web strategy for financial advisors | © allan ward 2013 … · the financial planner’s website...

Web Strategy for Financial Advisors | © Allan Ward 2013

The Financial Planner’s Website Checklist from http://www.ContarMedia.com

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Contents Disclaimer and Copyright ........................................................................................................................ 2

Contents ............................................................................................................................................. 3

Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 4

Getting Results from this Report ............................................................................................................ 5

1. What is the purpose of your web site? ........................................................................................... 6

2. How do you want clients to find your site? .................................................................................... 7

3. Do you have any keywords that you’re targeting? ......................................................................... 8

4. Do you know how you rank for your main keywords? ................................................................... 9

5. Do you know what your Google page rank is? ............................................................................... 9

6. Do you have a Google local business listing? ................................................................................ 10

7. Do you have your call to action and contact details displayed prominently on every page? ...... 11

8. Do you have a contact form so potential prospects can send you a message if they don’t want

to call? ................................................................................................................................................... 12

9. Do you have an option for prospects to subscribe to your email mailing list so you can send

them regular updates? .......................................................................................................................... 12

10. Do new subscribers receive regular messages via an auto responder? ................................... 13

11. Do you have canonical domains?.............................................................................................. 14

12. Do you have the ability to add pages and content in-house? .................................................. 14

13. Do you have duplicate content on your site? ........................................................................... 15

14. Is your site title and description optimised according to the keywords you’re targeting? ...... 16

15. Can Google read the text on your pages, or is it JavaScript or image files? ............................. 17

16. Do you have the ability to track the number and source of visitors to your site? ................... 18

17. Do you have a sitemap on your site to help Google see all the pages? ................................... 18

18. How many new clients would you like to obtain through your website over the next year? .. 21

How do I get started? ............................................................................................................................ 22


Introduction Hi, I’m Allan Ward and I’m a financial planner in Adelaide,

South Australia.

Over the past few years I’ve learnt about using the internet to

sell services. I have built a couple of websites that are targeted

at the internet marketing niche and I’ve used a lot of the

knowledge I’ve gained to develop a website for my financial

planning business.

And I’ve made a lot of mistakes in the process of building

these sites.

You see, I was a lot like you.

I built a website for my financial planning business mainly because I felt I needed one. I

mean, every business has a website these days, so I needed one too.

Once it was built, I didn’t know what to do with it or how to promote it. And people didn’t

miraculously start finding the site through Google either. In fact, I didn’t get any new

clients from the website.

But over the past few years, that’s changed.

We now update the website regularly, with lots of fresh, original content. And we’re

targeting certain keywords that people are searching for in Google. When people look for

information on certain financial planning topics, they’re finding our website and clicking

through to it.

And once people are on the site, we provide them with information and knowledge about

how we may be able to help them on their financial journey. And we give them lots of

different ways to connect with us.

I’ve made lots of mistakes with my websites, spent lots of unnecessary money on work

that wasn’t needed, and I’ve seen huge increases in search engine rankings just by making

some minor changes to my site’s content.

And now I’m working with advisers to help them succeed on the internet. I hope you find

this paper useful and thought-provoking.

Importantly, I hope you take action. There are huge opportunities for financial planners

who can use the internet wisely.

I’d love to help you.

Allan Ward

www.ContarMedia.com



Getting Results from this Report

Can I suggest a couple of ideas to get the most benefit from this document?

Firstly, print it out.

You need a hard copy of this paper to make additional notes. It’s designed to be an

interactive exercise, and it’s important to not lose information or ideas.

So write things down, highlight areas of text and think about how these ideas apply to

you.

Secondly, be objective.

You may already have a website, and you may really like how it looks and what it says.

But it doesn’t matter what you think. It’s more important to think about how your target

market perceives your website.

And a site that looks old and isn’t updated regularly just doesn’t cut it these days.

So be objective, and look at these questions and your site with fresh eyes.

Thirdly, discuss it with others.

Speak with other planners or staff in your office or other practices. Speak with clients,

friends and family. Find out how they use the internet to search for information and what

types of sites they like.

Finally, take action.

Don’t read this and do nothing. Start something new.


1. What is the purpose of your web site? This is an important question that in many cases is never thought about.

Why do you have your financial planning website?

Is it to educate existing clients and deliver on your service promise to them?

Perhaps you want to attract new clients to your business. You want people to

search online for financial planning-related terms and find your site. Or perhaps

you want your existing clients to send a link to your website to their friends.

Maybe you want a site that sells your professionalism to potential referral partners

– accountants, lawyers etc.

For most businesses, the answer is that they want it to cater to a range of different

purposes. In most cases, attracting new clients is cited as a major reason for having a web

site.

What about you? What is the purpose of your website?

Once you know the purpose of your site, you’re in a better position to make other

decisions about your website, such as how to promote it or what content to place on it.

The purpose of my website is:


2. How do you want clients to find your site?

I’ve met some planners who have felt that having a website was enough. They became

frustrated when they didn’t receive the flood of traffic they thought they would.

There’s different ways clients can find your site.

They can type the URL directly into their browser.

They may discover your site via social media such as Twitter and Facebook.

They can find you via an online directory and click on a link to your website.

They can find you via offline means i.e. the White Pages, and type in your web

address from your listing.

They can search for various keywords relating to financial planning in Google or

Yahoo and find your site featured in the search results.

They can click on an online advertisement that takes them to your website.

Building a site is one thing – getting people to visit your site is another. There are a

number of strategies you can implement to help you get more visitors to your site.

I want clients to find my site by:


3. Do you have any keywords that you’re targeting? Traffic from search engines like Google costs you

nothing but can be some of the best quality

traffic you can get.

Did you know that every day, 9,896 people

globally search for the term “Financial Planning”?

Imagine if you could capture a portion of that

traffic.

But maybe there’s a lot of people competing for

that term so it’s hard to get onto page one of Google. But what if you looked at “Financial

Planning <your city name>”. There are probably still a significant number of people

searching for that term, but a lot less competition online.

Let’s say there are 20 people per day searching for a financial planner in your city – that’s

around 600 searches a month! If you could convert just one of those 600 searches into a

new client, how could that help your business?

There are strategies that we can help you implement to get you onto page one of Google

for some of these search terms. This can provide free traffic to your website, where you

have the opportunity to convert them to new prospects. Imagine if you could get one or

two new clients a month just by targeting certain keywords.

As a starter, download the free version of Market Samurai to start your keyword research.

You can get it by clicking this link.

The main keywords I’d like to target are:

http://contarmedia.com/Recommends/MarketSamurai


4. Do you know how you rank for your main keywords? So maybe you already have a handful of keywords that you’re trying to rank well for. Do

you know how you’re going?

Being on page 2 of the Google results is much the same as being on page 20 – you’ll get

very little traffic as a result. Ideally, you want to get onto

page 1 of Google, and you want to be on the top half of the

page.

It’s so important to keep track of your ratings so you can see

what progress you’re making with your efforts to rank your

site.

The most comprehensive rank tracking software I’ve found is

called Rank-Tracker. It allows you to track rankings via

country-specific search engines. For example, because my financial planning business is in

Australia, I’m not too concerned with how my site ranks if someone in America searches

for one of my keywords, but I am very interested in how I rank for Australians using

google.com.au for their searches. Rank-Tracker can keep track of my rankings across

multiple search engines. The free demo is good to give you an idea of how it works, but if

you decide to use it you’ll need to sign up to their subscription service.

Do you know how you rank for your keywords - Yes / No

5. Do you know what your Google page rank is? Google assigns a rating called a page rank to every webpage. It starts off with a low

ranking (0) and increases up to a maximum ranking of 10. For a website that’s been

around for a while, you’d expect a page rank of at least 2 or 3.

You can check your page rank at this site: http://www.prchecker.info/

Just enter your website address and it’ll tell you what your page rank is.

Page rank is important as it helps your site rank higher in the search engines. Whilst a

high page rank is not the sole factor to help you rate well, it will help you perform better

than competitors who have sites with lower page rank.

And page rank applies to each page of your website. Usually the home page has the

highest rank, but internal pages can also be made to have a higher page rank.

The page rank of my home page is _______

http://contarmedia.com/go/SEOPowerSuite

http://contarmedia.com/go/SEOPowerSuite

http://www.prchecker.info/


6. Do you have a Google local business listing? Have you ever done a Google search using a city name? Try searching for “Financial

Planning <your city name>” and have a look at the results. Chances are that at the top of

the page Google displays results from its local business listings.

Here’s an example for the search “Financial Planner Chicago”

You can see that at the top of the

search there are seven businesses

listed.

You don’t even need to have a website

to get a listing in the Google local

business listings.

Google gets a lot of this information

from local online business directories

so you may already have a listing

without knowing it!

It’s important to claim your listing and

update the details to target the

correct keywords.

In some cases there are things that can

be done to increase your chances of

appearing at the top of the local

business search results.

We can help you learn more about how

this listing could help your business.

Do you know if your business has a Google Local Business listing? Yes / No


7. Do you have your call to action and contact details displayed

prominently on every page? When you send a letter to a prospect,

you’ll usually include a ‘call to action’

– instructions for them to do something

as a result of the letter. Usually you

want them to pick up the phone and

call you to arrange an appointment.

So why doesn’t your website have a

call to action?

As part of every page, you need to tell

them what you want them to do. And

you need to make it easy for them.

Have your contact details displayed

prominently, and have other ways

available to them to connect with you.

Examples I’ve seen include:

Having text at the end of every article that encourages the reader to pick up the

phone and call you.

At the end of one web page including a link to another related page.

Encouraging your readers to subscribe to your newsletter.

Is there a clear call to action and contact details on every page? Yes / No


8. Do you have a contact form so potential prospects can send you

a message if they don’t want to call? So a prospect is looking at your website at night,

thinks you look like you may know what you’re

talking about, and decides to get in touch with you.

But your office is closed. Or maybe they’re nervous

about calling and want another option.

You must have a ‘Contact’ page that lists all the

ways of getting in contact with you, and also has a

contact form that they can fill out. You only need

to ask for some basic information – their name,

email address, contact phone number, and space

for a message so they can tell you a little about

what they’re looking for.

Don’t ask for any more information. I’ve seen sites

that ask about age, income, assets etc – why is a stranger going to tell you this when they

don’t know you?

Make it simple and stress-free for them to contact you.

We can help you set up a contact form for your website that makes it easy for prospects to

make contact with you.

Do you have a contact form - Yes / No

9. Do you have an option for prospects to subscribe to your email

mailing list so you can send them regular updates? So maybe I’ve looked at your site, think you look ok, but I’m not ready just yet to get in

touch to make an appointment. If I won’t call you, or fill out your contact form, what’s

the next-best option?

Add me to your email list.

I’ve seen very few financial planning websites that have this option on their website, and

of those that do provide it, very few actually deliver anything of value.

In the old direct marketing days people would say ‘the money is in the list’. What they

meant was that if you had a list of prospects that you could mail to, you’d make money. In

today’s world, the email list is the equivalent of the old mailing list.

We can help you set up a subscription box on every page of your website to capture client

email addresses. Oh, and make sure you use a double opt-in list to avoid spam and to

increase the likelihood of your emails being delivered.

Does this sound complicated? It isn’t, and we can help you set this up.

Do you have an email subscription box on every page - Yes / No


10. Do new subscribers receive regular messages via an auto

responder?

Ok, so you’ve set up the email subscription box, what now?

In the old days, you used to drip-feed articles to prospects on relevant

topics, with the hope that they’d eventually call.

Today, you can set up an auto responder sequence for your email list.

Here’s how it works:

On day one they receive a welcome email.

A few days later another email is sent, this time referring

them to an article on your website.

Next week, another email is sent, this time about a general financial planning topic

or question. In this email you remind them of your no-obligation initial

appointment.

Additional emails are sent at appropriate intervals.

Of course, these emails are all pre-written and sent automatically – you don’t need to do a

thing. An auto responder is a great way to keep in contact with prospects and help them

to find out more about your business. At some point they just may call you to make an

appointment!

Important: while we’ve focussed on using an auto responder here, that’s just one facet to

having an email subscription option. You’ll also send regular updates to your email list

whenever you update your site, put on events etc.

Do you have an auto responder sequence - Yes / No


11. Do you have canonical domains? This is an interesting one. When you look at a home page of a website, sometimes there

are more than one ways to view it. Ideally, the different URL’s should be transferred to

one common URL, called a canonical URL.

Try this. Type in your website’s URL using these options.

http://www.yourdomain.com/home/

http://www.yourdomain.com

http://yourdomain.com/

http://www.yourdomain.com/ index.html/ (or index.htm)

http://yourdomain.com/index.html/ (or index.htm)

If your website’s home page displays, but the URL stays exactly as you typed it, you have

not specified a canonical URL, and you have duplicate content. This means that Google

may be seeing different versions of your website, so instead of ranking one site strongly, it

ranks four different versions weakly. This can lead to a lower page rank, which can result

in you ranking poorly in the search results for your chosen keywords.

This is an easy thing to fix, and can help you rank better with the search engines.

Do you have canonical domains, or are there multiple versions - Yes / No

12. Do you have the ability to add pages and content in-house? Many websites aren’t updated regularly, and one reason for this is that it costs you every

time your web designer adds new content.

In many cases, the client (you) can use a program like Adobe Contribute or Word Press

that enables you to easily add content via your computer, using pre-built templates. This

gives you a large amount of control over the content on your site, and allows you to keep

it looking fresh and updated, without it costing a lot of money.

And did we mention that Google seems to like pages that have lots of fresh content added

regularly?

Can you add pages and content in-house - Yes / No


13. Do you have duplicate content on your site? Many advisors subscribe to services that provide pre-written content for them to place on

their site – things like articles and newsletters. On one hand this is good, as it provides

you with fresh content for your visitors to read.

On the other hand, it can cause some problems with how Google treats your site.

Google is smart enough to detect duplicate content. So when it looks at your site, and

sees articles that are already published somewhere else, it knows that you’re not the

original source of those articles.

Let’s say you’ve got an article called “Retirement Planning for over 60’s”. When Google

first sees that article on a website, it’ll index it and add it to the search results for the

term “Retirement Planning for over 60’s”. It’ll link to the website it’s seen the article on

first. When it sees it on your website, it realises that it’s not

an original article, so it won’t duplicate it in the search results

– it’ll only show results for one website that has the article.

So whilst you’ve got an article on your site that existing visitors

can read, it’s not going to help others find your site via the

search results.

There is some suggestion that Google actually penalises sites

for having duplicate content i.e. non-original content, although

like many things Google-related, there is not a lot of evidence

either way.

So what’s the answer? Try and put as much original content on your site as possible.

Maybe for a slightly higher cost you’re able to hire a journalist or writer to produce some

articles for you that are original and targeted to your target market.

Do you have duplicate content - Yes / No


14. Is your site title and description optimised according to

the keywords you’re targeting?

A few pages ago we talked about the

importance of keywords. Google looks over

your site, reads the content and makes some

judgements about what your site it about.

But you can help Google.

Hidden from view (but visible to Google) is a

site description and title. This gives Google a

good indication of what your web page is all

about.

Open up your browser to your home page and

right-click on the page. Select “View Source”

– this will open a document in a new window

that contains all the code for the webpage.

Click anywhere in this new window and click Control + F. This will open the ‘Find’ box –

type in the word ‘Title’ and it should go to the first instance of the word ‘Title’ in the

document. There may be a few title tags in the code, but usually the first one is the title

of your page. This is what displays in the Google search results.

Usually, the title either just says ‘Home’, or it has the name of the business. Ideally, it

should feature the keyword you’re trying to target, so if you’re trying to rank well for

‘Retirement Planning NY’, make sure this is in your title.

The next thing you want to search for is ‘Description’. Type this into the search box and it

should come up with a line that looks like

<meta name="description" content="Some words are in here”

The ‘some words are in here bit’ should actually have some text relevant to your website.

It should provide a brief description of what that particular page is about, and should also

feature your keyword.

Ideally, every page on your website should have a unique page title and description that

reflects the content on that page.

What does the title and description say on your website?

We can help you optimize these fields to maximize your chances of ranking well in the

search engines.

Is your site title and description optimised according to the keywords you’re targeting?

Yes / No


15. Can Google read the text on your pages, or is it JavaScript

or image files? I’ve seen some really nice looking websites, but they’re useless for ranking well with

Google, because they used pictures instead of text.

I don’t mean all pictures are bad – just some. Let me explain.

When Google’s googlebots look over your website, they look at the source code. They can

read text because that exists in the code, but they can’t look at pictures. They can be

aware that pictures are there, and you can name your pictures something descriptive so

Google knows what they’re about, but it can’t read them.

Some websites have big blocks of text that are actually image files. The designer has

taken a great looking photo, added some text to it, and saved it all as an image file. It

looks great, and everyone can read the text, but Google’s googlebots can’t see it. And if

they can’t see it or read it, they can’t rank it.

So you could have a great looking home page, but Google can’t read any of the important

text on it. So this page will never get a great page rank, no matter how good it looks, and

no matter how well-written the content is.

How do you know if your text is actually an image?

On your website, click and drag your mouse over the text areas. It should highlight

individual words – this means they’re text. If it highlights a solid image and doesn’t

highlight the text in that image, it’s a good bet that the text is part of the image and

unable to be read by Google.

Can Google read the text on your pages, or is it JavaScript or image files? Yes / No


16. Do you have the ability to track the number and source of

visitors to your site?

What gets measured gets

done!

Google analytics enables you

to get up to date data on how

many visitors you’re

receiving, where they’re

coming from and what

they’re looking at on your

site.

This is invaluable to help with

your web strategy. And it’s

free.

We can help you set up

Google analytics and begin

tracking your website

statistics today.

Do you have the ability to track the number and source of visitors to your site? –

Yes / No

17. Do you have a sitemap on your site to help Google see all

the pages? A sitemap is a list of pages of a website. It’s useful to have one as Google’s robots look at it to learn

more about all the pages of your site – it makes it easier for Google to see everything on your site.

Every time you add or change content, the sitemap should be updated to reflect the changes.

My financial planning website didn’t have a sitemap initially and I wondered why some pages didn’t

show up in Google search. Once I added a sitemap they appeared.

Sitemaps are easy to create and are an essential element of every site.

Do you have a sitemap? – Yes / No


18. Is your website mobile-friendly?

I didn’t even have this section in the first edition of this guide (published in 2010). But today mobile

and mobile search is such a big part of our lives.

Unfortunately, the website that you built a few years ago probably isn’t cutting it when it comes to

being viewed through a mobile device.

You see, because mobile phones, iPads etc have a smaller screen size, they re-adjust elements of

your website in order to make everything fit. And, unfortunately, this re-adjustment can make things

look worse, not better, as elements of your

page get moved into different positions in

order to fit.

You’ve probably experienced this with some

website you’ve visited on a mobile device.

Maybe the font size is too small and you can’t

read the on-page text. Perhaps if you swipe to

make the text bigger you now need to scroll

across the page to read every line.

If you use a platform like Wordpress to build

your site you’ll find many mobile-ready themes

that you can use. These themes give you more control over how your site looks when viewed on a

mobile device.

Action: Take out your smartphone or tablet and have a look at how your site looks on a

mobile device.

19. Social Media

Web users are becoming increasingly social and are frequently happy to share content with their

friends via the social networks they belong to. You’ve probably done this yourself – sharing a video

on You Tube or maybe posting a link to an interesting article on Twitter or LinkedIn.

When it comes to social media and your website, there are two factors to consider:

1. Do you have sharing buttons and calls to action on your website so your readers can

share your content?

2. Do you display the details of your social network accounts so your readers are able

to connect with you via those networks?

Neither of these is particularly difficult to set up. There are Wordpress plugins that can add sharing

buttons to your website’s pages.

It would appear that ‘social signals’ are becoming an important factor when Google is evaluating the

relevance of a website. In some respects, sharing on social media is becoming more important than

backlinks from other web sites. Encouraging your readers to share your site’s content can not only


lead to more visitors who click on the links, but it can also lead to better Google rankings (which may

also lead to more visitors).


20. How many new clients would you like to obtain through

your website over the next year? Think for a minute about how Google has changed the way we search for information.

How many people today are looking for financial planning information – people who you

could help?

And the exciting thing is that most financial planners are blind to this opportunity.

An opportunity exists for financial advisors to use their websites to target new clients –

people who are searching for information on topics that you’re an expert on.

We can work with you to develop a web strategy that helps you target this growing

market.

For the cost of one or two new clients a year, we can help you gain many new clients.

I would like to gain ______ new clients per year from my website.


How do I get started?

We offer a no obligation initial consultation where we discuss your answers to this paper

as well as look at your goals and plans for your website. This is much like the initial

consultation you may provide to your new clients.

If, after this consultation you’re happy to proceed, we’ll begin work on developing a web

strategy. The actual process will vary depending on whether you need a brand new

website, want to re-design your existing site, or want to keep your existing site but just

learn how to promote it better.

We’ll decide together on the various service modules we can provide – you pick the ones

that are relevant to your business.

Contact us today at [email protected] or visit ContarMedia.com to get started.

mailto:[email protected]



Photo Attributions

Front cover – search engine people blog & quinn.anya

Page 5 - h.koppdelaney

Page 7 & 12 - Danard Vincente

Page 8 - alancleaver_2000

Page 9 - sam_churchill

Page 11 - altemark

Page 13 - Biscarotte

Page 15 - Let Ideas Compete

Page 16 - Cliff1066TM

Page 17 - tropical.pete

Page 18 - qthrul

Page 20 - lumaxart

Page 21 - tableatny

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sepblog/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/quinnanya/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/h-k-d/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/danardvincente/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alancleaver/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/samchurchill/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/altemark/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/biscotte/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/question_everything/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nostri-imago/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12023825@N04/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jcuthrell/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lumaxart/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/53370644@N06/

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