Why calculators are essential to your bank’s SEO strategy

Why do calculators matter?

You might not realize it, but 90% of banking websites have financial calculators.

The reason? They've become a fixture of the financial customer journey, with over 75% of major financial decisions starting with a search.

The real question is, are they adding any value?

Calculators represent a big traffic opportunity

Over 2 million consumers in the U.S search for financial calculators every single day. That’s ¾ of a billion people each year – and growing.  Calculators have significant search-demand across most banking products and services. In fact, we’ve found that having at least one calculator for all of your key products will help increase traffic and improve your funnel. 

Calculator category# of people searching Google each monthHome lending & mortgages10 millionAuto lending3.5 millionRetirement1.3 millionPersonal banking750 thousandCommercial banking600 thousandGoogle Search Volume across banking categories

Consumers are looking for tailored recommendations

Think of this example, two people are looking to buy a home. While one person is looking for a mortgage payment calculator to see their monthly payment, the other searches to see how much house they can afford. Each calculator helps them plan ahead for their home purchase through tailored research research, but they do it in two very different ways. The two calculators individually represent big traffic opportunities, and reach two distinct audiences.

As a bank trying to increase mortgage loan originations, having both of these calculators on your website is a no brainer. In fact, our customers typically see an incremental lift in traffic and conversions from having both on their websites.

Calculator visits have 7x the purchase intent than your average website visit

Many brands are investing significant amounts of money into content development to grow their SEO programs (and they should). But while content educates at a high-level, calculators provide a level of personalization that content can’t achieve.

Think about someone searching for an auto loan calculator. They are ready to see real life numbers about what they can afford and start to visualize a plan. Our customers typically see a 15% lift in conversions from switching to Chimney calculators, and that’s in large part due to the fact that those visitors have more intent.

Calculator name# of people searching Google each monthHow much home can I afford?246 thousandMortgage payment calculator201 thousandGoogle Search Volume for specific mortgage calculators

Both calculators have over 200,000 people in the U.S. searching each month

How Chimney Solves the SEO puzzle

1. SEO-friendly technology – Our calculators leverage SEO-friendly JavaScript so search engines can index and understand the content. This way you’re not missing out on the 2 million daily searches, you’re competing for them.
2. Keyword targeting capabilities – Our Calculator Management Platform lets you target specific SEO keywords within your calculator copy, to ensure your calculators stand out from the competition. 
3. Page speed performance – Our calculators score in the 98th percentile in terms of Google PageSpeed tool. This is critical, as page speed has become an increasingly important ranking factor.
4. Implementation – Our calculators are easy to embed on any website or CMS, so no need for a new domain or subdomain to host our calculators.

Why other calculators fall short with SEO

1. iFrames – Unlike other calculator companies, we don’t believe in iFrames. This means we provide real SEO value with calculators that are easily placed on your website via Javascript – no coding or dev team required. Our new approach means that the copy used is indexable by Google for SEO – unlike the other guys who are viewed as a black box from Google. 
2. Duplicate content – in certain cases, you might have the exact same calculator copy that lives on thousands of other websites. This is often the case with Dinkytown calculators. Our Calculator Management Platform lets you customize all of the copy so you can stand out from the crowd.
3. Poor implementation – old calculator technology is difficult to implement and often requires a new website and/or subdomain that does not fit seamlessly into your website or take advantage of your existing site authority. This will hurt your SEO chances before you even start, by forcing you to use another domain.
4. No data or insights – most calculators on the market don’t offer data or insights to help you learn, iterate and improve your SEO strategy.