In the city of Lagos, the centre of excellence, businesses face a constant challenge: standing out in a digitally crowded space. Lagos, an epicentre of startups and established businesses, is where brands must leverage every tool at their disposal to gain visibility. One such important tool is search engine optimisation (SEO), which is vital to any effective digital marketing strategy.
The right SEO strategies for fintechs in Lagos are ones that’ll help them understand their customers’ online behaviour, anticipate customer’s needs, attract the right customers, and ensure their needs are met. Put another way, the aim of SEO is to understand your customer’s needs and position your brand as a solution to them.
This is especially true in Lagos, a city known for its competitiveness and startup environment. If you’re a fintech in Lagos, you need the right strategy to enhance your online presence, reach more local customers, and stand out in the crowded space. An effective strategy is a game-changer for your business.
What does this mean? Increased site visibility, top of search engine result page, and appearance in relevant chatbot search engines like Gemini and ChatGPT. SEO is usually integrated into the marketing funnel, and I’ll show you how this works below, but first, what is SEO?
What is SEO and How Does it Work?
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is improving a website’s visibility in search engine results. This can be done by identifying the keywords that people use to find solutions to the problems you solve, creating content to provide those answers, and making your website easily discoverable and indexed by search engines.
Here’s an example: if you’re a business somewhere at Lekki using technology to improve financial services, there are people searching for the services you offer online. This includes people looking for trusted buy now, pay later platforms, peer-to-peer payment services, portfolio managers, and stock trading platforms. You need to use the words and phrases these people use when making their searches. A good SEO strategy will position you well enough to be found by these searchers.
There are various ways to optimise search engines, including on-page SEO, off-site SEO, technical SEO, and local SEO. On-page SEO is when you optimise the content on your website. Off-page SEO involves building brand awareness and recognition by getting links from other websites. Technical SEO is when you make it easy for search engines to find and index your website. Local SEO involves improving your business visibility so it can appear in local search results.
What are the Benefits of SEO for Lagos Fintechs?
Below are three benefits businesses using technology to offer financial services in Lagos can gain from leveraging SEO:
Enhanced Online Authority
There are many fintechs in Lagos and other parts of Nigeria. In other words, you’re not alone in the business! In fact, statistics show that Nigeria has, in fact, some of the highest amounts of fintech startups in Africa. The competition can be overwhelming, hence the need to stand out or remain invincible. However, a good SEO strategy can increase your online authority and make you stand out.
For example, creating quality and original content that offers users value and answers their questions will increase how search engines and users perceive you. Also, if you have a well-optimised website, your users will have a good experience, reducing the high bounce rate. The implication is that search engines will see your business as an authority and prioritise your offerings.
Increased Brand Awareness
SEO can increase your brand awareness by improving your website’s visibility in search engines. This leads to more organic traffic to your website, which increases the number of people who know about what you do.
More Customers
The more authority you have, the more search engines and people recognise you. It’s as simple as that! This means increased visibility. The more visible you are, and all things being equal, including that you offer the best solutions consistently, the higher your customer acquisition.
As you can see, SEO is very important for businesses. It helps increase your website’s visibility and rank on search engines like Google. This can increase awareness and traffic, which can help you generate more leads and sales.
However, implementing the best SEO strategies and adopting the right SEO tools will allow you to enjoy the above benefits as a fintech in a competitive landscape like Lagos. Without so much ado, let me show you the five unique SEO strategies that can help you stand out among your competitors in your niche.
5 Best SEO Strategies for Fintechs in Lagos
1. Well Optimized Local SEO
Local SEO involves optimising your online presence to improve your business visibility in local search results. Three main SEO ranking factors play key roles here: relevance, distance, and prominence. These factors determine the ranking of your business in Google’s local search results.
Relevance means how well your business profile matches the search intent of a customer. This includes:
- Whether your business focus is similar to the customer’s needs.
- Whether your business profile has adequate details about the values you offer.
- And whether your business’s profile is clear about what solutions it provides.
Distance refers to how far your business is from the searcher. This is an important factor that affects the positioning of the listing in local results. For instance, if you create Lagos-fintech-oriented content around your business on your site, someone searching for a Fintech in Lagos can easily find you. But if your content is always location-vague or generalised, the search engine might not be able to deliver your business as the choice to searchers’ queries.
Prominence is the degree to which your business is known. This includes:
your offline fame, such as being a recognised brand. Your business’s online information, such as links, articles, and directory listings, can also contribute to your prominence.
So, how can you leverage local SEO? Here’s how to start:
- Set up your Google Business Profile on Google My Business.
- Include a detailed description, products and services, and important attributes. Include photos of your products, services, team, or behind-the-scenes shots.
- Remember to select the category that best describes your business.
- Verify your business and regularly post updates.
2. Smart Content Marketing
Content marketing is another SEO strategy to boost your fintech business in Lagos and Nigeria. Logasians and Nigerians are generally internet-savvy and always search for information on the web. You can implement this by creating content relevant to your target audience and optimising for search engines. The outcome will be a higher ranking in search results. You’ll also attract more traffic and increase patronage.
Here is how you can execute content marketing to grow your fintech business in Lagos:
- Start by identifying terms and phrases that your target audience uses to find your products or services.
- Understand your target audience’s needs and preferences.
- Find out what is working well for your competitors.
- Create better, well-optimised, and valuable content that is organised and easy to read.
- Make sure your on-page SEO is on point.
3. Guest Post with Other Local Companies
Guest posting on other local websites can improve your SEO by building backlinks to your site from authoritative sources. This can help your website become more visible to search engines and help your audience become more familiar with your brand.
You need to find other businesses in your niche that can benefit from your content and have a strong following, too. Your topic must also be relevant to the business’s audience. You can include data and examples to make your content rich and well-optimised for search engines.
4. Encourage Reviews from Nigerian Customers
Customer reviews can affect your online reputation and help potential clients feel comfortable patronising your business. Specifically, positive reviews can improve your business’s credibility, while negative reviews can raise doubts about it.
In addition, reviews can help you identify areas of improvement that you can use to improve your website content, making it more appealing to search engines.
Some of the best places to receive customer reviews are your Google profile, website review page, and social media accounts. How can you encourage your customers to leave reviews on your business? Do you just ask customers for reviews?
Yes—ask satisfied customers to leave reviews by providing a direct link to your Google review page through email, text messages, receipts, or in-person requests. You can also add a visible review button on your website and social media pages and remember to respond to both positive and negative reviews to show you value customer feedback.
5. Make Your Website Mobile-Responsive
A mobile-responsive website is a website that is capable of automatically adjusting its content based on the device it is being viewed. This is important as customers will likely access your website from different device types. This becomes even more critical in Lagos and Nigeria, where many mobile-first internet users are active.
You might also want to check out our thoughts on this SEO strategy example that might make you rethink your strategies.
Conclusion
The SEO strategies we mentioned above are effective. If you’re a fintech in Lagos or any part of Nigeria, you must hurry before your competitors dominate the SEO space. From optimising your local SEO and engaging in content marketing to having a mobile-responsive website, your success lies in taking the right action. If you need a marketing agency to guide you on adopting SEO to grow your fintech in Lagos, Nigeria, we’re always here to help. Contact us today.
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