In other words, expansion is the blaring light that signals that a particular financial sector or business has achieved growth remarkable enough to push it into entering new market spaces. In today’s digital era, one of the economic sectors leading this charge is the Fintech industry.

With the spike in online banking, digital wallets and mobile payments, the Fintech industry has become an international sensation.

The sector has experienced substantial revenue growth in its market segments over the years, which has made it quite the ‘Universal buzz’.

In fact, since the 20th century, the fintech space has kept ticking success boxes.

In 2022, McKinsey & Company estimated it accounted for 5% of the world’s banking sector’s net worth, which is a whopping 150 to 205 billion dollars. That is an incredible ‘humble beginning’ if you ask me.

Despite these tremendous achievements, entering newer markets always poses a difficult task, especially when the expansion is hanging on the edge of several international borders. In a bid to break into these new market areas, Fintech organisations are faced with the daunting challenge of connecting with customers of diverse languages and regions.

This is where Localising Content SEO comes in handy. It has become the ‘smart’ strategy that fintech industries can utilise to win organic traffic and dominate the global market.

Let’s clear up your confusion about this strategy.

What does localising content SEO mean?

It is your adaptation of online content to meet the unique preferences of the local market. Some other definitions would add that it is the act of creating and utilising website content, especially to attract local customers.

Picture it this way: Bank A, a British bank, wants to sell its digital services in a Chinese market. Localising content SEO here means that Bank A has to adapt its online content, language, and cultural references to Chinese preferences if it wants to witness an overflow in sales.

How can fintech companies utilise localised content SEO to drive organic traffic on a global scale?

Localising your Fintech SEO demands that you succumb to a nuanced approach because entering different market spaces across the world comes with complexities, such as other languages, local currencies, dates and formats. Therefore, to ensure that the fintech industries achieve this, here is an array of strategies that can be used to penetrate various markets all over the globe:

1. Running Local Keyword Research

In the online world, keywords are very essential for content SEO. They are the bridge that connects users’ search to the contents of your organisation’s website and helps search engines give a rank to your pages for relevant queries.

This, in turn, boosts the visibility of your organisation and increases traffic.

Bringing this down to gaining recognition and engagements in new markets, organisations should ensure that thorough research is carried out on the local keywords used in the specific region they are targeting before diving head-first into offering their services.

This includes identifying the financial terminologies or region-specific terms used in that zone, like the slang name they use for money or local dialect names used for certain financial products.

You can achieve this by using helpful tools such as Google Keywords Planner, Ahrefs and SEMrush to discover and explore local search trends that could be helpful to your organisation.

2. On-Page Optimisation:

This strategy is what I call the ‘production stage.’ It’s the stage where everything needed to draw the attention of the locals is infused on the content page.

It’s all the measures you employ within the content page to improve its position in the search ranking and reach a wider audience.

This means that the page in question must comprise information relatable to the market space you want it to reach.

On-page optimisation comes with several sub-components, including images, content/body information, external and internal links, header tags, etc.

However, there are a number of them you must watch out for while localising content SEO, and they are:

Title tags: These are the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) elements that specify the title of your web page.

It’s so important because it helps search engines and consumers understand the purpose of your webpage.

Therefore, it is important that in creating these title tags, words that resonate with your target market or local keywords are used.

Meta descriptions: Many times, once the search engine result page is on display, there is a snippet of text underneath the page title. Those texts are known as meta descriptions in SEO terms.

They are used to inform and interest the user enough to engage on that page. Similarly, while drafting out these descriptions, local keyword usage should be a priority.

Internal links: If your fintech organisation offers a wide variety of services, then this is very important. Internal links are hyperlinks that are used to navigate to different pages within the same website, almost like a redirection link to a certain type of service.

Another arm of this component that can be utilised is location-specific landing pages.

This is when a page on your website directs users to another page within the same domain. It can be employed to direct viewers to the local addresses near them, featuring contact information and hours of operation.

This will give the locals of those regions easy access to the services you provide nearest to them.

Google Business Profile (GBP) Maximisation

This strategy is scarcely used because not many companies believe that it can bring massive traffic to their pages. In reality, it is a significant strategy used in building traffic on your page.

This is because a good percentage of the world’s population uses Google browsers to make their findings; it is also one of the most popular browsers in existence.

Therefore, utilising the Google Business Profile gives companies an added advantage in new marketplaces if leveraged.

Organisations can harness this option by including the relevant categories they have and the services they offer while utilising local keywords related to the target market or regions.

Localising content SEO offers any company, not just Fintech companies, a wellspring of benefits, including increasing their online visibility and building trust and credibility with the local audience.

It is one of the major tactics that guarantees improvement in organic traffic in diverse markets only if it is harnessed by industries globally.

*Kelechi Anyikude is a seasoned digital technology expert with a background in digital and growth marketing. Kelechi specializes in crafting targeted marketing strategies that leverage the power of SEO, social media, and content marketing. He is passionate about staying ahead of industry trends and regularly contributes insights to marketing publications and speaks at conferences worldwide.

The Google Maps User Contributed Content Policy is aimed at ensuring that information on Google Maps is reliable by protecting both individuals and businesses from policy violations.

Much of the work done to prevent inappropriate content is done behind the scenes, so today Google is shedding more light on what happens after you hit “post” on a review.

With more than 1 billion people turning to Google Maps every month to navigate and explore, Google aims to make sure the information they see, especially reviews, is reliable for everyone.

They have created the Maps User Contributed Policy to make sure reviews are based on real-world experiences and to keep irrelevant and offensive comments off of Google Business Profile.

Google will use machine learning models to moderate millions of reviews uploaded using the Google Business Profile tool while its staff will identify the subtle distinction or variation of various expressions of individual posts.

Machines identify patterns to determine if content is legitimate. Other issues flagged by machines include offensive or off-topic content, any Google account with a history of suspicious behaviour, places with uncharacteristic activity such as an abundance of reviews over a short period of time about a particular place or business or any place that has received recent news or social media coverage that would motivate people to leave fraudulent reviews.

Businesses detecting policy-violating reviews on their profiles can alert Google via the How to remove reviews from your Business Profile on Google while individual Map users can report any violation via the Flag and fix inappropriate content portal.

This will see the offensive content removed, user accounts  suspended or in some instances litigation being pursued.

Taiwo Kola-Ogunlade, Communications and Public Affairs Manager, West Africa, said: “We’re dedicated to keeping reviews on Google Maps authentic and reliable to protect local businesses from fraud and abuse, and keep the information helpful for users. Over the past couple of years, through the Local Guides program we have developed easy tools that allow people to help contribute to Maps so others can more easily and accurately explore their world.”

Local Guides help millions worldwide discover new places by sharing local knowledge and experiences. They share reviews, photos, and knowledge on Google Maps and influence how millions of people navigate and explore the world. Their contributions inform people about what matters to them, make it easier for them to find what they need, and help support small businesses.

Google Business Profile is an easy-to-use tool for businesses and organisations to manage their online presence across Google, including Search and Maps. This helps customers individual businesses, enable business owners to tell their story, verify their businesses and edit their online business information.

Google’s mission is to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Through products and platforms like Search, Maps, Gmail, Android, Google Play, Chrome and YouTube, Google plays a meaningful role in the daily lives of billions of people and has become one of the most widely-known companies in the world. Google is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc.