Your website is the central hub of your business; it’s your brand image, informational resource for prospects, and sales generator. When someone is curious about your advising practice, or has been referred to you by someone else, they will be directed to your website where they will discover who you are, the services you provide, and how they can get in contact.
Therefore, your website needs to be up to date, look attractive, and clearly convey the value that you provide, otherwise it will be unlikely that you will convert new visitors into clients. After all, 38% of people will stop engaging with a website if the content or layout is unattractive.
Let’s dig into the top 5 things your financial advising website must have.
1. Contact Information
Contact information seems like an obvious element to have on your website page but it is often overlooked. According to Koh Marketing, 51% of people think “thorough contact information” is the most important element missing from many company websites. You should be providing as much information as you possibly can with this section, not just an email address.
We recommend including your:
- First and last name
- Your qualifications
- Contact phone number
- Email address
- Physical address
- Link to social media accounts
- Link to an appointment scheduling calendar (if you have one)
Recognizing the universal transition to a more digital landscape with virtual appointments breaking down location barriers for clients, the physical address is still important to include for local SEO and for visitors who prefer to work with someone who is local.
Consider adding hyperlinks to your contact information to elevate the user experience of your website, like attaching Google Maps to the address or opening the phone app when your number is clicked on.
Contact information needs to be easy to find on your website. You should have a ‘Contact Us’ or something similar in your main menu and you may even want to consider including it in the footer of your website.
With all this in place, your business will be much more available to prospects.
2. Images and Visuals
When visitors land on your website, they need to be immediately impressed by design, images and other visuals. It takes 2.6 seconds for a user’s eyes to land on the area of a website that most influences their first impression. Showcasing high quality images in your banner, video content or a vibrant graphic design will keep users engaged and improve the chances of them sticking around on your page.
Personalize the imagery and graphics you include on your website for your target demographic so that they know your services are designed for their specific needs and goals.
For example, if your target demographic is divorcees, but your imagery includes happy couples throughout your website, then you wouldn’t be clearly communicating who you provide services for and you’d actually be driving your ideal client away.
If you don’t have a professional picture of yourself on your website, you may also be losing out on prospects. Your website often makes the first impression of who you are for you, and if you don’t include your headshot on your website, you lose out on an opportunity to build credibility and trust.
While it’s necessary to include high quality imagery and visuals on your website, keep in mind that 39% of visitors will stop engaging with a website if images won’t load or take too long to load. Don’t go overboard with the imagery you include on your website, and ensure your files are optimized for short load times.
3. Personalized and Relevant Copy
When was the last time you read through the written content on your website?
What does your homepage say?
How do you describe the services that you offer?
Personalizing the copy that you include on your website is a larger undertaking, as it is applicable across all of your webpages, however it is worth it. Users spend an average of 5.59 seconds looking at a website’s written content, meaning that if your copy isn’t written precisely for your target audience, then it’s captivating no one.
Take another look at your homepage, service offerings and even your contact us pages. Is it speaking directly to the needs, goals and desires of the clients that you currently work with, or is it speaking to a generic, broader audience that is unlikely to convert? If it’s the latter, then it’s time to do some updating.
Another opportunity to attract prospects is by including a blog on your website. Writing your own content can be difficult on a busy schedule, however it’s important to recognize that 82% of consumers feel more positive about a company after reading custom content. Including and regularly updating a blog will not only enhance your credibility and provide value to potential clients, it will also benefit your SEO (Search Engine Optimization), driving more traffic to your website.
4. Mobile Responsiveness
In today’s environment, everything is on the go and mobile browsing is now more common than on desktop. Globally, 57 % of all web traffic is through mobile phones, which means that your website must be mobile responsive in order to succeed and keep visitors on your site.
Keep in mind that 48% of users say that if a business’ website is not mobile-friendly, they’ll take it as an indication that the business simply doesn’t care, which is not a category that you want your business to fall under.
Not only does it negatively impact your brand reputation, you lose out on those potential clients due to your website not being user-friendly and optimized for mobile.
Developing a bad name due to your website could have disastrous consequences, especially considering that your website is often your first impression. In today’s day and age, you must do everything you can to make the user experience as straightforward and enjoyable as possible.
Visitors nowadays are more tech-savvy and do not settle for basic websites, let alone websites that don’t work or look good on their mobile devices.
5. Security
Security is perhaps the most prominent issue for websites in today’s digital environment, especially those providing financial services.
You may collect or access private and confidential information of your clients through your website, and you will do everything you can to ensure that their information stays private and secure.
This is also a priority for Google. It does its best to protect visitors against insecure websites by providing a ‘not secure’ stamp in the URL of a website that doesn’t provide an encrypted connection.
The last thing you want after you commit your time and energy to updating your website imagery, personalizing your copy, and making your website mobile responsive is to have traffic come to a halt when Google stamps your website as ‘not secure’.
To ensure this doesn’t happen to you, you need an SSL certificate.
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificates are used to secure information sent between web browsers and servers. Learn if your website is secure and more about SSL certificates here to give your visitors a sense of relief when they are browsing your site.
In Summary
These 5 website must-haves serve as a strong foundation for attracting prospects and converting them into clients. Whether you currently have a website or are in the beginning stages of building one, these are the elements that you need to take into consideration in order to amaze visitors online and grow your business.
