How to get the most from your financial website
Are you getting all you can from your website?
It is somewhat unusual in today's online world to come across an IFA without a website.
However not all sites are the same. We certainly work incredibly hard to give our clients value for money, including delivering free marketing material on a regular basis together with advice for getting ahead.
It's true there are tools out there to produce your own site; but they don't always look great and the content certainly won't be kept up to date. IFA Web Pro offer more than just a website, supporting our clients with regular marketing material and support with search engine optimisation.
We like to think we provide an extremely cost effective all-in-one solution for smaller to medium sized firms looking for great customer support together with a professional product.Although the competition out there is stiff for IFAs, your financial website can still play a part in gaining new clients. We know that visitors are actively searching online for independent financial advisers (IFAs), financial planners and wealth management advisors in your area.
We always advise our clients to check out their own local competition and analyse the steps that they themselves can take. We can talk you through this process and advise you on a host of tools to help.
We believe in supporting our clients, there's a number of things you can do to get the most out of your site:
- Write additional content
- Targeted Email Marketing, connect to your clients
- Make use of Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools
- Consider a redesign or fresh images if your site is looking tired
- Market yourself!
Add additional Content
Everyone heads off on the 'blog' route. Aimlessly writing content (sometimes for the sake of it), Google is getting wise. Think about adding pages to your site content and by all means have a blog. But remember the key rules:
- Make sure you use a “h1 tag”, but only 1 per page
- Write quality content, use internal linking (back to other web pages), making sense of what you're writing and adding value to your clients
- Add professional images with alt tags
- Although clients can only process a limited amount of content, Google does like to see some “super blogs” 1000 words or more
- Break up your content with headings and images (bite sized chunks is key)
- Think of your audience
- Google likes natural growth (1 to 2 articles a month)
Since we add content to your site for you (no additional charge), we take care of tags, alt tags, meta descriptions, h1, h2, h3 etc., that's what we're here for. If you're going to add to your site we want to make sure it earns it's keep.
Targeted Email Marketing
We produce quarterly newsletters for you on a regular basis, packed with financial advice from the Budget or Autumn Statement (now the Autumn Budget), informing your clients of new products like the “LISA” or pension changes. Why not use a product like Mailchimp for your marketing. We like Mailchimp because it's tells you who'se opened their emails from you and even who has clicked on any hyperlinks. You can add your latest brochure as a hyperlink. Also it's free (up to 2,000 emails per month).
Google Analytics
Google Analytics and Webmaster tools are fabulous and powerful web analytics applications available today. Like many of Google offerings, they are completely free programs, which makes them even more appealing.
Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools are a great way to gather statistics on your website.
Don't worry we can help. Adding Google Analytics and Webmaster tools is something we can add to our account and give you access to. Talking you through the monthly stats.
You can see who has found you on Google and what pages have been visited.
Consider a redesign
If your website looks tired and it needs some new life, it never hurts to give a redesign a shot. Most websites benefit from a revamp from time to time. It's no good getting traffic to your site if it's not going to engage your visitors.
It's always prudent to invest in a good financial website design if you are an financial adviser, planner or IFA. The longer people spend on your website, the more chance there is of them engaging with your business. It makes financial sense to ensure your website is the best it can be.
We offer new designs to existing clients, if they have been with us for a few years (usually 5 or more) and only charge a nominal fee of £100.
We offer lower prices to existing clients for most things, we're here to support them and not try and sell extras.
That said, we lose very few clients!
Here's a before and after of The Oxford Advisory Partnership's website; before and after. The Oxford Advisory partnership were one of our first clients, purchasing their original site 5 years ago. They felt it was time for a change and wanted a modern looking website.
Market Yourself!
Last but not least market yourself. Sounds daft doesn't it? If a referral came across your site the best way for him or her to connect with you would be to see your staff images and read your testimonials. Sounds corny, but it's true.
Testimonials are a wonderful way to give your firm credibility “a third-party endorsement”. It is no longer your advisory company saying that products or services are superb; it's someone else blowing your trumpet!
Ask your customers to fill out a short customer satisfaction survey and leave space for comments at the end. Make sure to also ask at the end of the survey, “May we use your name and comments in our marketing materials?”. FCA Compliance companies will check you have permission to display testimonials .