Is your financial advisor website ranking well on Google and the other popular search engines? Search engine optimization and inbound marketing techniques are valuable ways that your site can get internet visibility. Why is this important? Visibility is the key to website traffic.
This makes perfect sense. Investors have to find you to visit your website and contact you. However, most financial advisor firms are unsure where to start in terms of obtaining higher ranks on the major search engines.
Prudent digital marketing for financial advisors is the best strategy for boosting page rank visibility. Let’s take a quick look at how digital marketing will help your financial advisor firm soar up the search rankings, prominently displaying your website on the search results for keywords that matter to your business.
The Right Digital Marketing Strategy for Your Financial Advisor Firm
There are numerous important components to digital marketing, each of which plays its own unique role in piquing the interest of prospective clients. Search engine optimization (SEO), blogging, social media, pay-per-click ads, email marketing and other elements comprise a truly comprehensive digital marketing strategy.
However, financial advisor firms do not necessarily have to implement each of these digital marketing components in order to win new business. Though it might seem a bit counterintuitive for your financial advisor firm to use social media to connect with prospective customers, doing so is actually a very smart move. Facebook and other social media platforms have become important marketing tools for businesses rather than just web-based social spaces for college students as they were in their early days.
Social media makes people aware of your financial advisor firm, presents a platform for interaction with prospective clients, and steers traffic to your firm’s website. As long as your firm makes a commitment to being active on social media, the time and effort you invest in these platforms will prove worthwhile. Try to post at least once per day to keep your followers interested in your value proposition and spread the word to their friends and family on social networks.
If people comment on your financial advisor firm’s posts or ask questions, be sure you engage with them. If you need to hire a social media agency to handle these interactions, you should do so. Ideally, this agency will guide each person he or she interacts with on social media platforms to your website to learn more about your value offering. Furthermore, your social media agency should also initiate online conversations with others by actively visiting other social pages, commenting, reacting and ultimately drawing more attention to your brand.
Recognize the Power and Importance of an Active Blog
When the subject of digital marketing is raised, few people think about blogging. Blogs are not as overt as conventional outbound ads on billboards, magazines, TV and radio yet they can be equally effective. Even if your online visitors do not read every word of your blog posts, they will at least scan through a couple of your blog posts to get a sense of your financial advisor firm’s merit, insight and authority.
Furthermore, if you keep your blog updated, it makes it crystal clear your company cares about keeping you well-informed and up-to-date. Use your blog as a platform to establish your financial advisor firm’s authority and people really will be that much more inclined to heed your call-to-action and convert into active prospects.
Insightful blog posts are not enough by themselves. Each blog post should be written with SEO in mind. SEO is short for search engine optimization. Include keywords, key phrases and even some local identifiers to catch the attention of those searching for your value offering.
As long as these keywords and key phrases are included at the optimal keyword density rate, Google will reward your blog and other online content for featuring those specific words. Continue to publish high-quality blogs relevant to what your target clients are searching for and your website will gradually move up the search ranks.
Your Website Must Function Properly on Mobile Devices
The design and functionality of your website is essential to your digital marketing success. If your site has user experience flaws when used with mobile computing devices such as smartphones and tablets, you will lose the online battle for customer acquisition. Your website should load within a couple seconds or less on all mobile devices. Visitors should be able to seamlessly transition from your financial services menu to your blog, contact page and other components of your website without delay or impediment.
Keep in mind Google considers website functionality on mobile computing devices when ranking them. Continue optimizing your site for flawless functionality on mobile devices and you will stand a much better chance of converting visiting prospects into long-term clients.
Consider Pay-Per-Click Online Marketing
Pay-per-click advertising, also known as PPC, empowers your financial advisor firm to place online ads tailored to your selected keywords. Perform some keyword research for these PPC ads, outbid your competitors for the ad space in the online real estate and your ad will appear atop the Google search engine organic results. The best part about PPC is the amount paid is determined by the number of clicks on the ad, ensuring your return on investment (ROI) is reflective of the ad’s actual success.
Backlinks Bolster Your Digital Marketing Strategy
Backlinks, sometimes referred to as inbound links, are formed when other sites link back to your financial advisor firm website. The more backlinks your website has, the better your search engine ranking will be.
If you are struggling to amass backlinks, consider a mutually beneficial arrangement with other websites in which you provide a guest blog post that includes backlinks to your website in exchange for featuring a guest blog post from that site with its own backlinks. This reciprocal relationship will help boost traffic to both sites, especially if they have a common thread such as the overarching financial industry or featured subject matter.
Do Not Discount Email Marketing
There is a common misconception that people refuse to open emails from businesses, even if they have signed up to receive those messages through an email list. As long as your financial advisor firm’s email messages contain helpful information or provide unique insight, people will open and read them. Dull, boring content has just the opposite impact.
Your email messages should contain links to your financial advisor firm’s website, social media, blog and other components of your online footprint.
Include an engaging subject line, personalize the message to each recipient and consider including a special offer for those subscribed to your online newsletter. Consistently send email marketing messages on a weekly or monthly basis and traffic to your website will gradually increase, boosting your new client opportunities all the more.
