Financial Advisor Marketing: Top 6 Actions That Will Produce Organic Leads

We assume investors who know your name will enter your URL in a search engine and go directly to your website. They will find the information they seek, and your website will make it easy for them to initiate contact and schedule an appointment.

The real challenge in digital marketing for financial advisors is to reach investors who don’t know your firm at all. And marketing your financial services online is how you can be found. 

Theoretically, you should always be only one keyword away from reaching your target market, and a digital marketing agency for financial advisors can help you achieve that.

This effort requires: 

1. Convincing content on your financial advisor website
2. Content that converts “organic” visitors into leads 
3. Effective CTAs that convert leads into contacts 

Here’s a quick overview of SEO.

The digital marketing process that produces organic leads is SEO (Search Engine Optimization). SEO impacts all three metrics that measure your digital marketing results: Internet visibility, website traffic, and website conversion rates. SEM (Search Engine Marketing; paid advertising campaigns) can also be used for visibility and traffic.

Do not underestimate the amount of SEO work involved: The Internet is the most competitive marketplace on the planet. Producing bland content is not enough. Producing unique content that creates visibility and traffic is a key to producing better results than your competitors.

Is your financial advisor website SEO working?

Take a few minutes to read our six tips for improving your production of organic leads (prospective clients waiting to be found).

What primary digital marketing services produce Internet visibility and website traffic?

Five core SEO services have the singular purpose of building the visibility of your brand on the Internet in a way that produces traffic for your website:

• Content marketing creates a steady flow of relevant blog articles
• Pillar pages establish your authority for specific topics
• Social media is used to expand the visibility of your best content
• Local SEO provides visibility in 100+ online directories
• Email marketing expands your presence 

How does your financial advisor website produce more leads and contacts?

Websites have a critical role in the digital marketing process. They convert visitors into qualified leads by doing the following:

• Delivering the information investors are seeking
• Providing free offers that have registration requirements
• Making it easy to initiate contact on multiple levels
• Being competitive with other financial advisor websites

To a large extent, this is a one-time opportunity for your website. Investors rarely return to websites where they have not taken any action to contact an advisor or download an eBook.

Does Google have rules for ranking the content of financial advisors?

If you want to be successful on the Internet, you had better be very aware of Google rules and follow them. Anything less can be a waste of your time and money.

Following are five rules that have the greatest impact on your visibility and traffic:

1. All content has to be original. There is no SEO value when the content is downloaded from a library. Google labels it “duplicate content” because it has already seen the content hundreds or thousands of times.
   
   
2. No one is sure why, but Google prefers blog content at least 1,000 words long; the longer, the better. We suspect Google does not want digital marketing agencies churning out large volumes of 300 and 400 word articles.
   
   
3. For maximum SEO exposure, blog content should be linked to 2,000 to 3,000 word pillar pages published on financial advisor websites. The pillar pages establish your authority for specific financial keywords.
   
   
4. Your blog articles must be good enough to be opened and read by investors. There is no SEO value if no one reads them.
   
   
5. You can score additional points with Google if you refresh your content periodically. It stands to reason that content loses some relevance over various periods. 

Why are financial pain points such an essential feature for financial advisor content?

Let’s say you had to choose between two topics. One generic topic was how to invest your money in the global securities markets. The other topic was how to invest your retirement savings, so you don’t run out of money late in life when you need it the most (a significant fear for many recently retired investors).

The first article has to compete with the thousands of articles produced by the brand names (WSJ, Bloomberg, Kiplinger) every week. It will be nearly impossible to rank on Google’s page for any keywords that drive this content.

On the other hand, there is less traffic and much less content produced for financial pain points. This makes achieving higher ranks in Google and the other major search engines easier. 

If you are not a brand name, this is the more viable of the two strategies.

How can financial advisors build credibility and trust on their websites in five minutes?

If you seek more leads, you need a website that can produce credibility and trust in five minutes or less. Why such a short time? That is the maximum time investors spend on financial advisor websites during their initial visits.

Credibility with investors has three components. Your firm:

• Has the expertise the investors are seeking (planning, investing)
• Provides the services the investors are seeking
• Works with types of investors who are visiting your website

Trust has similar components, but it is more subjective. Your firm:

• Practices full disclosure on your website
• Is a financial fiduciary
• Is compensated with fees
• Has a clean compliance record
• Provides independent advice

Your website should describe several key features that benefit investors and deliver at least three or five differentiating characteristics that distinguish you from other firms.

Why does digital marketing produce the best leads for financial advisors?

The answer lies in the process investors use to find, research, and contact financial advisors. It is similar to the process that potential clients use for their important decisions.

1. Seek out their alternatives. In this case, they visit the websites of several financial advisors – Google says six to eight websites.
   
   
2. They research the financial advisors with what they are looking for: Credentials, services, and specialization.
   
   
3. They contact the financial advisors they want to interview.
   
   
4. They conduct their interviews.
   
   
5. They make their selection decisions.

Investors use a similar process for all of their big-ticket purchases. What is more prominent than their future financial security? The leads are high-quality because the investors did their homework and initiated contact with you. 

The Takeaway

Planning on outsourcing your need for digital marketing? Select a firm with financial knowledge combined with years of wealth management marketing efforts. Call PDM to effectively market your financial professionals, products, and services.