I am starting this article with two observations that are relatively common knowledge.
First, every financial advisor in America has a website. They would be conspicuous if they did not have a website.
Second, only 18% of financial advisors say their websites produce meaningful results for their firms.
What is the problem? The financial advisors selected the wrong firms to build their websites. What they were told and what they experienced were very different.
What is the solution? Select an agency that specializes in digital marketing for financial advisors. This type of agency knows how to design and develop websites that produce the results financial advisors seek.
What is the first step? Read this blog post by Paladin Digital Marketing. It contains five tips to help financial advisors shorten their digital marketing learning curves.
Make Sure Your Financial Advisor Website Is Competitive
It would be naive to think investors only look at your website. They are far more likely to look at several financial advisor websites. It‘s reasonable to assume they are visiting eight websites and intend to contact the four they like best to schedule interviews. So, financial advisors are in a “cut” situation when investors use the Internet to find, research, and contact them.
This is a major marketing challenge because you know nothing about the investors visiting your financial advisor website until they contact you. Consequently, you have no idea what information is most important to various investors, so you must focus on creating the best first impression you can and hope that is enough.
Want to be more proactive than just hope you get it right? Put yourself in the investors' shoes and visit the websites of the primary competitors you find online. Is your website competitive with their websites? This could be a real eye-opener for why your website is not more productive - it does not make the cut.
You can also contact Paladin and request a free Scorecard Report that looks at your online visibility and website structure.
Deliver The Information That Investors Are Seeking
Another critical variable is ensuring you deliver the information that investors seek. Remember, they compare your information to what they find on your competitors’ websites.
Several categories of information should be addressed, and your willingness to practice transparency may impact your results. For example, your competitors provide information about their compensation, and you choose to withhold this information on your website.
Ten of the more important categories of information include:
- About Us
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Method of Compensation
- Biographies for Key Employees
- What We Do
- Custodial Information
- Who We Serve
- Why Contact Us
- Resource Center
- Case Studies or Testimonials
Building Credibility And Trust On Your Financial Advisor Website
What do investors seek when using the Internet to find, research, and contact financial advisors?
The answer is simple. They seek financial experts they can trust to provide advice and services that put their interests first.
Blog articles, pillar pages, eBooks, and webinars are ways to build credibility. Investors are responding to the expertise it took to produce that content. Video is particularly effective because it is a way to provide information and communicate the personality and culture of a financial advisory firm.
This means investor education is an important component of financial advisor websites.
The consistent publication of high-quality content is also an important way to build trust. Investors visit your website and register to receive financial information that benefits them. In this case, building expertise and trust are happening simultaneously, and you have the investors’ contact information.
Optimize Your Financial Advisor Website For SEO
Another important goal is making sure your website ranks well in Google. The goal for ranking is always page one because 75% to 91% (depending on who you listen to) of Google users do not scroll to page two. And virtually none scroll to page three. This creates a huge demand for visibility on pages one and two.
Another key element is the loading time of a website. According to the experts, a user-friendly, financial advisor website will load in 2.8 seconds or less. Any more than that means the website is not user-friendly, which impacts online visibility.
Websites should also be optimized for searches from mobile devices. A recent report showed that 62% of all searches are initiated from mobile devices. If a website is not mobile-friendly, it lacks many opportunities to be included in investor search results.
At the same time, the best financial advisor websites should also be optimized for voice searches. You can see the problem when a voice search is initiated from a mobile device - 62% of searches are mobile, and 90% of mobile searches are verbal, so voice becomes an important feature along with mobile.
Google also has a rating system for the efficiency of laptops and mobile devices. A rating of 90 to 100 is highly desirable. Most financial advisors rate 90 or higher for laptops but all too often have unacceptably low scores for mobile devices.
Add Multiple Calls-To-Action (CTAs)
Your financial advisor website should have a clear CTA strategy that encourages visitors to take the next step - registering for an eBook, scheduling a consultation, signing up for a newsletter, or downloading a free guide.
Ensure these CTAs are visible and compelling, encouraging investors to complete the registration process on your sales funnel's front end.
Conclusions
The future of marketing financial advice and services to individuals, families, and small businesses is digital. You have already seen how the Internet has impacted the marketing practices of other industries.
Financial advice is the perfect application for the Internet because it is based on an exchange of information.
Outbound marketing, such as cold calling, is pretty much obsolete. Rejection rates are close to 100% due to Caller ID and spam filters. Only the most aggressive salespeople will resort to these invasive marketing practices.
The Internet makes Inbound Marketing possible because it is easy for investors to find, research, and contact financial advisors. And they can maintain their anonymity until they are ready to interview financial advisors.
There is also unprecedented amounts of financial advisor information on the Internet and the most frequently used resource for finding the information is the financial advisors’ websites. The second best source is a Google search of advisor names. This makes the quality of financial advisor websites even more critical.
About Paladin
Paladin is a digital marketing agency that has worked exclusively with financial advisors since its founding in 2003. Paladin’s team of digital marketing professionals has more than 100 years of collective financial industry experience marketing our clients' services to individuals, families, and businesses. Plus, our team has decades of experience providing digital marketing services to financial advisors. Our clients range from start-ups to firms with billions of dollars of AUM. We are a full service agency that provides website, SEO, SEM, Video, and Fractional CMO services. Want more information about our digital marketing services for financial advisors? Email: Info@PaladinDigitalMarketing.com to schedule an introductory call. We protect your privacy.
