For serious professionals looking to improve lead generation online as part of digital marketing for financial advisors, a blog is a great place to start. A blog can mean different things to people for personal use and across industries for marketing and promotion. At the base level, however, a blog is simply a place to publish content in digestible pieces to entertain, educate, or in some cases, both.
This article will show you how blog content for financial advisors can help you:
- Grow your email list
- Enhance SEO
- Keep prospective clients coming back
- Amp up your lead generation strategies
Why is a blog important for financial professionals?
While there is no shortage of information available online, much of what is published online hasn’t been validated or verified. People using the internet for fact-finding missions about essential aspects of their lives, such as finances, are craving authentic, quality content to help make impactful decisions.
Businesses that fall into the professional services realm, such as financial advisors, have a huge opportunity to provide such content. One of the best ways to disseminate this information is through a financial advisor blog. Building digital credibility can lead to more financial advisor leads, so do your due diligence when looking for the right digital marketing firm for financial advisors.
Financial topics, especially those involving investing, are sometimes intimidating to those unfamiliar with industry terminology or concepts. Getting information before reaching out to a financial advisor can give those prospects the confidence they need to feel comfortable enough to take the next step. And if your financial advisor blog is their go-to resource to gain knowledge, you will gain more qualified leads just by publishing articles (with SEO efforts).
How to grow your email list
Email marketing can feel pushy if not executed correctly. And while it’s not recommended to require visitors to subscribe to read a blog post on your financial advisor website, displaying a prominent newsletter or email sign-up can be a great way to gain subscribers.
For longer content such as eBooks and white papers that can be downloaded, it’s perfectly acceptable (and recommended) to put that content behind a lead generation form. Just be sure the form clearly states that the user will be opted into email communications.
SEO: It all comes full circle
SEO is a common thread that ties your multiple online presence instances together. For instance, a quality SEO strategy is vital to attracting visitors to your financial advisor website via search engines such as Google.
The blog content associated with your website can improve the bounce rate, click-through rate, and other vital SEO KPIs that show Google that your financial advisor website is chock full of relevant content visitors engage with and read. By contributing to SEO, your financial advisor blog is helping your website reach higher in the organic search rankings, which will get more readers to your blog. Full circle.
How can you keep website visitors coming back?
Because choosing a financial advisor is a big step for most investors, they won’t likely be ready to decide to reach out upon the first visit to your website or blog. However, suppose they find your content relevant to their needs, which boosts their confidence in choosing a financial advisor to partner with. In that case, they will likely return again and again to your content and short-list your financial advisor firm when narrowing down the field.
Financial advisor blog tips and tricks
Find your “sweet spot” for blog post length.
While there’s no magic number for blog posts, a common practice is around 1,000 words. Wix found between 1,500 – 2,500 words ideal, with a sweet spot at 2,450. The longer length of an article, the more keywords you can rank for on search engines. While these numbers are insightful, there’s no “one size fits all” solution.
Remember: Your audience has multiple things vying for their attention online. Getting to the point as quickly as possible is key to holding their interest long enough for their content to make an impact.
Choose suitable topics.
Do you have a niche within the financial advising space? Are there topics your audience seems to engage with or request more than others? Paying attention to these things can help guide the kinds of content that will perform best on your financial advisor blog.
Use internal links.
Once your financial advisor blog has multiple kinds of content, you can link back to specific posts or areas of your website to provide context or a deeper understanding. For example, in a blog post about retirement, you may briefly mention 401(k)s but not go into great detail. However, you have a separate blog post or website content dedicated to all things 401(k).
By linking back to your financial advisor website, you’re providing even more information to that visitor and improving your SEO.
Make blog content easy to share.
If you create good content, there’s a good chance that visitors will want to share it. Installing social widgets on your financial advisor website allows you to make your financial advisor blog content easily shareable via email and social channels.
Plan content ahead of time.
By creating a content calendar, you can save time by knowing what blog posts you want to publish and when while getting ahead of the game by writing future blog posts. This strategy can prevent you from taking a hiatus from blog posting during those extremely busy times and possibly losing much of the momentum your financial advisor blog built.
Get help from the pros.
Just as people seek you out for financial advice and investment help, advisors come to us for digital marketing strategies and SEO help. In most circumstances, financial advisors are not writers, and while they have in-depth knowledge of given topics, it’s difficult to explain in 1,000 – 2,000 words.
That’s where a digital marketing firm that works with financial advisors can help.
By hiring a team of professionals, you can produce content directly from your thoughts and experiences by having a quick chat with a content specialist who can get it down just right. This gives you time to do what you do best — help your clients reach their financial goals one by one.
