Online Forex Marketing: SEO vs. PPC
5 things to consider when choosing your forex digital marketing plan
If you run a forex business, at some point you’ll need to decide whether to funnel marketing resources more heavily toward search engine optimization (SEO) or pay-per-click advertising (PPC).
Both options revolve around a search engine results page (SERP), which is precious advertisement space – anyone searching phrases like “forex broker” online is already an interested lead. You want to appear as high as possible in the list of results, but how do you get there?
SEO and PPC: the basics
Using SEO, you craft content to score well with a search engine’s algorithm(s) for various “keywords” people enter in the search bar. As a result, that content – and your website – rank prominently, without paying for your spot in the SERP.
Your other option to rank prominently is PPC. It’s an advertising structure where a link to your landing page competes with other links to appear in the sponsored spot at the top of the SERP. You win the spot by meeting certain criteria, and you pay a predetermined fee each time someone clicks your link.
For forex brokers, PPC has undeniable benefits: you can target a very niche audience with guaranteed exposure, but it’s expensive. As of publication date, the average cost per click in the best geographical areas for “low spread forex broker” averaged $30.18.
SEO has its own drawbacks–ranking well on a SERP requires hours of work gathering data, analyzing it, creating content based on your findings, and then optimizing the content to perform competitively.
So, to answer the question “which one should my brokerage invest more in?”, consider the factors listed below.
Deciding factors:
1. Location
Google has very strict rules about where who can advertise forex services and where they can advertise them. Your firm needs to be licensed and operating in the following countries in order to place PPC ads there: Australia, the European Union, Hong Kong, Iceland, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland, Taiwan, United States.
If you aren’t able to use Google Ads because of the restrictions on geography or use of the keyword “forex”, you can still try placing paid ads on social media sites and websites like BabyPips. To rank well in the SERPs, you’ll need to focus on SEO.
2. Featured Snippets
Even if you invest in PPC, you need to be able to meet Google’s Ad Rank criteria, which includes the amount you bid and the quality of your ad and landing pages. Figuring out how to rank with an ad can be complicated.
One way to attract searchers’ attention is to create content that Google will choose to highlight directly on the SERP. This content, which appears below ads and above all other search results, is a featured snippet.
Google doesn’t disclose exactly how its algorithm selects content for featured snippets, but SEO experts recommend ways to optimize for featured snippets. In general, you need helpful content that answers people’s questions and that is formatted in an easy to understand way.
Without paid ads or a featured snippet position, it will be harder for you to increase your click-through rate (CTR) and attract more web traffic. Regardless of whether you choose to primarily use PPC or SEO, getting to the top of the page will be a continual challenge in forex digital marketing.
3. Forex Content
You need to have information on your website that would help answer any questions that a potential client might have about your services. Answers to common questions score very well in SERPs.
Publishing a blog can help bring people directly to your site, and we have a list of potential forex blog topics to get you started. You can also use content marketing on social media sites and trading forums to help. The more published, branded content you have online, the stronger your rankings will be.
If you plan to rely on PPC to increase your web traffic, then you won’t need to generate as much content. Instead, you’ll need to focus on having good landing pages with content that matches the info shown in your ads.
4. Budget
The price of PPC digital advertising for forex can vary greatly depending on the keywords you choose and the locations you target, but PPC is objectively more expensive than SEO for a forex broker.
If you can create good content and promote it on social media yourself, then an SEO approach could save you money. However, if you need to hire a forex content marketer, SEO may cost as much as PPC.
Before choosing to focus on SEO or PPC consider how much content you can produce on your own and how much time you can invest. In the short term, it may be cheaper to use PPC because it will likely increase traffic and convert leads more quickly.
5. Time and Traffic
The time it takes to see results is the starkest difference between PPC and SEO.
As soon as your keywords and bids are performing well in Google Ads, you will appear at the top of the SERPs and see an increase in traffic. However, these results will only last as long as you spend money on PPC.
Even if your forex content is great, it can take months for it to appear at the top of the organic results list if you rely on SEO. Over time, SEO is likely to provide more site traffic if your site has highly useful content. Content on your forex website will continue to bring visitors to your website long after you have paid for it to be created.
Most firms will get benefits from a mix of these two approaches. Both SEO and PPC can generate high-quality leads for forex brokers. It’s important to understand each one so that you can effectively promote your forex brokerage.
Once you have leads, you also need a way to make sure you follow-up with them and can convert them to active traders. Contact us to see how the CurrentDesk CRM can help.
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