Do Financial Advisers Need A Website?

Do financial advisers need a website? The short answer is yes, but before you rush out and dive headlong into the mire of web development, we want to give you a few reasons as to why a website for financial advisers is not only essential, but what you should be looking to do with it. Unfortunately, a lot of the time advisers seem to think that a website is there to show people how amazing you are and what a nice suit collection you have. Whilst this might be true, it does nothing to help people with what they are looking for and frankly perpetuates the stereotype of advisers only being in it for the money. 

There are several options out there for advisers in terms of web design but we aren’t going to go into that today. That really is a much larger topic that deserves to be discussed on its own. What we will be covering in this article today is what do financial advisers need a website for?

Occupy Space Online

It’s a bit ironic that many advisers don’t want to be found online. Many will have links in their email signatures that say by referral only. This may be in place because referrals are a great way to get new business. After all, clients will refer and so a deal is quite likely, however, you’re limiting yourself to only one lead generation avenue. Your network is only so big and there are plenty of people out of it that are good fit clients for you.

Financial advisers need a website so that they can occupy some space online that allows them to be found and explain exactly who they work with and how they help their clients. If you don’t have anything other than a LinkedIn profile, you’ll never be found. Put it this way; people search online for solutions to their problems. They don’t search for financial advisers.

Financial Advisers Need A Website To Own The Information

You might say that financial advisers don’t really need a website because the firm they work for already has all of the info someone needs to see already on it. However, the issue with this is that you don’t own the information that’s on the website. Also, none of it is specific to you or how you help your clients. Financial services websites generally tend to be a bit bland. Yes, they will have relevant information on it, but other than that it’s all pretty general. If you are going to be generating leads from your website, then you’re going to want to get specific about the information that’s on it. If you’re lucky enough to work for a firm that produces its own content, it’s unlikely that the content being written is of any great value either. 

You Own the Topic Of Conversation

Let’s assume you are creating content on a regular basis. Let’s also assume that you are sharing that content on one or more social media platforms. Whilst this is excellent, there are two potential issues with this. 1. Very few platforms actually allow you to post at any great length, unless you are creating video content and 2. The topic of conversation can get high-jacked very quickly. 

If you are creating content on your own website, not only do you control the conversation, but you are able to control the topics you talk about too. A decent and well structured marketing strategy will allow you to think and plan content in advance. This means you are covering the subjects and issues that you want to talk about. When you are able to own the topic of conversation, you are able to allow your personality to shine through, as well as show people your wealth of knowledge on a particular subject.

Not Limited To One Audience

There’s a lot of emphasis on social media platforms; and quite rightly so. They are home to literally millions of people on a daily basis. Your audience is most definitely on social media platforms. However, you are limited to that one audience on that platform. Financial advisers need a website so that they can reach out to audiences across multiple platforms. How can you do this? A simple social share button. Someone who likes the content you upload to your website may want to share it with the personal or professional network. So, in creating killer content on your website, you’re allowing it to be shared with multiple audiences across multiple networks. You don’t even have to do any hard work to get it to the right people as your audience is doing it for you!

You Can Capture Leads!

How have we got so far down the page and not spoken about leads? Yes, you can generate leads on social media platforms. People can chat with you and give you their contact details. You can run lead generation adverts that allow people to fill out forms but often those are for specific campaigns. Sometimes people just want to reach out and ask questions. Your website is  the perfect place for them to do that.

Contact forms, quizzes, ebooks, calendar bookings, it’s all possible on your website. The great thing about it is that they all go to your inbox and won’t be shared with anyone else. 

Showcase Your Expertise

Are you an expert on pension transfers? Have you successfully grown a client’s retirement portfolio? Has the tax advice you’ve given your client saved them significant money? Financial advisers need a website so that they are able to clearly explain who they help and how they help them. If you have expert insights into why your prospects should be working with you, then you need to let them know. A website is the best place for it. 

It’s so ironic that financial advisers have all of this super important information yet never seem to want to share any of it with the people it could help the most. Remember that bit about owning the topic of conversation? Well here’s the prime example. Has a new law come into effect that affects your clients and the way they access their money? Write an opinion or explainer piece about it. Your website should be a constantly updating profile for you that shows prospects why you are the best person to manage their money.

Get Found More Easily

You may have heard about SEO. If you haven’t then you should definitely read our blog about SEO for financial advisers. SEO is an incredibly powerful marketing method and tool that will help to deliver high quality leads to your inbox on a daily basis for FREE. Yes, that’s right. For free. If you have great content on your website that is properly optimised and updated on a regular basis, Google is going to want to put your website front and centre. The more content you write, the more keywords you can get found for and the more likely people are to see you as the expert they need managing their money. 

Now here’s the kicker for SEO. Financial advisers need a website in order to take advantage of this. If you don’t have one, you simply cannot get anything from SEO. Social media platforms do not offer you the same level of search visibility. It’s highly unlikely that an article you write and post on a social media channel (with the exception of LinkedIn, but this is slightly different) is going to be given top spot status in search engines. 

Do Financial Advisers Need A Website?

The answer is still yes, but on the basis of this article it can seem a bit overwhelming to create and maintain such an enormous project. It may seem like too much hassle to have to deal with this and you’d be right in thinking it is a big and difficult project. However, a website is something that can be built up over time. A number of our clients simply started out with a landing page that had traffic driven to it. A lot of people have profile websites. A place where they are able to give themselves a little bit more space and a bit more information about who they are, what they do and how they help and update it from time to time. You can start small with websites, but the important thing is to start. 

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