Using the financial websites mentioned in the last post, I analysed the metadata, page titles and destination page headings to see how closely each one matched to the site’s information architecture.

Keywords

Examining the metadata keywords first, there are were a few things to note:

• The only websites that uses metadata keywords in my sample were Lloyds and RSA.
• All of the websites featured descriptions.

The simple explanation for a lack of metadata keywords on these sites is that Google stopped using keywords for SEO purposes about 9 years ago, according to independent tech blog Data Driven Labs. Apparently there was a video on YouTube published in 2009 which shows a Google employee stating this. Instead, Google is now using titles and descriptions as the key bits of metadata to include on your site if you want to help its ranking. It seems that metadata keywords are not really relevant in 2018, but out of interest here are the ones that Lloyds and RSA are using.

Lloyds:

bank accounts, personal finances, personal banking, Lloyds Bank

RSA:

RSA, Royal Sun Alliance, Royal and Sun Alliance, Insurance, FTSE100, LON:RSA, corporate website, Stephen Hester, MORE TH>N, Trygg Hansa, Johnson Canada

The advice regarding keywords was to use keywords that loosely described the page and its owner. The idea was that search engine crawlers would store these keywords and when the user searched for the terms (or similar), the page would be returned. The more descriptive and specific the keywords, the higher the chance of ranking highly you had.

Descriptions

Metadata descriptions are used to display ‘quick information’ about the page on Google underneath the search result. Sometimes this can be pulled directly from the page copy, but often it is actually stored in the page’s metadata.

Each site used descriptions, shown below:

Aviva:

We offer Car, Home, Travel and Health Insurance, as well as Life cover, Savings, Pension and Investment services to over 31 million customers worldwide. Get a quote from one of Britain’s most established insurance providers.

Barclays:

From current accounts, mortgages and insurance, to loans, credit cards and saving accounts – see how we can help you. Let’s go forward.

Direct Line:

Established in 1985, Direct Line is the UK’s leading direct car insurer. Today, you can also buy home, pet, travel, life, breakdown, landlord and business cover from us – online, or over the phone. As we’re not on comparison websites, come to us direct and see how much you can save.

Lloyds:

Wherever you want to get to in life, Lloyds Bank has a range of bank accounts and personal banking services to suit you. Visit us today to find out more.

Nationwide:

The world’s largest building society, run for the benefit of its members. Helping you with your current account, mortgage, savings and other personal finance needs.

RSA:

RSA Group plc (LON:RSA) is a multinational general insurance company headquartered in London. This is the global corporate website. Welcome.

Google recommends:

• Using a different description for each page of the website.
• Including facts and specific information in your descriptions.
• Ensuring that every page on your site has a description.

To ensure the best SEO outcomes when using metadata descriptions.

Titles

HTML or page titles are also very important for SEO. Google recommends:

• Ensuring that every page on your site has a title.
• Using concise and informative titles on your pages.
• Avoiding ‘keyword stuffing’ – essentially don’t repeat the same information in several different ways or words in your page titles.
• Avoid using ‘boilerplate’ titles, e.g. ‘<band name> – music, lyrics, albums, concerts, merchandise!’ which is a long and uninformative title. Instead just use the band name and use metadata keywords to add more detail about the rest.

The title should also relate to the content on the page, naturally. It should also relate to the description and keywords, if applicable.

The relationship between menu labels, destination page headings and the page title

They should all link!

If they all link, not only does it improve SEO chances, it also improve the information architecture and make the site easier for a user to navigate by:

• Making the information that the user is looking for easier to find in the first place.
• Taking them to the page they are expecting to find in that menu.

A lot of these financial websites use fairly deep tiered/hierarchical menu systems since a lot of them have thousands of pages and so these types of menus help users to find exactly what it is they are looking for, but in the tables below I’ve tried to break down the labels, destination page headings and destination page HTML titles of the items in the top-level menu on each of the sites.

Aviva

Menu Label	Destination Page Heading	Destination Page HTML Title
Personal	Get 5 Star car insurance from only £163	Insurance, Savings & Investments – Aviva
Business	Tailored cover For small and medium sized businesses.	Welcome to Aviva business – Aviva

 

Menu Label	Destination Page Heading	Destination Page HTML Title
Insurance	Insurance	Insurance | Aviva
Investments	Investment products. Make your money work harder	Investments | Saving and Investing Products – Aviva
Retirement	Retirement Dream big, plan well, enjoy	Retirement | Planning for the Future – Aviva
Health	Our health cover Discover flexible health insurance products	Our Products and Policies | Aviva – Aviva

Aviva’s home page has several menu bars on it, the top one allowing the user to choose to view personal or business services. The second table shows the menu labels on the personal services page.

Barclays

Menu Label	Destination Page Heading	Destination Page HTML Title
Personal Banking	Personal Banking The ‘I’m on top of my money’ feeling	Personal banking | Barclays
Premier Banking	Premier Banking Turn your cash rewards up to £540	Premier Banking | Barclays
Business Banking	Business Banking You know your business. We know how to help.	Business banking | Barclays
Wealth Management	Wealth Management Your opportunities. Your wealth. Your legacy.	Wealth Management | Barclays
Corporate	Scale, Disruption and Brexit	Corporate Banking | Barclays

Again, Barclays’ top-most menu is one that allows the user to view different services based on the type of customer that they are.

Direct Line

Menu Label	Destination Page Heading	Destination Page HTML Title
Car insurance	Car insurance	Car Insurance Quotes from Direct Line
Home insurance	Home insurance	Home Insurance Quotes – 35% Online Discount – Direct Line
Other insurance	Life insurance from just £6 a month	Life Insurance from £6 p/m – Get a Quote in 3 mins – Direct Line
Make a claim	Make a claim	Make a Claim – Direct Line

Direct Line has a separate link at the top of their page which takes the user to their business services – it’s independent of the upper-most menu.

Lloyds

Menu Label	Destination Page Heading	Destination Page HTML Title
Products and services	By your side	Lloyds Bank – Personal Banking, Personal Finances & Bank Accounts
Help and support	Help and support	Lloyds Bank – Help and Guidance
Banking with us	Banking with us	Lloyds Bank | Banking With Us | Our Features and Services
Banking online	Banking online	Lloyds Bank – Internet Banking – Online & Mobile

Lloyds has gone for more general categories than other banks, perhaps simplifying the experience for the user a little more.

Nationwide

Menu Label	Destination Page Heading	Destination Page HTML Title
Current accounts	Current accounts designed around you	Current Accounts | Compare our Current Accounts | Nationwide
Savings & ISAs	It’s the little things we do for our savers that help a lot	The home of savings accounts | Nationwide
Mortgages	Find a mortgage you feel at home with	Compare our Mortgage Rates | Nationwide
Loans	Cash into your Nationwide current account in just two hours	Personal Loan Features & Benefits | Nationwide
Credit cards	No interest, no hassle	Balance Transfer & Purchase Credit Cards | Nationwide
Insurance	Insurance through us means more than just ‘You’re covered…’	Our Insurance Products | Nationwide

Nationwide, by comparison, use more specific categories as menu labels.

RSA 

Menu Label	Destination Page Heading	Destination Page HTML Title
Who we are	Who we are	Who we are – RSA Group
What we do	What we do	What we do – RSA Group
Investors	Investors	Investors – RSA Group
Responsibility	Responsibility	Responsibility – RSA Group
News	News	News – RSA Group
Careers	Careers	Careers – RSA Group
Customers	Here to help you	Customers – RSA Group
Brokers	Brokers	Brokers – RSA Group
The Thread	FEATURE Half-year highlights illustrated	The Thread – RA Group

RSA take a more ‘shallow’ approach to their information architecture, offering a lot of specific categories and not many sub-categories of these for the user to explore.

These financial websites all have menu labels, destination page headings and HTML titles that are relevant to each other – generally. The larger banks and insurance firms tend to use ‘statements’ as page headings, for example ‘It’s the little things we do for our savers that help a lot’ for the ‘Savings & ISA’ page on the Nationwide site, but these statements are all related to the menu label and page title, especially when the use of imagery is also considered.

Page titles tend to be concise and accurately describe the page content, thus helping improve page architecture by helping to reassure the user of the page that they are on. Some of the sites use longer page titles than others, for example Llloyds’ are generally longer than RSA’s, but they are still descriptive and not boilerplate.

These businesses invest a lot of money, time and energy in their digital services and thus it is not terribly surprising to see that information architecture has been given a lot of thought. These businesses provide services and information that can potentially change people’s lives, so it’s no wonder that time and money is invested in making it easy to find and ensuring that pages are appropriately named and titled.

References

Edwards, C. (2018). The Keyword Meta Tag Is No Longer Used in 2018 – Don’t Get Penalized. [online] Data Driven Labs. Available at: https://datadrivenlabs.io/blog/meta-keyword-tag-google-2018/ [Accessed 17 Oct. 2018].

Support.google.com. (2018). Create good titles and snippets in Search Results – Search Console Help. [online] Available at: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35624?hl=en [Accessed 17 Oct. 2018].

Laja, P. (2013). Getting The Website Information Architecture Right: How to Structure Your Site for Optimal User Experiences. [online] CXL. Available at: https://conversionxl.com/blog/website-information-architecture-optimal-user-experience/ [Accessed 17 Oct. 2018].