Google Tools for Forex Brokers

Basic SEO tools to increase your brokerage’s web traffic

According to Google data, there are between 1,000 and 10,000 searches each month for forex brokers in the United Kingdom alone and another 10,000 to 100,000 searches per month for forex trading.

Having a page one ranking on Google for those phrases, or related ones can bring thousands of potential traders to your website. However, the competition to rank for those keywords is high, so you’ll likely be more successful in increasing your search engine results pages (SERP) rankings if you focus on longer phrases (often called longtail keywords) that appeal to a specific niche.

Figuring out how to have a high SERP ranking, meaning your website shows up in one of the first few spots on a search result page, is difficult. However, Google offers several free tools that can help.

Here are four free tools from Google that can help you gather data to improve your brokerage’s website. This post is meant as a general introduction. You can learn more about all of these tools by visiting the pages for each product, which we’ve linked below.

Search Console

Google Search Console shows you information about how your website is performing in searches. It also allows you to monitor the traffic your site gets and determine whether or not Google has indexed it.

Indexing

Google has bots that crawl the internet searching for new pages; when they find new pages, the bots add them to Google’s index so that Google can show the pages in search results. Use Search Console to figure out if your page has already been indexed.

It can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months for a Google crawler to find your site on its own. If your site hasn’t been indexed, you can use the tools discussed in this post and follow these instructions to speed up the process.

When Google crawls your site, it also determines if it loads slowly or offers a poor user experience. If it does, Google is less likely to show your site in SERPs. Search Console tells you when there are problems with an indexed page so that you can address them.

Traffic

Search Console can also tell you how many people saw links to your site when they performed a Google search and how many people clicked on those links. When Google shows a link to someone, it counts as one impression.

The ratio of clicks to impressions is called the click-through rate (CTR). If your CTR is very low, it means people are seeing your link, but deciding not to click on it. Search Console provides you with this information. A low CTR may mean you need to improve your meta-descriptions, which are the descriptive text that shows underneath a link in search results. Think of meta-descriptions as ad copy for your brokerage. Consider what you need to tell potential investors so that they want to click on the link and learn more about your firm.

Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is a tool in Google Ads, but you don’t need to run ads to use the tool. You can enter words and phrases into Keyword Planner and then see the estimated searches each month for them. It also suggests other keywords you may want to use.

The tool lets you set the location where searchers are located, so it’s great to use when you’re expanding your firm to new markets and want to target clients in a specific country or region.

Keyword Planner can help you decide which keywords you should use on your site. For example, in Malaysia, Malaysian forex brokers isn’t searched as often as Malaysian fx brokers. Google uses keywords to help show searchers the content that they’re looking for, so you want to use the same words your target audience will search.

When deciding on keywords, consider the niche of forex traders you want to appeal to the most. There will be less competition for keywords that are specific to a specific niche. For example, the keyword forex brokers get between 100 and 1,000 searches per month in Malaysia, and competition for ranking for that keyword is high. Malaysian fx brokers has very little competition, but only has a search volume of about 10 per month.

While the search volume is much lower for the more specific phrase, you can combine it with other lower-ranking phrases (like Asian forex brokers or best brokers in Malaysia) to appear in more searches. Additionally, the searchers who find you are more likely to become clients if you specifically meet their needs, like having offices in Malaysia. Use keywords that will specifically appeal to your target demographic to rank high in SERPs and have high converting leads.

Analytics

Google Analytics shows how many visitors your site has, what devices they use to access your site, how they navigate through your website once they’ve clicked on a link to it, and much more.

If you include the right code on your website, Google Analytics can tell you a lot about your audience, including where they’re located and what language they speak. This geographic information is especially useful for forex brokers since it can tell you which languages your client cabinet needs to accommodate and the areas where you may want to recruit new introducing brokers.

Google Analytics also shows you the paths that users take once they’ve entered a website. For example, you may see that users often click on the links for your blog about how to trade forex and then go to a page to request information about your services. If that were true, you’d know your blog was worth the time and money you spend on it.

Google Analytics is one of Google’s most powerful tools, but it’s also a bit complicated. The company offers free online Google Analytics courses that you may want to try when you’re first starting out.

Tests

Google has several tools that test a website’s functionality. These tests can tell you how your site could be improved from a more technical standpoint.

The Mobile-Friendly test determines how well your website displays on mobile devices. This information is important because Google is moving towards mobile-first indexing, meaning that they’ll prioritize pages that display well on phones and tablets when providing search results. Mobile performance is also important for forex brokers because investors want to have constant access to trading platforms and market information. If your marketing website is mobile-friendly, leads will feel more confident that they’ll be able to access your services on their phones.

The PageSpeed test shows you how quickly your website loads and what code slows it down. Internet users are accustomed to web pages that load incredibly fast. If a lead browses your website and it seems slow, they may be more likely to move on to another brokerage.

Website development and SEO best practices may not be at the top of your priority list when it comes to running your forex brokerage. However, you can attract many more clients if your website ranks high in SERPs. Use Google’s free tools to help you accomplish that goal so your brokerage can succeed.