January 27, 2022 in Case Studies
Which banks in Romania have the most SEO visibility or put differently have the best rankings? In order to answer this question five elements digital conducted an industry study in Q4 among Romanian banks.
In Q4 we analyzed at five elements digital well over 2,000 keywords in the banking area and subsequently measured based on a sample basket of keywords the visibility of banks for these respective products and banking services. To make things comparable, all searches related to a certain brand were removed. Thus, only searches for products and services without expressing a preference for a certain brand / provider were included in the research. However, these keywords are the most valuable as they represent an opportunity to present an offer to a yet undecided possible new customer. The final sample we checked contained 89 SEO words in 8 categories of banking products and the numbers of keywords per group was weighted according to the relative interest of Romanian searchers against each category.
Overall, the most searched for services are credits related: may this be in the form of cards, credits for personal use or mortgages.
28 banking institutions present on the market in Romania and their websites were audited for their rankings. 22 of these sites had relevant results and were included in the final top. Some banks created specialized, stand-alone websites for individual products (such as for their credit cards). These microsites were not included in the audit, and are thus, not part of the results. Only the main banking websites were included in the analysis. This means, that some brands actually could have had higher visibility scores and a somewhat better ranking. Still, this is not the case for the top 5 and for most banks present in the top 10, so we stuck with the initial methodology.
For the general ranking we used a metric named visibility percentage as defined by Advanced Web Ranking (1), (2). In short, the higher the visibility percentage, the more keywords rank on higher positions. A score of 100 would mean that all keywords rank on position 1. As different banks can be close to one another in search engine results visibility percentages can also be very close. This is especially true for the top 3 and top 5 candidates in our rankings:
The Top 3 is a close race between Banca Transilvania, Raiffeisen and ING.ro, with BancaTransilvania.ro being the leader. CEC Bank, BCR and BRD dominate the Top 5 having very close scores, while Unicredit, OTP bank, Alphabank, Librabank are frequently present in the Top 10.
However, in each category slight differences can and do occur. As the graphic for »Carduri« shows Only the Top 2 is stable and dominated by BancaTransilvania and Raiffeisen, while BRD and CEC bank rank before ING which follows on place 5. Thus, each category, each keyword presents an opportunity in and by itself. Likewise, Intesa Sanpaolo Bank enters the Top 10 in this category. Credit Europe has a good standing, however, their ranking is underestimated as they have a very performing microsite in this category (card Avantaj) which was not included in the monitoring.
The »Credit« category resembles mostly the general ranking; however, Patria Bank and Garanti Bank enter the top 10 here.
Keywords around the expression »Credit imobiliar« favored again Banca Transilvania, Raiffeisen and ING, however with ING being this time on number 2 in the category ranking. Garanti Bank enters the top 10.
»Current Account« related keywords and »Saving Account« related keywords were the last distinctive categories. All other categories are subcategories of the already treaded services. BCR enters the top 3 while also Telekom Banking and First Bank enter the Top 10.
For »Cont Economii« we have again a picture resembling fairly the general ranking. However, Alpha Bank and First bank are also present in the Top 10.
The rankings were monitored at the End of Q4, between November and December and may have changed since then. Overall, rankings can be subject to frequent changes, but constant well doers are likely to have a constant visibility, even if individual keywords may fluctuate on a daily basis.
