Every financial advisor firm in America, that owns its brand, has a website. Eight out of ten financial advisors say they derive very little value from their websites.
What is not working for these advisors?
Ask yourself the following questions:
- Is your website a consistent source of new leads?
- Do visitors stay on your site for more than three minutes?
- Are visitors registering to receive your free offers?
- Does your site have low traffic due to limited online visibility?
- Is your website competitive with other financial advisor websites?
Your answers to these fundamental digital marketing questions will be a starting point for improving the results that are produced by your website.
Why is financial advisor website performance important? Increasing numbers of investors are using the Internet to find, research, and contact financial advisors. You do not want to miss out on this major business opportunity for producing new clients. The longer you wait the tougher it will be to develop online visibility and website traffic.
Does your financial advisor website produce a consistent flow of new leads?
This metric has the greatest impact on the productivity of financial advisor websites. You might even say it is where the rubber meets the road.
Most financial advisor websites do a reasonably good job delivering information about the firms and the professionals who work there. But, in many cases, the information they deliver is not compelling enough that visitors are willing to give up their anonymity and submit their contact information.
This is usually a one-time opportunity to convert a visitor into a qualified lead (schedule an appointment) or contact (download an eBook). Because they have so many online choices these investors rarely return to websites they have already visited.
Another, equally important question is whether or not your website is producing the right types of leads. This is based on your ideal type(s) of client(s). For example, you prefer to work with retiring business owners who have at least $1,000,000 available for investment. Now you know who you want to reach on the Internet.
A typical conversion rate for financial advisor websites is 2.5%. Sites produce two to three leads for every hundred visitors. Therefore, the two key metrics are website traffic and your website’s conversion rate.
What should be the average time visitors spend on your financial advisor website?
Another key metric is the amount of time visitors spend on your website. In a recent Paladin survey, the average time spent on financial advisor websites was two minutes and thirty-three seconds. This is the amount of time your website has to convert a visitor into a lead or contact.
The less time visitors spend on your website the higher the probability your website is not a source of new clients for your firm.
The more time visitors spend on financial advisor websites the higher the probability they will initiate contact.
Are visitors registering to receive free offers on your website?
You may ask: “What is an example of a free offer?” It is something of value that you offer to visitors in exchange for their contact information.
The most frequent free offers include:
- An eBook covering a frequent financial pain point
- Attendance at a financial webinar
- A complimentary consultation
The best financial advisor websites will offer a combination of free offers so visitors have several reasons to start a dialogue. In fact, Google says the more free offers that appear on financial advisor websites the more leads the website will produce.
How can your website get page one visibility on the major search engines?
Websites do not produce their own traffic. There is one exception. An investor already knows your name and enters your URL in a search engine. Otherwise, the role of digital marketing is to reach strangers (investors who do not know your name) and bring them to your website where you will have a one-time opportunity to convert them into leads and contacts.
Websites need traffic to produce leads. Traffic is impacted by Internet visibility. The visibility that matters is page one because Google says 91.5% of its users do not scroll to page two. Only 4.8% scroll to page two and 1.1% scroll to page three. This makes building online visibility a very competitive process and the sooner you start the quicker you start seeing results.
As you might imagine, a high percentage of financial advisor websites are not optimized for the Internet. Therefore, they have no chance of achieving the results that are expected by their owners.
Is your financial advisor website competitive with other financial advisor websites in your market?
All marketing strategies are based on numbers games. Consider the following numbers:
- Investors visit eight financial advisor websites
- They contact the four they like the best for interviews
- They identify the two they think are the best (finalists)
- They select one advisor to help them achieve their financial goals
Some digital marketing experts call this a “process of exclusion”. That is, investors start with eight and they select one. Based on criteria that differ by investor, they have to “exclude” seven in order to pick one. This process may be based on objectivity, subjectivity, or both.
Why subjectivity? A high percentage of investors do not know how to measure the expertise and ethics of financial advisors. A lot of the time, they select the firm or professional they like the best.
From a financial advisor's perspective, this is a sales funnel that requires a series of critical marketing steps. Leads have to be nurtured into revenue-producing clients. Your website is involved in the critical first step. The goal is to not get excluded so eventually you are the only firm left.
The impact of your website is even more critical because it is at the top of your funnel. Your firm has to make that initial cut to be a contender. And, that is the primary sales role of the website - make sure your firm makes the cut.
Therefore, it is critical that your website is competitive with other financial advisor websites. If your site is not competitive, there is a good chance your firm will not be selected for the interview phase.
There is an easy way to determine if you are competitive. Put yourself in the shoes of a typical investor. Start entering keywords in Google and compare your site to the competition. What are the best ones doing that you are not doing?
Conclusion
Financial advisor websites are a critical part of the sales funnel that starts on the Internet and ends when investors sign the service agreements of financial advisors.
