calls to handle, so they increased their client minimum to $2M.
Over the past 4 years, they've doubled their book. The majority of their new clients now come from organic traffic.
Most advisory firms are not willing to do the work and invest in themselves the way that SWAN Wealth has. But it's this commitment to growth that has allowed SWAN to see outsized returns.
When you do what nobody else will do, you reap the rewards.
Their focus on creating educational and helpful content across their website, blog, and YouTube channel has resulted in traffic growing to over 16,000 organic visitors per month. They are continuing to grow their book each year at a rate far beyond the industry norm.
Exact numbers are confidential.
What We’re Still Doing
SWAN Wealth is an ongoing client.
We think of ourselves as SWAN’s partners in growth and are here to make sure that they continue dominating the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) and scooping up all the cross-border traffic.
As we continue working with them, we are doing the following:
Creating SEO-optimized videos and blogs
Updating old blogs
Ensuring that service pages are up to date and performing well on Google
Creating mobile-optimized custom graphics to drive engagement
Acting as a marketing strategy sounding board
Ensuring the website is optimized and up-to-date
Next, we’ll be doing a website overhaul for SWAN so that they can finally have a unique website unlike any of their competitors. This is the next stage of dominating their niche and building a legacy business.
Challenges
The main challenge with any financial service business is dealing with compliance.
Over the years, we’ve dealt with a difficult compliance process that sometimes resulted in posts getting stuck for months at a time.
Despite these difficulties, we’ve helped SWAN navigate the compliance process and keep their project moving. Our process now is much smoother, allowing posts to be approved more quickly and easily.
So, What Would Page #1 of Google Do for Your Business?
If you’d like to learn more about how we can help you, please get in touch.
You may be in a niche where dominating Google isn’t outrageously expensive. Let me be clear: some niches are super competitive, and getting to Page #1 is costly.
However, most local businesses do not fall into that category. In fact, most local businesses can massively increase their organic traffic and walk-ins if they have a solid SEO strategy that’s properly executed.
Schedule a 15-minute Call to Discuss Your Business
If you’re serious about getting on Page #1 of Google with your business, please reach out and schedule a call. I’d love to hear about your goals and see if our services align with your needs.
The Traffic for Experts Method
The Traffic for Experts method is a systematic approach to getting high-quality organic traffic for expertise-driven businesses.
As a service provider whose main focus is to use your expertise to help your clients get results, your marketing requires a thoughtful approach. You can run fire sales or do any “fast marketing” techniques.
Trust and authority are the backbone of your business. If people don’t trust you, then they’re not going to book an introductory call.
The Traffic for Experts Method has 3 pillars:
Connection
Content
Conversation
CONNECTION
In order to connect with your ideal client, we dig deep to understand who exactly your business is targeting.
It’s not just people with $5M or more in investable assets. You offer something that appeals to a very specific type of person. So let’s find out who that is and then target them with precision. When this is done well, you may find perfect-fit prospects signing within just a few weeks of the first call.
CONTENT
When we know who we’re trying to reach and connect with, we can create content focused on engaging that particular avatar.
We’ll ensure that service pages and blog posts are based around the exact type of clients you wish to see more of in your business.
CONVERSATION
Your perfect-fit prospect will schedule an introductory call with your team if they feel a connection to your business.
That first call is a chance to have a conversation with the prospect and see if there’s a mutual fit. But they won’t go out on a limb and book that first call if they don’t feel connected to your business.
How do we create that connection?
We connect by mirroring your ideal client’s hopes, wishes, and dreams while covering their main challenges and the solutions you offer. We make sure to use the right words and imagery to reflect their goals and desired outcomes.
We don’t shy away from discussing their challenges and the problems they want to solve. People don’t seek out a new service provider if they’re totally happy with the current solution.
When your website focuses on solving their problems and reflects who they are and what they want, they will feel a connection to your business.
In other words, when your content is about them and their problems, they’ll seek your services. If you just talk about how great you are, they won’t feel the connection that drives them to schedule a first conversation.
Steps in the Process
Included in the process are the following steps:
Understand your ideal client deeply
Set KPIs and begin tracking
Map out the best website experience for your ideal prospect
Transfer and upgrade your website if necessary
Select page types from our proven framework
Do keyword research for your location and ideal client
Create content for all necessary service pages and execute
Create blog posts that support your service pages
Create a home-page optimization plan and execute
Ensure your call-to-action is optimized to get the best results
Plan a premium-video strategy and execute if necessary
Assess progress and add off-page SEO strategies as needed
Following the Traffic for Experts Method, you get the best possible results for your service-driven business.
Get Started with Traffic for Experts
If you’re the owner of a growing wealth management firm, and you want to add a new source of high-quality leads to your sales pipeline, let’s talk.
Traffic for Experts is a service we offer to financial services firms who wish to grow their businesses with organic traffic. We love to work with fiduciaries and premium service providers who care deeply about their clients and want to make a difference in the lives of those they serve.
Read More
Are you interested in growing your financial services business with high-quality digital marketing? Read more of our articles.
About the Author
Colette Nichol is the founder of Story Envelope Media and the creator of the Traffic for Experts Method. As an SEO (search engine optimizer) and Story Strategist, Colette helps successful businesses grow and achieve their goals with high-quality content strategies that include SEO and premium video. Colette is based in Vancouver, Canada, where she lives with her husband and business partner. She’s passionate about using storytelling and high-quality content to help service-oriented, honest, and values-driven business owners grow their businesses with ease.
Next Step: Schedule a Call
Click here to schedule a 15-minute introductory call to learn more about the Traffic for Experts Method and see if it’s a good fit for your business.
