What Makes a Great Financial Advisor Website?
Table of Contents Introduction: The Best Financial Advisor Websites Have These Common Elements 03 Creating a Financial Advisor Website That Stands Out 04 Capturing and Converting Leads 05 Making Sure Website Visitors Dwell 10 Building Your Brand’s Identity 12 Helping Your Ideal Customers Find You 14 Getting Your Financial Advisor Website up and Running Quickly 15
[email protected] • Financialmedia.marketing • 877-799-3433 FMM202107WEBSITES 3 How much does having the best website matter? As a financial advisor, what is it that sets you apart from other professionals in your field? Is it a good track record? Credibility? A variety of financial strategies and tools that you offer to your clients? While these are certainly all excellent features, the truth is that if you do not engage potential prospects quickly, the likelihood of them becoming clients diminishes. One of the best ways to make yourself stand out is to have the best website possible. A website that actively generates leads and one that works for you 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and 365 days per year. But just offering a basic site loaded with mind-numbing statistics about inflation, interest rates, and tax codes isn’t appealing. Instead, your site has to capture the attention of your ideal customers – the ones that can most benefit from your services – and then resonate with them as soon as they land on the first page. Better yet, visitors to your website must want to remain on your site and return to it often to learn more and connect with the advisor who is “speaking” directly to them through content, videos, and other forms of website communication. So, what is the difference between a highly successful financial advisor website and a plain, dull online page? Great financial advisor websites have a few things in common. For example, the websites that work best – meaning those that attract, keep, and persuade prospects to provide their contact information – typically have a design, and in turn, a user experience that increases lead capture. Such websites also tend to build trust through their content, and they communicate timely messages to their audience. While the best of the best advisor websites will usually have several technical “moving parts,” you don’t have to be the one who moves them! By assigning the building and maintenance of the website – along with routine content and video updates – you can continue to focus on other business areas and let the website continue to work in your favor. Introduction: The Best Financial Advisor Websites Have These Common Elements
FMM202107WEBSITES [email protected] • Financialmedia.marketing • 877-799-3433 4 If you’ve never done anything more technical than set up your Facebook profile or post a video to Instagram, you may be in the majority. In fact, for many people, even the thought of creating and “constructing” a website can be overwhelming, time-consuming, and possibly even a bit frustrating. But trying to run any type of business without a web presence these days can give clients and prospects the impression that you’re out of touch with modern technology. Doing so may limit your options and potentially become a hindrance. Your financial planning services may be overlooked and perceived less credibly due to an ineffective website. An eyecatching website offering valuable and educational content (in various formats) is more enticing and likely to satisfy those looking for financial planning information. So, how exactly can you create a standout website that delivers what your audience wants, while at the same time getting more leads, credibility, and visibility – all without you having to become a web designer or wade through a mountain of “how to build a website” books? Creating a Financial Advisor Website That Stands Out The first step is to outline a site that serves three essential purposes, including: 1. Increased lead capture and conversion 2. Increased “dwell” time 3. Building of brand identity Website visitors are researching and evaluating the critical “Zero Moment of Truth” for solutions and services that will help them reach their goals and objectives. That is why having strong branding and consistent content available in online searches is vital for generating leads. The “conversation” with potential clients starts with visibility, along with the ability for website visitors to engage with content and information that is truly valuable to them. But only if you provide them with the right information – and you make it easy for them to find what they need. So, everything has to work in combination. In this case, good branding of your services increases visibility, and great website content increases lead generation.
[email protected] • Financialmedia.marketing • 877-799-3433 FMM202107WEBSITES 5 “Sixty-five percent of people see online search as the most trusted source of information about people and companies. That’s a higher level of trust than any other online or offline source.” Financial services is a high-trust business. So why not market through a highly trusted method of showing potential customers how to find you? The right type of financial advisor website can help you to do just that. As a financial advisor, your clients trust you with one of the most important periods of their lives – ensuring that they have enough money to retire. They need someone to help guide planning short or long-term objectives, like safely accumulating the down payment for a new home, generating an ongoing stream of income so they can live a worry-free retirement, or seamlessly transferring assets in a tax-efficient manner to the next generation when the time comes. Trust is a major factor in many life decisions. With that in mind, financial professionals must market their services and do so in a way that captures attention while building the credible trust of their ideal clients by resonating with what is important to them. One of the best and proven ways to do that is with an engaging website. The content, videos, and graphics on your site need to align with what your target market is seeking. Capturing and Converting Leads Just like when meeting someone in person, you have only one shot at making a great first impression with your website. One web usability study found that the first ten seconds of a page visit are critical for determining if a visitor stays or goes. In essence, your website strategy should not be to simply generate traffic but rather to combine your content marketing with your SEO (search engine optimization) efforts so that the visitors who become customers are the ones who can benefit the most from your services.
FMM202107WEBSITES [email protected] • Financialmedia.marketing • 877-799-3433 6 Generating leads for your business is crucial. That’s because if you want to grow your business, you need leads. But just simply getting people to your website isn’t enough. Converting those leads is also essential – not only to build your own business but to stay ahead of the competition. Having a more engaging website – due in large part to the “stickiness” of its content – will increase your chances of converting a lead into a customer. How can you go about ensuring that things work? First, you want your prospects to feel like they are already customers – and you can do this by showing them the benefits of the services you offer. With that in mind, capturing leads is about turning web traffic into customers. By building a long-term relationship with your leads through Credkeeper™, you will be closer to increasing your customers and growing your business. Why Lead Capture and Conversion Are Important
[email protected] • Financialmedia.marketing • 877-799-3433 FMM202107WEBSITES 7 Even with the goal of finding your ideal customers, generating leads can still be a numbers game. To attract “eyes” to your website, potential visitors have to be attracted by something…and that “something” is often content. One of the primary reasons to use content marketing is because there is a high likelihood that your audience is already online. Therefore, communicating online to reach your ideal customers is a great way to reach them where they already are. Based on information from Pew Research, 26% of U.S. adults are almost always online. They are part of the 77% of U.S. adults who go online daily – and in some instances, they are online several times per day. Approximately 72% of experts believe that content marketing increases engagement, and 55% of customers prefer to see text-based content in their online search results. That could be why almost half of all marketers plan to use content to reach their customers. How to Increase Lead Captures and Conversions But not everyone knows how to use content marketing effectively. Roughly 65% of people find it challenging to produce engaging content, and 60% find it hard to produce content consistently. Likewise, 62% don’t know how to measure their content campaigns’ ROI (return on investment). So, even if the content is engaging – and attracting the right website visitors – they may still go unnoticed. That’s why partnering with a specialist in this area can help. Three methods work well for increasing lead captures and conversions. These are using and implementing strategies with: • Videos • Social Media • Credkeeper™
FMM202107WEBSITES [email protected] • Financialmedia.marketing • 877-799-3433 8 Video can provide you with a way to effectively communicate messages to your audience that the written word alone cannot convey. An estimated 96% of people have watched an “explainer” video to learn more about a product or service. Videos can also be used effectively for boosting your web page’s SEO (search engine optimization). It does so by sending signals to search engines that your website contains rich media relevant to search requests increasing lead-conversion opportunities. People watch an average of 16 hours of online video per week, representing a 52% increase in the past two years. This could be one of the reasons why over 50% of marketing professionals globally name video as the preferred type of content with the best ROI (return on investment). Because it is so much more engaging, viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video, compared to just 10% when reading it in text. In addition, the proper use of video adds value to the overall user experience. Financial services and insurance agents who incorporate video on their websites experience 34% higher conversion rates, making it worth adding this alternate form of content presentation. In addition, not all of your website visitors will have written content as their optimal communication mode. Therefore, having video available on your website will not only bring these benefits but also gives an option to site visitors disinterested in reading more text. Videos
[email protected] • Financialmedia.marketing • 877-799-3433 FMM202107WEBSITES 9 Social media gives financial advisors a voice and another platform for reaching and educating prospects and customers. As a financial advisor, you can’t afford to miss opportunities to connect with your audience quickly through various social media platforms. Roughly 1 in 5 minutes, or 19%, of all digital media time is spent on social sites or in social media apps across several devices. There are a growing number of social media sites today, including: Social Media
FMM202107WEBSITES [email protected] • Financialmedia.marketing • 877-799-3433 10 • Facebook – Facebook is the biggest social media site globally, with approximately 2.85 billion active users (as of early 2021). It is easy for advertisers to get started on Facebook because nearly all types of content formats work, including text, videos, images, and even stories. Content on Facebook should also be optimized for mobile users, as 94% of Facebook users access this social media platform from various devices. • Twitter - Twitter boasts over 186 million visitors (2020) and is primarily a news and short-item sharing platform that can also host various content, including videos and links to websites. • Instagram – Instagram, a photo and video-sharing social media app, has more than 1 billion monthly active users. It is possible to schedule your Instagram posts using third-party tools. • Tik Tok – On a computer or a device, viewers can watch millions of personalized short videos on Tik Tok. It is estimated that Tik Tok has about 80 million monthly active users in the U.S. alone. Of these, 26% are between the ages of 25 and 44. Users on this site spend an average of 52 minutes per day on the platform. • YouTube – With roughly 2 billion monthly active users, YouTube is a search engine in and of itself. You can even create your own YouTube channel for your brand so that you can easily upload videos for your subscribers to view, like, comment, and share. It is estimated that using social media for business shortens the overall selling cycle. Further, marketers with blogs are 13 times as likely to drive positive return on investment (ROI). Because blogs are so effective, it can make sense to include blogs as a part of your overall web marketing strategy. With so many different forms of communication available now, it is estimated that close to 80% of social media use is happening on mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. This can make it easier to reach your potential customers any time, day or night.
[email protected] • Financialmedia.marketing • 877-799-3433 FMM202107WEBSITES 11 Credkeeper Credkeeper is a patent-pending application that can help you to significantly increase your online credibility, reputation, and perceived expertise. In turn, this can increase the trust that prospects and clients have in you. There are several ways that Credkeeper does this, including: • Generating more high-quality leads with an integrated marketing approach • Enhancing client relationships through consistent communication that emphasizes your expertise and authority • Helping you to succeed and grow your business with less effort and a higher close ratio The proven and highly effective Credkeeper patent-pending software application enhances the visibility and credibility of licensed professionals. In addition to a professionally designed website, Credkeeper can also provide customized videos, mailing list solutions, lead generation, and brand identity solutions.
FMM202107WEBSITES [email protected] • Financialmedia.marketing • 877-799-3433 12 How much time do you spend “browsing” on different websites? The answer can differ, depending on the particular website you land on and the relevancy of the information provided. For instance, if the information on the site captures your attention because it addresses issues similar to yours, you may spend a considerable amount of time learning more information. Even with quality website content, if you don’t see the relevance of it in terms of helping you solve a specific problem or making your life easier in some way, then it is likely that you will move on without spending a great deal of time “dwelling” on the pages. Making Sure That Your Website Visitors Dwell The word dwell means to remain or linger over. This is ideal browsing behavior for a financial adviser looking to connect and share services with their audience. Dwell time refers to measuring the amount of time a website visitor spends on a page before returning to the search engine results page (SERPS). So, for instance, if you were looking for information on the best mutual funds, and you searched via Google using the keywords “best mutual funds,” your dwell time is the length of time you spend looking at a webpage after you’ve clicked a link on a SERP page. The more dwell time, the better – at least for the website owner or business.
[email protected] • Financialmedia.marketing • 877-799-3433 FMM202107WEBSITES 13 The best financial advisor websites take measures to ensure visitors dwell on their site. One reason for this is because you want prospects (and customers) to remain on your page long enough to capture important lead information about them. A great way to entice your audience is with information that is important to them and that “speaks” to them regarding the problem(s) they are hoping to solve. When you have visitors feeling at home on your website, you want them to be comfortable and to stick around for a while. A similar concept, “stick,” refers to websites where visitors arrive and “stick” around. In other words, they spend time on your website pages. The industry benchmark for average dwell time is considered to be somewhere between two and four minutes. So, the longer a visitor remains on your site, the more likely they are to continue reading, watching videos, or consuming your information – and ideally move forward with opting in to your email list or associate with you and your business. A primary goal, then, is to offer engaging content that is appealing for site visitors to stay, as well as to come back for more. Google Analytics measures your website “stickiness” through several metrics, including: • Bounce rate • Average time on site • Pages/visit • Percentage of new visits
FMM202107WEBSITES [email protected] • Financialmedia.marketing • 877-799-3433 14 Bounce rate refers to the percentage of the visitors to a website who navigate away from the site after only viewing one page. Therefore, a high bounce rate is indicative that the content on the page is not engaging to the visitor. Based on industry statistics, a bounce rate of 56% to 70% is on the high side, and a bounce rate of between 41% and 55% is considered average. Optimally, a bounce rate for a website is in between a 26% to 40% range. Another key metric to be mindful of is the percentage of new visits to your website. Google Analytics defines a new visitor as “anyone who has never been on your website before, according to their tracking snippet.” According to a 2020 survey of marketers, the average percentage of new visitors to a website is 68%. It is important to keep in mind, though, that these figures can be skewed. This is because there are numerous situations where a returning visitor to your website could end up being classified as a new visitor (again). These could include: • If an individual is on your website in “incognito” or private browsing mode • If a person visits your website initially from their laptop computer and then they browse your site again from their smartphone (in this case, if the individual is not logged into Google Chrome on both of their devices, then when they come back to your website again on another device, they will be deemed a new visitor) • If an individual visits your website and then comes back a second time several years later • If a person comes to your website, and then they clear their browser cache before they come back to the site again As previously mentioned, some of your website visitors will prefer reading written content, while others would rather watch (and learn from) videos. It is recommended that you have different options available for providing information about what you offer and how you could help your website visitors if they decided to do business with you.
[email protected] • Financialmedia.marketing • 877-799-3433 FMM202107WEBSITES 15 There are many ways to build your brand so that it is more visible in online searches. This, in turn, can bring more targeted visitors to your website. If people don’t know who you are and what you can do for them, it won’t matter if you are the best in your field. Savvy and targeted use of social media is key to building brand awareness online. One of the biggest reasons financial advisors need social media is to help people know who you are by creating brand awareness. Statistics show that it can take five to seven impressions for people to remember a brand. Using social media platforms is an effective way to make those impressions. Building Your Brand’s Identity Establishing your brand through content-rich media will help you to be seen as an expert and authority whose information can be trusted. It will require consistent posting and sharing content, though, so going this route can take up a considerable amount of time – unless you have a way to automate the system. It is important to keep in mind that you should build your brand from the perspective of your audience. This means focusing on what is relevant to them, such as: • Issues and problems that are faced by your prospects and customers • Tools, strategies, and other solutions that you can provide to assist them with these problems
FMM202107WEBSITES [email protected] • Financialmedia.marketing • 877-799-3433 16 Showing your audience the “person behind the brand” is also an essential element of your brand building. Doing so will make your business much more personal – and because people buy people (versus simply buying products), which can help solidify the relationships you have with clients even more. A financial advisor becomes more credible by posting valuable content that helps people solve their problems. The more credible you are, the more likely it is that people will trust you. This is imperative because trust is cited as a top factor in the overall decision-making process. Once you have established your brand’s identity and built up the trust of your website visitors, it is essential that contact information is readily accessible so potential customers can continue to engage with you – either by email newsletter, a member forum, or another method of contact. Landing pages and sign-up forms are known to have the highest conversion rate at 24%. A landing page is a single, stand-alone web page where visitors can “land” after clicking through from an ad, email, link, or other digital location. Typically, landing page visitors are offered an incentive, such as a free report, eBook, resource, or other items of value in exchange for their name, email address, or other contact information. An opt-in form or box should also be on a website – usually near the top of the page – where a site visitor can provide their name and email address to receive something, such as an eBook or report, in return. The item that is offered must have perceived value. Otherwise, the visitors to your website may not feel that the “tradeoff” of providing you with a way to contact them is enough. Some possible giveaways could include a downloadable guide to retirement income sources, a household budget template, or tips for maximizing future Social Security retirement income.
[email protected] • Financialmedia.marketing • 877-799-3433 FMM202107WEBSITES 17 There are several ways that you can attract clients online. In addition to simply having a website, several other online marketing methods could be used, such as: Drip Emails / Email Marketing Drip email marketing works incredibly well, provided that you have a good, solid strategy in place. Rather than just randomly sending messages, though, some of the methods that work well may include a multi-message investment or retirement planning course, a message that offers a free report or downloadable eBook, or an invitation to a live or online seminar. It is important to keep in mind you should only send emails to recipients who have given their consent for you to contact them. Otherwise, opt-outs will increase, and you may encounter spam issues from sending unsolicited messages. Helping Your Ideal Customers Find You
FMM202107WEBSITES [email protected] • Financialmedia.marketing • 877-799-3433 18 Blog Posts Blog posts can also help to attract customers to your business. They are another way to add a personal connection. A blog is a website or web page that is updated regularly. Blogs are often written in a conversational or informal style. Blogs are among the primary three forms of media that are used in content strategies. Today’s blog posts typically include photos, videos, and hyperlinks that will take the reader to more information or products that can be purchased. For instance, if a blog post discusses the best laptop computers for writers, there may be various links that are located throughout the post that, when clicked on, will take the reader to a sales page or contact page for these products. Blogs are becoming longer and more visual now versus even just a few years ago. In 2020, the average length of a blog post was around 1,050 words. Because blog posts can be long, the post must capture the reader’s attention early in the piece. Otherwise, the reader may opt to move on. Google AdWords Google AdWords is a type of pay-perclick online advertising platform that allows you to display ads on Google’s search engine results page. With this program, you choose various keywords and key phrases to focus on to get your ads ranked at the top of the search page. Google AdWords works in an auction format where people bid for clicks. While Google AdWords can work well in some instances, it can also be costly if you are unfamiliar with how the platform works.
[email protected] • Financialmedia.marketing • 877-799-3433 FMM202107WEBSITES 19 More and more people are online and using the Internet to search for advice and tips to help make decisions. Educating your prospects and customers is a critical component in building credibility and trust as a financial advisor. A significant number of customers and prospects use the Internet to search for financial advice. The main reason a financial advisor should be accessible online is that’s where people search for information. Financial Media & Marketing (FMM) has a patent-pending software called Credkeeper. We publish fresh, consistent content for you on your website through an RSS feed. Credkeeper also helps you communicate the right messages at the right time to your contacts with drip email marketing. All of this content is coordinated and pushed to your website via social media automation. If you would like to educate and promote to prospects and customers with a professionally designed and automated website, while at the same time focusing on providing top-notch advisory services, contact Financial Media & Marketing to learn more about Credkeeper. Credkeeper can magnify your online credibility, reputation, and perceived expertise while generating leads for you – ultimately allowing you to attract more prospects and close more business. Getting Your Financial Advisor Website up and Running Quickly Feel free to sign up for our newsletter or book a call with a financial advisor website specialist. Or, find out how you can join the Credkeeper program at no cost to get your website up and running, as well as generating contacts and leads. Financial Media & Marketing provides top-tier lead generation, creative and marketing services, along with both turnkey and customized solutions and proprietary, patent-pending applications that can magnify your expertise and authority and, in turn, increase trust. Send us your questions to [email protected] We look forward to hearing from you and helping you grow your financial services practice.
FMM202107WEBSITES [email protected] • Financialmedia.marketing • 877-799-3433 20 Financial Media Marketing 4590 Deodar Street Silver Springs, NV 89429 [email protected] financialmedia.marketing
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