Building A Financial Comparison Site Using WordPress – A Complete Guide

The market for comparing financial products is vast and growing, which means that if you are thinking of getting in on the act with your own comparison site, there’s still time to jump in and compete with the big boys.

WordPress is a quick and easy platform to use to do just that, so what are the steps involved in launching a site to help customers looking for the best financial offers around?

 

Pick a corner of the market to target

It’s wise to be focused in terms of the financial products you offer for comparison on your site. While you can broaden your scope further down the line, it’s not a good idea to jump in at the deep end.

The good news is that there are all sorts of plugins available to let you do just that. For example, deciding to just compare student loan repayment plans, as it will let you adapt every aspect of the site, from the design to the content, so that it’s targeted at a narrower demographic. Then once you’ve started earning revenues from the affiliate links and clicks that the plugins generate, you’ll be in a position to cover a wider selection of products.

 

Select a domain name and hosting package

There are various well regarded web hosting brands out there, and you’ll need to select one to act as the foundation for your comparison site.

Of course you could opt to use WordPress’ own hosting service, which is arguably one of the most convenient options for a WordPress-only website, and provides you with a gateway into the world of site ownership that is also affordable and easy to use. To get a business-grade site you’ll need to opt for the appropriately named Business package, although there’s also a separate eCommerce tier that comes with flexible sales features to consider.

Whether you go for the in-house approach or outsource hosting to a third party provider, picking a good domain name is the next step.

This is the element that will represent your budding comparison site to prospective users, so it needs to be not only unique, but also memorable and suited to your brand identity and target audience. There are a number of best practices to follow, so you don’t have to take a stab in the dark.

 

Choose an existing theme or get a custom-built creation

Another of the selling points of WordPress is the vast number of themes and templates that can be used to literally put together a simple yet functional website in a matter of minutes.

This is a conundrum in itself, because the amount of choice is intimidating, and there’s also the issue of existing themes having the potential to look generic and lack the features you need for your financial comparison site.

Most site owners choose to take a template and adapt it for their own purposes, or even outsource the creation of a custom theme to a third party agency that has the skills and expertise to handle this. For instance, with professional Figma to WordPress services, you can convert any custom design into a powerful WordPress website.

Whatever way you go with your theme, remember to keep your users in mind. Developing a customer persona to influence decisions you make is wise for this reason.

 

Add content to gain search traction & earn social shares

Earlier we mentioned that plugins make it a breeze to bring price comparison capabilities to a WordPress site, and that’s really one of the more straightforward aspects of creating a site on this platform.

What really makes a difference to its chances of success is the supplemental content you add to bolster the comparison capabilities and get people interested in the first place.

You want to create and publish content that’s relevant to your audience, and that is well optimized for search algorithms, as well as for social media shareability.

This is where having a niche comes back into play. Perhaps you could put together guides on things like applying for loans and credit cards. Perhaps you could get guest contributors to write about the ups and downs of the markets, and how this might impact everyday consumers.

Regardless of the specifics of your content marketing strategy, you need to have one in place right away, or else your site won’t stand a chance against the competition.

 

Check performance and make improvements

Finally, once your site is up and running, you have to be on top of its performance, studying key metrics like page load speed to ensure that visitors are getting a consistently slick experience, no matter where they’re arriving from or what device they’re using.

If there are obvious issues, you need to fix them ASAP. If not, you’ll risk the ire of search engines, and of course you won’t win the approval of those all-important first customers.

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