Ever wonder how your financial advisor website is actually performing? What pages are resonating with leads? What Calls to Action (CTAs) are encouraging leads to submit their information? What pages on your site are attracting the most traffic? How do you really know if your financial advisor website design is working? Or if there are changes that need to be made?
These are all valid questions. And if you’re working with the right marketing team, these are answers that they should be able to answer.
Website analytic tools can help us understand what pages are resonating with potential clients, what content is speaking to them and encouraging them to take action and, possibly most important, what pages aren’t. These reports essentially show us our website hot spots. And cold spots. And at Paladin Digital Marketing, we make changes accordingly.
Your Website: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
Today, information can be collected about everything – including your website. What this means for a financial advisor is that you could have a virtual playbook of your online hits and misses. This kind of knowledge is very valuable in a crowded, competitive market. Knowing how to put this kind of powerful data to good use is the key to ensuring success for your firm and getting the most bang for your buck online where it matters most.
When key information is collected and tracked, you can discover important trends and see what content on your website is generating the most attention for you. Imagine finding out which of your blog headlines is not working and what call-outs are getting better traction from your audience. In a sea of competition, where every view and click matters, the only way to succeed is by making sure that each piece of your online communication lives up to its full potential.
What the Numbers Say
Understanding what part of your financial advisor website design is attracting the most traffic can tell you a lot.
For example, if you find that a specific page on your financial advisor website is attracting a lot of traffic but not necessarily getting leads to click a CTA and submit their information, this can point to the persuasiveness of your headlines but not the success of your messaging that follows.
To paint the whole picture and find out what your audience really feels, it is far more helpful to know the path your visitors are taking on your website or blog, and exactly how much they are viewing as well as how long they stay on a specific page.
The Hottest Spots
When you know exactly which parts of your online efforts are resonating the most with potential leads and generating the most attention, you can maximize these efforts – and enhance others. Analytics should be referenced at every step along the way in the development of online communications. Information is power after all, and this data provides the insight that can allow you and your firm to customize your content and really personalize your user’s experience, which is exactly what your future investors want and have come to expect.
Clicks, Views and So Much More
There are so many relevant details that can now be captured, tracked and put to good use, that you would be doing your firm a huge disservice if you ignored these viable tools. As the use of analytics fast becomes common practice, the firms that are too busy or intimidated to understand the data are the ones who will be passed by when new clients come searching.
Knowing how investors are browsing online lets you organize and tailor messages to meet their needs. When potential leads come looking for your services, it is vital that you are connecting with them. This is the heart of what businesses need to know about the age of Inbound Marketing, which essentially is ensuring the very best performance from your online efforts in order to naturally create satisfied clients from interested leads.
Seeing the Future
Inbound Marketing really is the future for financial advisors. Instead of wasting time trying to find the people who are interested in the services you offer, Inbound Marketing allows investors who are already interested to come find you.
The truth is, investors are not becoming clients because of a cold-call they got during dinner or a fancy flier they received in their mailbox. Investors of all ages are becoming more Internet savvy than ever, and as such, are conducting online research before they make or request any kind of contact. Their first step is usually an online search where they will type in keywords like, “financial advisor near me,” or “investments for retirement.” If your website appears in the search results, a lead can click on your website and start their quest with you. But you can’t just get these leads to your site. It’s also important to provide the information these leads are looking for.
For instance, if your clients are interested in estate planning, you need content on your site to satisfy this need. An expert in Inbound Marketing can show you how to incorporate not only keywords that have a lot of competition, but how to create specific and compelling posts that will maximize your all-important Search Engine Optimization (SEO). When done correctly, your strategic Web content and financial advisor website design should grab Google’s attention, resonate with your ideal clients and connect to other website pages that provide more information and a chance to connect.
If a potential client finds your website and reads a blog or learns about a specific service but then leaves without visiting another page, more attention should be driven to capturing those leads at that time. Maybe you should be offering a valuable resource or a relevant link on these pages in exchange for contact information. In turn, this opens the door to a valuable Inbound Marketing relationship that can continue down the road. Maybe the images or language in your financial advisor website design needs tweaking. Maybe you need to try a different approach.
Because most leads do not become clients after just one visit, you must stay front-of-mind with regular contact and helpful information to establish yourself as an industry expert when they are ready to invest.
How Do You Stack Up?
Do you know where your web traffic is coming from or the ways you can improve your financial advisor website design? Enlisting a seasoned professional like Paladin Digital Marketing, which has helped RIAs and IARs with their marketing needs since 2003, can help you pinpoint your areas of strength and weakness and show you the very best places to maximize opportunity.
