Consumers turn to Google instead of financial advisors

Google has overtaken branch-based financial advisors as the primary source for UK-consumers to seek advice on retail banking services, according to the latest report by Greenlight. The search engine marketing company found an overall increase of 59% in the UK for searches relating to retail banking products between July and October on Google. Greenlight also looked at which banks and other retail banking related service providers were best positioned on page one of Google and thus most visible.

DuyguTavan January 13, 2011

Google has overtaken branch-based financial
advisors as the primary source for UK-consumers to seek advice on
retail banking services, according to the latest report by
Greenlight.

The search engine marketing company found an
overall increase of 59% in the UK for searches relating to retail
banking products between July and October on Google.

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Greenlight also looked at which banks and other
retail banking related service providers were best positioned on
page one of Google and thus most visible.

Based on the volumes for each keyword and their
ranking on Google, UK high street bank Halifax, part of the Lloyds
banking group, was the bank with the most visibility.

It scored 27% and ranking third overall behind
price comparison websites moneysupermarket.com and
moneysavingsexpert.com.

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Other visible banks included (overall ranking
in brackets):

Lloyds Bank with 17% (5^th )
Barclays with 17% (6^th)
Nationwide with 13% (9^th)
Santander with 12% (11^th)
HSBC with 9% (15^th)
Natwest with 6% (24^th)

Greenlight also looked at the 750 most-searched
terms and the number of searches for retail banking products, such
as credit and debit cards and bank accounts.

The total number of searches (and volume increase
since July) for:

loans were up 33% to 666,413
for credit and debit cards were up 16% to 319,781
for bank accounts were up 24% to 475,366
for mortgages were up 28% to 555,618

In November, the Digital Economy and Structural Change
report by Deutsche Bank market researchers GfK and Google found
that the internet played a much bigger role as a source of
information than a transaction or sales channel.