As a financial advisor, you know your website is critical to your online presence. It’s the foundation of your marketing, serving as the home base where prospects and clients find you.
That means the site needs to be as effective as possible, using the best design and marketing ideas to turn prospects into clients and create the best user experience.
To help you along the road to success, I’ve put together a quick list of the top five pages every site needs to have to be effective, as well as a few ways to improve their performance.
1. Home Page
Your home page gives people their first impression of you. Its job is to greet and inform visitors while guiding them to take action. The details you choose determine whether a visitor explores or clicks the “back” button. That makes the home page the most important page on your site.
Great home pages contain several elements, but there’s a rule you can use to see if they are working: the “five-second rule.” Here, you navigate to your home page and without scrolling or clicking give yourself five seconds to take in everything. Then see if you can answer these questions:
• Who do you serve?
• What problems do you solve?
• What’s your visitor’s next step?
If your home page can’t answer these questions within five seconds, you will want to make a few edits.
For one thing, the home page needs to clearly lay out your value proposition. Your visitors should know within seconds who you help and what problems you solve. Not only will this ensure that the site immediately resonates with your ideal client, but also allows visitors to self-qualify, saving time for you and your team.
The home page also needs an effective design. It should be easy to look at, and the navigation should be straightforward. The copy should be clear and concise. The images and colors should align with your brand to make the page striking and memorable. Ideally, you need six headers on your navigation at most.
You also need a “call to action” on your home page, something that reminds a reader to contact you, and you should include these calls to action multiple times throughout your page. You should personalize them as well: Invite your visitors to schedule an icebreaker call, for instance, or ask them to tell you what brings them joy (these are two strategies we’ve seen actual firms use). The important thing is to go beyond generic requests for them to “learn more” or “contact us.”
2. The ‘About Us’ Page
Once visitors decide you might be the right fit for them, they enter the “consideration” phase. That’s when they begin looking through the rest of your site to figure out their next course of action. For most prospects, the “About” or “Our Team” page proves vital to their decisions. It’s the place they go to meet you virtually. Make sure your personality, and that of your team, comes through. Generally, the page should include a number of items:
Your story. This is not your résumé. It’s a real story, one you want to write in first person. Here you explain why and how you got into the business. Why you love what you do. You should weave in personal facts as well as professional ones. Let visitors get to know you and form a first impression that makes them feel they would enjoy meeting you. Also, use your target keywords (the ones the prospects used in the search engines to find you). That will improve your rank in the search results. But most importantly, make the story interesting and authentically you.
Your team. Next, talk about the people who work at your firm. Without advisors, there would be no one running the business or helping clients. You want to be sure to have a whole section introducing your hardworking employees. Include their images and share what makes them qualified, what they do differently, what they do for fun and, most important, who they are as people. Website visitors like to put a face to a name.
3. Services Page
Every financial advisor offers some type of service, whether it’s investment management, small business help or aid for retirees with their plans or transitions. It’s essential that you let website visitors know what services you offer so they know how you can assist them. When creating your services page, do these things:
Write in the problem-solution format. Too often, advisors write about themselves and what they do when listing their services. You should flip this idea on its head and format your copy differently: Write it from the client’s perspective, instead. Write down the challenges they are likely facing, then outline how you solve them. Nearly all advisors offer investment management and financial planning. But your clients are likely looking for dozens of other types of services as well, including tax-efficient investing; assistance with trusts and wealth transfer strategies; insurance and long-term-care help; counsel on non-liquid assets; and credit advice. The list goes on. So make sure you highlight the services you offer beyond financial planning and investments.
Include the way you charge. This is a highly debated topic, but research shows that one of the main reasons people don’t hire financial advisors is the perception of cost. There are more and more ways financial advisors charge, and you can use this opportunity to debunk the myth that only wealthy people can afford advice. You should at least generally include the way you are compensated, particularly if you charge a fee for planning or offer retainer services in addition to or instead of a fee on AUM. This is a differentiator for you, and transparency helps build trust.
4. Blog Page
Blogs are the perfect place for advisors to share unique content and demonstrate their expertise. They are a critical part of any strategy to increase your search engine traffic and help establish you as a thought leader. Here are two things you can do to optimize your blog:
Be consistent. Blogging is a great way to inform readers about trending topics and updates. They don’t always have to be financial in nature. We recently wrote a blog for advisors with technology tips for seniors, and it received incredibly positive feedback. The key is writing about what your target audience is interested in. In all likelihood, they are not as interested as you are in Monte Carlo theory or in investment alpha and beta. They are, however, interested in how tax law changes will affect them, the common mistakes they might make in estate plans, and general life topics such as how to prepare adult children to care for aging parents.
You don’t need to write hundreds of blogs a month, but you should have a set schedule for posting to maximize your search engine traffic. That way, your website shows up as active. Plus, the more content you cover, the more keywords you can use, which improves your search engine ranking and increases the chances you’ll get additional traffic.
Consider your content as a whole. If you’re consistently writing and publishing blogs, you’ll eventually accrue quite an extensive portfolio of written work. You can use this content in other channels, such as email and social media, or even repurpose it a few quarters later by simply refreshing it instead of writing it from scratch. Also, you can add a relevant call to action at the end of each blog.
5. FAQ Page
Your “frequently asked questions” page allows users to find answers to common questions quickly. It’s like a blend of your services and blog pages, and it lets your site’s visitors see if you are right for them while answering common questions that can help you rank in search engines. Here are a few things you can do to get the most out of your FAQ page.
Answer client-specific questions. Simply put, a successful FAQ page aims to answer the most common questions a potential client may have. And the best way to find potential clients’ questions is to start recording the queries of your current clients. If you receive a common question, consider writing it and answering it on your FAQ page.
Don’t forget you can improve your search engine results. Consider going to Google and searching for the keywords that align with your services to see what appears. In the “People also ask” section, you will find related queries to better understand what someone searching for that specific term or phrase might be looking for.
Wrapping Things Up
Your website is a critical part of your business. Take the time to assess it against these best practices. Incorporating some of these suggestions will help you build your brand and attract and convert more prospects. Don’t wait!
Susan Theder is the chief marketing and experience officer at FMG Suite.