SEO is one of the most common strategies to implement in the financial industry. It helps brokers and financial service providers to be more visible in the Google Search Engine. Because of increasing competition in the FX market, many companies now use SEO as a key tool for attracting new customers. The purpose of this report is to showcase the top 10 Forex brokers based on their SEO performance. We will mainly be focusing on metrics like traffic for keywords and geo-location, while also showing how much money FX brokers saved by embracing SEO techniques. So let’s start by reviewing the research methodology we use before taking a look at the brokers that performed best over the last month.

To find out which Forex brokers perform the best in terms of SEO, we’ve summed the amount of money financial service providers have saved for chosen keywords and geo-locations (in total).

Forex Brokers SEO performance report - October 2022

As seen on the chart, the leading broker is Forex.com (saving $273,239), which also happens to be one of the most searched financial service providers for the chosen keywords. IG is the next broker, with $231,992. Those two brokers saved more money than the aggregate savings of the other eight brokers. The 3rd broker in the top 10 is Oanda with a saving of $70,074, next we have Saxo Bank ($39,445). Capital.com, the last member of the Top 5, saved almost as much money as eToro ($18,941; $18056 respectively).

Research Methodology

In order to measure the SEO performance of Forex brokers, we chose several keywords and countries to focus on. These countries include the United States, where financial trading is one of the most popular among investors, along with the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, South Africa, and India. Using the Ahrefs tool we looked at traffic for each keyword in a certain country and the SERP number of each broker. Ahrefs helped us to get a CPC for every keyword in each country (since they are different due to competition) and finally we calculated the traffic value for each keyword. This has given us a clear picture of which brokers get traffic from the most common keywords related to Forex trading. Along with this, it gave us an indication of how high they rank on Google search results and how much money they save by implementing a good SEO strategy.

We chose five keywords for each country based on what most people typed in when looking for a Forex broker. These keywords include

forex trading
forex broker
cfd trading
cfd broker
forex platform
spread betting (as spread betting is tax-free in the United Kingdom)

What can we learn from these metrics? We can determine which Forex broker ranks higher on Google search results for certain keywords in a certain country. This allows us to evaluate how well they perform in terms of SEO. Now, let’s move on to the actual research.

Actual Research

In this section, we’ll show you the leading brokers for certain keywords in a specific location. We’ll review how brokers perform in terms of SEO in 6 different countries for 5 main keywords. In order to make things more understandable, we’ll go over these countries one by one. Let’s start with the UK.

The UK

The United Kingdom is one of the most popular nations for Forex and CFD trading as well as spread betting. According to the Ahrefs tool, the monthly traffic value for the keyword “forex trading” is $1,045,000. Due to tax laws surrounding spread betting, the search term "spread betting" is also very popular, since it is essentially used as a tax-free synonym for FX trading. Hence the traffic value of this keyword is $243,000. Overall, advertising to UK citizens is a costly affair, with an average CPC ranging from $30 to $90. Let's have a look at which brokers dominate UK SERPs.

SERP#	Forex trading
1	forex.com
5	IG
8	Saxo Bank
10	Forextime
15	Skilling
19	Avatrade

Tables for other keywords

Brokers	forex trading		forex broker		cfd trading		cfd broker		forex platform		spread betting
	SERP	CPC $	SERP	CPC $	SERP	CPC $	SERP	CPC $	SERP	CPC $	SERP	CPC $
	#	$55	#	$50	#	$70	#	$60	#	$30	#	$90
IG	5	$48,400	3	$3,850	2	$24,710	4	$4,080	1	$1,650	1	$90,000
Forex	1	$93,500	5	$2,450	11	$1,610	85	$0	3	$540	N/A	$0
Oanda	49	$25,080	8	$1,250	28	$0	95	$0	4	$420	11	$90
FxPro	39	$0	9	$1,000	N/A	$0	N/A	$0	11	$90	N/A	$0
AvaTrade	19	$330	26	$0	17	$280	11	$840	25	$0	16	$0
FXTM	10	$6,765	16	$200	20	$140	28	$0	29	$0	N/A	$0
Pepperstone	35	$0	14	$350	34	$0	94	$0	13	$60	9	$450
Capital	N/A	$0	62	$0	3	$18,270	31	$0	56	$0	13	$0
eToro	34	$0	96	$0	4	$13,510	13	$540	50	$0	N/A	$0
Saxo	8	$13,035	53	$0	5	$10,010	25	$60	34	$0	N/A	$0
CMC Markets	22	$110	N/A	$0	7	$5,460	18	$180	71	$0	6	$3,150
Skilling	15	$1,320	N/A	$0	8	$4,060	22	$60	N/A	$0	N/A	$0
Vantage	N/A	$0	39	$0	51	$0	16	$300	28	$0	N/A	$0
XTB	N/A	$0	41	$0	31	$0	15	$360	32	$0	N/A	$0
Plus500	12	$4,840	89	$0	15	$490	59	$0	N/A	$0	N/A	$0
Spreadex	N/A	$0	N/A	$0	54	$0	N/A	$0	N/A	$0	7	$1,620

While IG.com, one of the top brokers headquartered in the UK, receives the lion's share of search traffic, a number of smaller overseas brokers are gradually grabbing a piece of IG's pie. Since IG ranks fifth for this query while forex.com sits at the number one spot. What this means is that forex.com outranks IG.com and so manages to capture $45,100 in potential savings. IG does the same thing with other keywords, so it's no wonder that IG saves the most money among FX investors in the UK. Taking into account the prevalence of the keywords we used for our analysis, IG saves $172,690, while forex.com comes in second with savings of $98,100.

The U.S.

When compared to the United Kingdom, the United States is a much larger market for online Forex brokers. According to Ahrefs, the search volume for the keyword “forex trading” in the United States is 68, 000, which is 20% of the worldwide value for this keyword. Forex.com is the broker that ranks highest in the United States for the keywords “forex trading”, “forex broker”, and “forex platform”. In the case of “cfd trading”, which is less popular in the US, the total traffic value for the search terms “cfd trading” and “cfd broker” is evaluated at $2,398, whereas it is estimated at $84,960 in the UK. IG outperforms forex.com when it comes to the keywords “cfd trading” and “cfd broker”.

Forex.com saves the most money in the United States ($105,165), followed by Oanda ($23,112). While IG saved the most money in the United Kingdom, this is not the case in the United States. IG is third in terms of money saved, at $10,694. This suggests that forex.com is the top dog when it comes to SEO performance for Forex brokers in the United States. Oanda is forex.com's major rival in the United States. On the chart below, you can see which other top Forex brokers rank high on Google’s search results for the keywords we've picked.

U.S.	forex trading		forex broker		cfd trading		cfd broker		forex platform
	SERP	CPC $	SERP	CPC $	SERP	CPC $	SERP	CPC $	SERP	CPC $
	#	$12	#	$11	#	$9	#	$5	#	$7
Forex	1	$100,800	2	$1,936	25	$0	61	$0	1	$2,429
Oanda	5	$21,600	7	$638	11	$90	40	$0	3	$784
IG	7	$9,924	22	$22	2	$648	10	$30	14	$70
FXTM	10	$3,120	26	$11	8	$171	21	$5	24	$7
Saxo	15	$456	58	$0	23	$9	N/A	$0	36	$0
Plus500	20	$60	N/A	$0	19	$18	53	$0	N/A	$0
TD Ameritrade	18	$144	24	$11	N/A	$0	N/A	$0	22	$14
FxPro	N/A	$0	19	$44	N/A	$0	N/A	$0	17	$35
Capital	N/A	$0	N/A	$0	3	$522	31	$0	62	$0
CMC Markets	51	$0	N/A	$0	5	$333	44	$0	N/A	$0
eToro	69	$0	N/A	$0	7	$216	22	$0	72	$0
PrimeXBT	N/A	$0	N/A	$0	9	$135	70	$0	88	$0
AvaTrade	31	$0	15	$110	10	$108	9	$40	18	$28
Vantage	67	$0	44	$0	22	$9	18	$5	27	$7
FXCM	21	$48	18	$55	14	$45	20	$5	21	$14
RoboForex	59	$0	33	$0	N/A	$0	N/A	$0	19	$21

Australia

In Australia, two brokers, IG and forex.com, are leaders in SEO performance. The CPC for keywords in the land Down Under ranges from $25 to $60, indicating that competition among Forex brokers is fierce.

Forex.com receives the highest traffic from the keyword “forex trading” among Australian Forex brokers. In the case of “cfd trading”, IG is the market leader, with the company saving $17,040, while forex.com saves $0. In Australia, the total amount saved for the selected keywords across top Forex brokers is expected to be $94,740. The top SEO performance slot here is filled by IG, the UK-based broker, which receives the largest share of 30.4%, while forex.com receives 26.7%. These two brokers clearly dominate the Australian Forex space. They do, of course, have some competition. Check out the charts/tables below to discover which other major Forex brokers rank on Google alongside these two giants.

Australia	forex trading		forex broker		cfd trading		cfd broker		forex platform
	SERP	CPC $	SERP	CPC $	SERP	CPC $	SERP	CPC $	SERP	CPC $
	#	$50	#	$35	#	$60	#	$45	#	$25
Forex	2	$24,850	10	$175	55	$0	N/A	$0	3	$275
IG	6	$10,200	3	$840	2	$17,040	3	$540	4	$225
AvaTrade	7	$8,150	16	$35	10	$60	8	$180	N/A	$0
Saxo	5	$12,700	15	$70	9	$60	13	$45	31	$0
Oanda	8	$6,500	7	$350	24	$0	16	$45	12	$25
Plus500	11	$3,350	96	$0	18	$0	29	$0	N/A	$0
Pepperstone	15	$1,350	4	$665	17	$0	21	$0	10	$50
Rakuten	34	$0	11	$140	N/A	$0	48	$0	18	$0
Axi	18	$700	19	$350	22	$0	25	$0	41	$0
eToro	42	$0	70	$0	4	$3,600	12	$90	66	$0
CMC Markets	17	$850	14	$70	6	$780	18	$0	17	$0
Capital	N/A	$0	N/A	$0	12	$0	35	$0	75	$0
FXCM	24	$200	28	$0	11	$0	11	$90	28	$0
TradeDirect365	56	$0	N/A	$0	14	$0	10	$90	N/A	$0
XM	47	$0	43	$0	59	$0	33	$0	27	$0

Canada

Forex.com holds a top position in Canada and ranks first on Google for the keywords “forex trading” and “forex broker”. However, it should be mentioned that forex.com falls short when it comes to “cfd trading”. IG moves below the top three brokers when it comes to the keywords “forex trading” and “forex broker” while ranking first for the keyword “cfd trading”. We were unable to get data for the keyword “cfd broker” due to Canada's tight CFD trading restrictions. Furthermore, the fact that the top brokers only saved $682 from the keywords “cfd trading”, indicates that the CFD trading market isn't very popular in that country. This lack of interest in CFD trading is probably owing to restrictions and regulations that Canada imposes on the practice. In terms of SEO performance, the following financial service companies are the top rivals for forex.com and IG in Canada.

Canada	forex trading		forex broker		cfd trading		forex platform
	SERP	CPC $	SERP	CPC $	SERP	CPC $	SERP	CPC $
	#	$15	#	$11	#	$11	#	$8
Forex	3	$7,905	2	$264	12	$22	1	$176
Oanda	4	$6,315	5	$132	17	$11	4	$48
Avatrade	9	$2,070	10	$44	5	$121	22	$0
IG	10	$1,650	44	$0	2	$242	24	$0
FXTM	11	$1,320	13	$22	13	$22	23	$0
TD Ameritrade	14	$675	21	$0	N/A	$0	31	$0
FxPro	88	$0	11	$33	N/A	$0	10	$8
FBS	65	$0	14	$22	72	$0	25	$0
CMC Markets	19	$225	45	$0	3	$187	48	$0
Capital	N/A	$0	42	$0	11	$33	62	$0
eToro	63	$0	98	$0	10	$44	N/A	$0
Tickmill	66	$0	17	$11	N/A	$0	51	$0
Vantage	36	$0	30	$0	19	$0	46	$0
RoboForex	62	$0	38	$0	N/A	$0	27	$0

India

After the United States, India has the world's second-largest FX market. The global traffic volume for the keyword “forex trading” is 13%. Similarly, forex.com and IG are the market's major competitors. For the given keywords, forex.com saves $18,399.50, whereas IG saves $11,943.90. In India, the total amount saved for keywords is $46,623.00. This means that forex.com accounts for 39.4% of the top Forex brokers, while IG accounts for 25.6%. IG once again reigns supreme among financial service providers on Google when it comes to the search term “cfd trading”. Check out the charts below to see which Forex brokers are doing well with SEO and who the biggest rivals are to forex.com and IG in Indian.

India	forex trading		forex broker		cfd trading		forex platform
	SERP	CPC $	SERP	CPC $	SERP	CPC $	SERP	CPC $
	#	$3	#	$4	#	$4	#	$0
Forex	2	$18,300	5	$84	17	$8	1	$7.50
IG	4	$11,700	9	$35	2	$208	7	$0.90
Saxo	10	$3,000	41	$0	23	$0	36	$0.00
FXTM	7	$6,000	10	$28	5	$108	13	$0.00
Oanda	9	$3,900	8	$42	13	$20	4	$2.10
Angel One	11	$2,451	24	$0	N/A	$0	39	$0.00
FBS	46	$0	14	$11	N/A	$0	16	$0.00
OctaFX	24	$135	15	$11	20	$4	28	$0.00
CMC Markets	34	$15	92	$0	3	$168	88	$0.00
Capital	N/A	$0	64	$0	6	$84	54	$0.00
eToro	N/A	$0	N/A	$0	8	$56	N/A	$0.00
PrimeXBT	N/A	$0	N/A	$0	12	$24	83	$0.00
iFOREX	23	$168	12	$18	10	$36	24	$0.00

South Africa

In terms of the keyword “forex trading”, South Africa ranks third, following the United States and India. The worldwide traffic volume for the aforementioned keyword is 25 000, representing a 7% global share. Forex.com is the top Forex broker when looking at the keywords “forex trading” and “forex broker”, saving $17,908 from just these two keywords alone. IG continues to dominate the keyword “cfd trading”, even though it does not seem to be a very popular form of trading in South Africa (traffic value 800, global share of 3%). Furthermore, although IG was one of the top three forex brokers and saved the most money using SEO before, things are a bit different in South Africa. Here IG comes in fourth after Forex.com, Forextime, Oanda, and Plus500 in terms of money saved via search engine optimization. Check out the figures below to discover more about how brokers fared in South Africa during the prior month.

South Africa	forex trading		forex broker		cfd trading
	SERP	CPC $	SERP	CPC $	SERP	CPC $
	#	$8	#	$7	#	$8
Forex	2	$17,600	4	$308	29	$0
IG	6	$4,960	23	$0	1	$968
FXTM	3	$12,800	13	$28	2	$656
Oanda	4	$9,600	12	$28	11	$24
Plus500	5	$6,792	61	$0	18	$0
AvaTrade	9	$1,928	N/A	$0	6	$144
Globex360	50	$0	8	$77	N/A	$0
FBS	17	$152	7	$98	41	$0
FxPro	47	$0	11	$42	N/A	$0
RoboForex	22	$32	9	$63	N/A	$0
CMC Markets	32	$0	90	$0	4	$304
eToro	67	$0	N/A	$0	8	$64
Capital	87	$0	82	$0	10	$32

Brand Traffic Comparison

In this part, we will examine and analyze the organic traffic of brokers' brands. This will include keywords on a monthly basis to determine which financial service providers have the largest share depending on the country. According to the Ahrefs tools, Oanda is one of the most easily found brokers in the aforementioned nations. Its final overall standing is in fourth place while being the number one broker in two countries, namely Canada (36,165) and South Africa (47,075). But, Oanda actually receives the most traffic in the United States (155,823), where it ranks second. However, due to the larger market size, Oanda receives more traffic from brand-included keywords in the United States as opposed to more generic search terms.

We found that eToro has one of the largest shares in the mentioned nations and takes the #1 spot among UK brokers (218,881 monthly organic traffic). In other countries, eToro is constantly on the list of the top 5 brokers with the most brand-included keywords.

The second most popular broker is IG, which, with the exception of Canada, is usually in the top five brokers that get the most traffic from brand-included keywords. The nation with the most IG use is the United Kingdom, which has an index of 149,333. In this case, forex.com, which was one of the leading firms based on traffic value, loses positions and is no longer among the top 5 brokers based on brand-included keywords. The main reason behind this might have to do with the broker’s name, as Forex is one of the most searched words among FX traders globally.

It should also be mentioned that among those brokers that weren't among the top 5 in terms of traffic value, none have managed to be in the top 5 based on their brand-included keywords' monthly organic traffic. The main example of this is Spreadex in the UK, which had a traffic value (for the chosen keywords) of $1,620, while its monthly organic traffic (for brand-included keywords) is $45,319.

The biggest rate for monthly organic traffic we’ve seen, based on countries and brand-included keywords, is TD Ameritrade, which seems to be quite popular in the U.S. and the rest of North America. TD Ameritrade has shown 1,830,871 organic traffic for brand-included phrases. In addition to that, TD Ameritrade manages to be the second most searched-for broker in Canada (after Oanda).

You may be surprised to hear that Angelone, a local financial service provider, generates the most traffic for brand-included keywords in India on a monthly basis. The aforementioned broker has surpassed brokers such as Oanda, IG, eToro, FBS, forex.com, and numerous major international companies. Angelone is searched for 597,215 times each month in India, which is 10 times more than the total of Canada's top 5 brokers' monthly organic traffic and about 3.5 times more than the sum of Australia's top 5 brokers' monthly organic traffic. The amount of monthly searches for this broker is also more than the total of the top five brokers in each nation, excluding the United States, where only TD Ameritrade receives the lion's share of organic traffic (more than 1 million, as mentioned above).

Conclusion

In this report, we’ve reviewed which brokers perform well in terms of SEO based on certain keywords and locations. We’ve found that there is a difference between the broker list when it comes to their traffic value (for chosen keywords) and brand-included keywords' monthly organic traffic. Overall, some of the best Forex brokers, based on their SEO performance, geo-locations, and most common and related keywords for FX trading, are IG, Oanda, eToro, Forex.com, Avatrade, TD Ameritrade, CMC Markets, Plus 500, Forextime, and Saxo Bank.

The traffic value analysis for our chosen keywords and analysis of organic traffic for brand-included keywords have shown that next to the international and globally well-known Forex brokers, local and comparatively small companies also come into play. This means that locally these companies, in terms of SEO, are doing quite well. However, when it comes to global competition, these small firms just can’t surpass their global counterparts.

This report aimed to show which Forex brokers perform the best in the biggest FX markets based on their SEO strategies.

Nika