SEO for regulated industries: Topdog’s approach

SEO for regulated industries rests on the same core principles as SEO in any other sector. The difference lies in the conditions you work under. Advertising options are limited, lawyers need to review the content, YMYL raises the bar for credibility, and regulations dictate what you can show in which market. We factor all of this in when we work on SEO for regulated industries such as banking, finance, insurance, iGaming, nicotine, pharmaceuticals, healthcare and law.

Why regulated industries need a different approach

Regulated industries need a different approach because laws and industry rules affect every part of your SEO. Think gambling licences, financial advice, medicines information, nicotine products or legal advice. The rules also vary from country to country. Together, they determine who has to approve the content, what you’re allowed to say and where you can publish it.

It takes longer

Getting from idea to published page takes longer in regulated industries. It shows most in content production and review, because more people are involved. In finance, pharmaceuticals and law, a lawyer or compliance team often has to sign off content before it goes live. (Compliance is the function that makes sure a company follows laws and regulations.) Review can take several weeks per piece. Without proper planning, a simple update can drag on for months.

The bar for accuracy is higher

Much of the content in regulated industries is YMYL, short for Your Money or Your Life. It’s Google’s term for pages that can affect people’s health, finances, safety or general wellbeing. On these pages, E-E-A-T carries more weight. The acronym stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness: the qualities Google looks for when it judges whether content can be relied on.

So the content has to be grounded in fact. There’s no room for ambiguity or errors.

Regulations dictate where content can appear

A licence often applies in only one market. A gambling licence, for example, is usually tied to a single country. Technical requirements can differ too. Not all content can be shown in every country. Video is a typical example: copyright decides who gets to watch what.

Every company interprets the rules differently

Laws rarely leave much room for interpretation. Regulators’ rules and guidelines are another matter, and here each company makes its own call. One company’s lawyers might sign off wording that another’s would block.

That makes it harder to know in advance whether something will get approved. Every uncertain phrase risks another round of review, and that can cost weeks. Before we write anything, we make a point of understanding exactly how you interpret the rules.

Your interpretation can also affect your visibility in AI search. AI tools base their responses on content that clearly answers searchers’ questions. How clearly you’re able to answer those questions comes down to your own reading of the rules.

All of this makes execution harder, because more people have to say yes before anything goes live. And execution is usually what decides whether SEO succeeds. That’s why we build our way of working around the rules from day one.

“Topdog turns SEO into real business value and gets things done.”
– Hanna Larsson, Growth Manager at Allt om Juridik

How we work, step by step

1. We discuss your starting point in our first meeting

We come to the first meeting with one to three hypotheses about what your site needs. We also look at what’s realistic for you in Google. In regulated industries, much of the content is YMYL, so E-E-A-T carries more weight. That, in turn, shapes what the project can achieve.

Once we get into concrete hypotheses, it becomes clear where the regulations hold you back. You’ll know what you’re working with before we get started. With that insight, you can make better decisions and point the project in the right direction from the outset.

2. We map the regulations before we write a single line

First, you tell us which regulations affect your business. Then we work through licences, rules and the approval process together.

Once that’s in place, we put together keyword research, a strategy and any mockups needed, plus the technical and content requirements.

In other words, the strategy is built on what the regulations actually allow in each market. The proposal also shows you which steps are critical and what you’re responsible for. Everyone knows their role before work begins. Lawyers included.

3. We build review into the workflow

Review is often the biggest bottleneck in SEO for regulated industries. Our content process shortens the timeline in two ways: it cuts the number of review rounds, and it makes review easier to plan.

Here’s how it usually works:

• We interview your experts. Before we write anything, we interview the people in your organisation who know the subject best, such as product managers or advisers. Whenever we produce new content during the project, we carry out fresh interviews. That gives us facts and real-world experience straight from the source. The content is accurate from the first draft, and it strengthens the expertise Google assesses under E-E-A-T.
• We write content that passes review. We work from the rules you’ve told us about and phrase every claim so it stays within them. With the interviews as our foundation and AI to support us, we keep quality consistently high across every piece. Your lawyers have less to correct, so each piece is more likely to get through first time.
• We plan review together with compliance. Review is part of the project timeline from kick-off.

During delivery, we lead the work, set the requirements and fit in with your agile ways of working. You work directly with the expert. Decisions get made faster, and nothing gets lost in handovers between salespeople, project managers and consultants.

4. We track the impact on your business

We measure organic visits, conversion rate and sales, so you can see the impact directly in your customer acquisition cost.

Measurement matters even more in regulated industries, because search engines are often the most important channel. And in sectors that do allow advertising, competition is fierce.

Because we measure results in sales, we can also put a figure on what your organic traffic is worth. Lånekoll, for example, went from zero visibility to organic traffic that would cost more than SEK 20 million a year to buy through Google Ads.

AI search in a regulated industry

More and more people are asking ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity instead of googling. We work to make your content the source that AI answers are built on. That takes solid expert content, clear structure, answers to your customers’ questions and consistent positioning on the topic.

In a regulated industry, there’s an extra layer. Compliance decides how you can phrase your claims, even when an AI tool is the one quoting them. So we plan SEO, business goals and compliance together.

Experience across many regulatory frameworks, all in one team

Regulations vary between industries and countries. We’ve worked with casino gaming, financial advice, medicines information, nicotine products and legal advice, both in Sweden and in far more heavily regulated markets such as the US. Because we already know the regulations, you won’t have to teach us everything from scratch.

All our consultants have more than ten years’ experience. Technical and content expertise sit in the same team, so we can handle requirements that touch both, such as content that may only be shown in certain markets. Our experience goes back a long way, too. From 2010, Christian Rudolf spent three years building up Betsson’s SEO department. Betsson went on to become number one for casino across Scandinavia.

Results from our projects

Here’s how this approach has worked for some of our clients:

Our work on Fass and Allt om Juridik made us finalists at the EcomExpo Awards 2026 in the Best SEO category.

What does an SEO project in a regulated industry cost?

Projects in regulated industries usually cost more than other SEO projects, because review and regulatory requirements stretch the timeline. Before you commit, you’ll see in the proposal exactly how many hours each activity takes. We often start with a clearly scoped first project, so you can try out working with us at limited risk.

Want to know how we’d work with your site?

Book a first meeting and we’ll give you a clear picture of the SEO opportunities open to you.

FAQ

How is SEO for regulated industries different from standard SEO?

The fundamentals are the same: content, technical SEO, user experience and links. What differs is the context. Advertising is often restricted, a lawyer or compliance team has to approve the content, YMYL makes E-E-A-T more important, and regulations dictate what you can show in which market. The work needs to account for all of this from the outset.

How does Topdog handle legal review?

Topdog builds review into the workflow from the start. We interview the client’s experts, write content that passes review first time and plan ahead so the compliance team knows when to expect it. The lawyers have less to correct, so content goes live faster.

Which regulated industries does Topdog work with?

Topdog has run SEO projects in banking, finance, insurance, iGaming, snus and nicotine, pharmaceuticals, healthcare and law. We’ve also launched two new specialist areas: SEO for the pharmaceutical industry and SEO for government agencies.