5 Tips to Jump Start Your Bank’s Search Engine Results Answer: by Jeremy Bachmann
Question: We’re a midsized regional bank. Our web address is as close to our name as we could get, but definitely isn’t intuitive for customers looking for us online. If I type our name into one of the major search engines, it seems every one of our competitors shows up before us! What can we do to remedy this situation?
Answer: Banks in particular suffer from this problem because so many names contain common words such as united, union, bank, trust, first, American, security, commerce, and so on. Since many customers and prospects may know your name, but not your URL, it’s imperative that you show up in the top five results on a search of your name on the major search engines and directories on sites such as Yahoo!, MSN, and AOL.
Below are some tips for getting your bank name to the top of the search engines:
Check the major engines to see if you’re listed. Type in your URL (e.g., www.yourbankhere.com) in the search box at Google, Alta Vista, MSN, and AOL to see if you’re there at all. If not, you’ll need to submit your site—after giving your site a search engine tune-up first.
Include the name of your bank in your website’s meta tags. The “Description” and “Keyword” meta tags on your site’s web pages must
Include the name of your bank. Many of the search engines weigh this factor heavily in determining the relevancy of your site to a particular phrase.
Include the name of your bank in the web page title tags. Instead of “Home” or “Welcome to our site!” on the home page title tags (which you’ll see on the very top of your browser in the left corner), put the name of your bank first, and then a few words on location and services. For example, for one hypothetical Southern California commercial bank, “First National United Bank – Downey, California – small business banking” would suffice.
Include the name of your bank in the text on your web pages. Search engines also assume your site is relevant to a term if the term appears in the body of your webpage in a visible form. (Don’t try any hidden words or risk exclusion from the search engines).
Buy your way in. It’s still possible to submit your site for free, but you may miss out on large quantities of traffic. In their quest for profitability, the major sites and directories have begun charging for quick review and posting of commercial sites. For a $300 annual fee, Yahoo will review your site for inclusion in its directory, the yellow pages of the web. For another $140, you can use the express submission services for Inktomi, AltaVista, FAST, and Ask Jeeves. Because of the interdependencies of so many of the web’s search engines and directories, successful submission to the above places should cover the vast majority of the searches on the web.
Successful submission with the above tightening of your site’s content may be enough to lift you in the rankings where customers can find you. Of course, search engine positioning can be difficult when the competition is fierce. In California, both United Commercial Bank and United California Bank (my former employer) had to compete against University of California Berkeley and United Christian Broadcasters for the “UCB” search word online. More technical strategies then the basics above can be employed in these cases.
Jeremy Bachmann is a principal and co-founder of Espenschied-Bachmann Group, Inc., a full-service e-business consulting firm for the financial services industry. He can be reached at jeremy@e-bgroup.com or at (818) 438-5316. Go to www.e-bgroup.com for a free analysis of your search engine placements on the major search engines.
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