Branding versus SEO in financial services

A common problem amongst financial services is the angst between the internet marketers and the brand managers. Brand managers are interested in preserving the emotive, raw feeling a brand has developed over many years and translating that online – an internet marketer simply wants a tonne of traffic to the page and will do so by any means.

In financial services, the domain name can be key. Simply having a reference to your competitive financial product in the domain itself can make the difference between page 1 and page 100. Though by doing so, what are the implications for a brand online?

For example, ANZ may have a very competitive credit card – do they advertise ANZ.com.au or instead cheapcreditcard.com.au. From a brand perspective, the first will win. Though if you are after large volumes of Google traffic, the latter will likely be the better option in the short term. It’s a catch 22, the card will sell because of the ANZ brand, though it may not be found without detaching itself from the said branding in the domain name. Bank eat bank world.

A branding change could spell concerns for existing rankings

Consider the Beirut Hellenic Bank of Australia, previously the known as Laiki Bank before merging with another bank. They faced a very serious problem – a domain name that was well trusted was no longer usable. It was trusted by customers and Google alike – yet due to the restructure the domains were decommissioned and the new website was launched. Looks great, built in a very SEO friendly way – though the domain name isn’t yet trusted by Google. This means playing the waiting game for Google to pick things up again. Yes there are ways around this, though none the less an example of branding and SEO not getting on.

I am a believer in brands and will likely be the one telling you to stick with your brand options - though at some point we are going to need to open the gate slightly wider to compete. The UK is always slightly ahead of us in this sense - if we look at what they are doing, the domains are now full of keywords and the brand value rapidly declining. A good indication that although forgetting the brand might bring short term results - ultimately it will be bad for your business.

If you are going to incorporate some general keywords, try and ensure it doesn't remove the brand you have worked so hard to build. Using the example above, ANZCreditCard.com.au could be a start in the right direction.