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SEO Checklist For Forex Traders to Rank in Google

pwd staff OLIVER WOOD
Oliver Wood

|24th January 2016

Forex trading is the buying and selling of currencies around the world.

Just like with the stock market, there is a lot of money that can be made with the right strategies. Consumers are naturally hungry for more information and industry experts are happy to fill in that gap. But as you might expect, ranking for keywords related to forex trading is incredibly competitive.

The sites ranking on the first page are mostly major businesses:

forex-trading

It can seem rather hopeless to compete online as a majority of these undoubtedly have substantial marketing budgets. But with the right strategies you can significantly boost the amount of traffic that your pages are receiving from the search results.

Here is a basic SEO checklist for forex traders.

1. Target Long Tail Keywords

Unless you have a substantial marketing budget, your site likely stands little chance of ranking for keyword terms such as “forex trading” or “forex rates”. A better approach then is to target long tail keywords as these tend to be less competitive and can actually drive a lot more traffic.

Use Google’s Keyword Planner tool to get keyword ideas and traffic estimates:

google-keyword-planner

You can also use sources such as social media to find long tail keywords that others may have overlooked.

2. Optimise All On-Page Factors

Now you should have a list of keywords to target. The next step is to optimise the following on-page factors for each page:

  • Title tags: Include your target keywords in your titles and make them engaging to get more visitors to click through. Keep titles under 70 characters.
  • Meta descriptions: These are short snippets of text that appear in the search results. Use your target keywords here and include a short call to action.
  • Headers: Headers are useful as they improve readability and tell Google what your page is about. Instead of your primary keywords, use your secondary keywords here.
  • Body: Make sure to include your target keywords and other phrases a few times throughout your content. But be careful not to over-optimise your content as doing as can lead to ranking penalties.

Even if you already have published content on your site, be sure to go back and optimise them to improve their visibility in the search results.

3. Create Engaging Content

One survey has found that marketers that prioritise blogging are 13 times more likely to report a positive ROI from their efforts.

This is not surprising as Google tends to reward sites that regularly publish high quality content. So create content around the keywords that you identified in the first step but make sure that your posts are unique and relevant. Simply scraping content from other sources will result in your site being penalised.

To reap the benefits of blogging and increase your reach, implement a regular content posting schedule. Aim to be a leading source of information and others will see your site as an industry authority.

4. Implement a Mobile Friendly Design

As more people browse the Internet from their smartphones, mobile optimisation is a must.

number-of-global-usersGoogle has even implemented a major update to its ranking algorithm that makes mobile-friendliness a ranking factor. This means that your site will rank lower for mobile searches if it is not optimised for mobile devices. The recommended reconfiguration is responsive design as your site will automatically adjust to fit all screen resolutions.

5. Improve Loading Times

Each second counts.

Consumers are incredibly impatient and will not hesitate to click the back button if your site takes more than a few seconds to load. Improving your site speed is a must and needs to be a priority. You can use Google’s PageSpeed Insight tool to see how the mobile and desktop version of your site fares in terms of speed. There are also suggestions that tell you exactly what you can do to make your site faster.

Conclusion

Competing in the forex trading industry can seem rather hopeless especially since most of the major companies have significant marketing budgets. The good news is that it is entirely possible to rank in the search results and drive targeted traffic to your pages by focus on each of these aspects as detailed above.