10 Simple Ways Financial Advisors Can Increase Their Website Conversion Rates

When you are creating a website for your advisory firm, it’s crucial that you are building one that drives traffic to your website. After all, if you are getting them to your site but aren’t turning leads into sales, then how can you grow your firm? At Twenty Over Ten, we strive to create strong advisor websites so that they can turn more leads into clients, as can be seen in the graph below.

We did a survey at Twenty Over Ten in 2019 where we asked 215 financial advisors (166 were Twenty Over Ten clients and 49 were not) what their current digital marketing efforts were and what this meant in terms of lead generation and client acquisition. We asked them many different questions and one of them was about lead conversion.

As you can see, 21 respondents converted 11+ leads per year into paying clients showing the importance of a strong website. How can you do this? I am breaking it down with ten ways below that you can boost your conversion rates.

10 Ways to Increase Conversion Rates

1. Include Social Proof

Social proof is a simple but interesting concept, and simply put, it is the idea that people will follow what people do, and because so many people do something, then you assume it must be correct. However, due to compliance, financial advisors cant include client testimonials in their marketing. However, they can include other factors that can drive conversion rates, such as:

• Case Studies
• Awards
• Media Mentions
• And more!

These are great ways to boost your social proof and when you include media mentions in an “As Seen In” or “As Featured In” sections. When other people see that you are getting mentioned by the media, then someone trying to find a financial advisor that doesn’t know that much about them yet will see all of these accolades and features and probably assume that they are a very well-known firm with a wealth of information.

Twenty Over Ten client, Quarry Hill Advisors included accolades and an “As Featured In,” where they have had media mentions, such as The Wall Street Journal, U.S. News, Yahoo! Finance and more. When you can include these types of publications, it’s a great idea to boost your credibility and social proof, therefore keeping more leads on your advisory site.

Additionally, Twenty Over Ten client, Wood Tarver Financial includes an Accolades section that showcases all of their awards, so when somebody lands on this part of their website, they will see that they are an accredited and trusted advisory firm.

2. Track Analytics

If you aren’t checking your analytics periodically, then how will you know what is working well and what needs to be tweaked? Running an audit of your Google Analytics can ensure that your site is up to speed and running how it should be so that you can continue to drive traffic and get more conversions.

We have a one-click integration with Google Analytics, making this is a seamless process for financial advisors so that you can easily check your metrics and ensure everything is running as it should be. With Google Analytics, you can track over 10,000 metrics, which is obviously overwhelming, so we are breaking down the top five Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) you should be monitoring.

1. TOTAL NUMBER OF VISITORS TO YOUR WEBSITE

While this can vary per company, the average amount of visitors is just under 300 a month. That is what we usually see to be typical for website visitors. You can use it to benchmark your website and see how you are doing against competitors.

2. WHAT IS THE NUMBER OF PAGES A USER WILL VISIT IN SESSION?

When most people come to your site, they will usually visit 1-2 pages on your site per visit. They might land on your home page and then check out a blog or a video from your resources section. Whatever it may be, 1-2 pages is the general number that will be checked out.

3. WHAT ARE THE THREE MOST VISITED PAGES ON YOUR WEBSITE?

When someone lands on your website, you want to know what the most visited pages on your website are. While it can differ, especially if you have a great resources section, the main ones are usually:

• Home Page
• About Page
• Contact Page

It’s important to understand what they are so that you can optimize them to best serve your visitors and provide them with the information that they need.

4. WHAT IS YOUR BOUNCE RATE?

Bounce rate represents the percentage of visitors who visit your website and then leave it after only viewing one page. So, they are seeing your website, but not interacting with it at all. You want to keep this number low, however, if you are blogging a lot, then your overall bounce rate may be higher since someone will land a specific blog, read it and then leave.

However, if you have a high bounce rate on your homepage, then that means you are getting a lot of people, landing on it and quickly realizing that they wanted to go somewhere else, this is where you need to edit the wording on the page to more easily show:

• Who you are
• What you do
• Who you serve

5. WHAT IS YOUR CONVERSION RATE?

Generally, if you can get up to 1% of visitors converting to a booked meeting, that is a great rate. The average advisor is seeing just under 1%, so at about a .75% conversion rate.

3. Incorporate Live Chat

The world is moving faster and faster, and it’s no longer ideal to wait 24 hours for a response to a contact form or an email. Your website visitors want an answer and they want it NOW. So, how can you help with this? Integrate Live Chat on your advisor site. With a Live Chat feature, you or someone on your team can answer any questions that visitors can’t find on your website in real-time, making for a much stronger user-experience. It also adds a “human touch” to it, which is so important in today’s day and age.

When someone lands on your website, they may just be checking it out and seeing what you have to offer, but if you have a Live Chat feature, then you can turn this conversation into a much more tangible lead by showing how attentive you are, showing. a personal touch and being able to elaborate on what your firm has to offer. Additionally, when you have this on your site, you can also use it to help with Customer Relationship Management and your email marketing campaigns.

To help with CRM, you can leverage customer data and engagement for business opportunities based on the data and information that you can gather by chatting with potential customers. Based on the information that is gathered and how the visitor seems, you can drip on them using email marketing campaigns.

In the image below, you can see that Twenty Over Ten client, Green Mountain Planning utilizes Live Chat by using the tool Drift.

4. Ensure Your Copy Is Written In A Problem-Solution Format

When someone comes to your website, many times they have a pain point or they are looking for an answer to a question, and you want your site to be able to provide them with what they need. If you are using a problem-solution format, then you can identify the problem and provide your readers with one or more solutions. You can do this on your website copy or your blog posts. If the readers find an answer, then they will keep coming back to check out other blogs to see if there are other problems you can answer, therefore showing that you are a thought-leader in the industry.

5. Have Strong Calls to Action

If you don’t have strong calls-to-action on your site, then people aren’t going to know what the next step should be. When a CTA is executed well, then they can really boost your conversion rate from your website. They can help with lead generation, boost your engagement and ultimately increase conversion rates. A strong CTA should be short, just 3-5 words and create a sense of urgency. Overall, a good call-to-action should be:

• Straightforward
• Stress the benefits to the user
• Eye-catching and compel the visitor to take action
• Action-oriented using verbs like “download” or “register”
• Placed in an easy to find location

You should be putting your CTAs strategically throughout the copy of the website. Where will visitors be more likely to take action after reading something on your website? If you logically place your call to action throughout the copy, then you can schedule a meeting or signing up for a newsletter becomes easier for prospects.

I love the CTA that Twenty Over Ten client, Storybook Financial has included on their homepage. It stands out well against the background, so you can see it as soon as you land on the page and it uses the phrase, “Uncover Your Next Chapter,” which has unique phrasing, and when visitors click on it, they are taken to the contact page where they can fill out a contact form, email them or book a meeting using their scheduler, Calendly.

6. Embed Other Multimedia Assets

In addition to including blogs for your content, then make sure you are utilizing other multimedia assets to your website. This includes things, such as:

• Videos
• Graphs
• Charts
• Infographics
• Podcasts

Twenty Over Ten client, Plectrum Advisers has added a podcast to their website in addition to blogs and videos, so this is another great way to reach a larger audience while providing them with more information in a different form.

You can easily add these files using the Twenty Over Ten platform, by following the steps below.

STEP 1: From the homepage click “account login” from the top right or access our login page directly here.

STEP 2: Go to an editable location on the desired page. Editable content will be labeled with ‘click to edit’, click anywhere within this space to open up the edit menu.

STEP 3: Click the ‘upload file’ icon within the WYSIWYG.

You will then be prompted to upload a file. You can either drag the file in the space provided or click within the ‘drop file’ space to choose the desired file.

The file will then be added to your page (and is also available in your ‘uploads library’).

STEP 4: Click on ‘Save Changes’ to apply the changes.

7. Foster Trustworthiness

Ensure that your website is updated regularly. It does not create a strong UX when someone lands on your website and finds outdated information. This especially goes for your blog page, so make sure you are creating strong content consistently. Google rewards sites that create consistent, informative information that provides value to their readers. It shows that you are trustworthy, reliable and a thought-leader in the financial industry, therefore boosting your online presence.

Another way to do this is to include bios with photos in your “Meet the Team” or “Bio” page to create a feeling of trustworthiness so that your prospects can put a face to a name and learn more about them before even meeting with your advisor.

Twenty Over Ten client, JGP Wealth Management has a “fun” feel to their bio page, and as you hover over them you get a better feel for what they like to do outside of work. Additionally, there is a bio about them giving you background so that you know more about who you will be meeting with before meeting them.

8. Be Mobile-Friendly

According to the Pew Research Center, 84% of affluent Americans own a smartphone and out of those, 97% said they use a smartphone for text messaging, 92% use it for phone calls, 89% for internet access, 88% for email, and 75% for social networking. Those numbers are staggering and show the importance of having a mobile-friendly website. Every Twenty Over Ten website is designed in a way to be mobile-friendly. This is crucial as 57% of internet users say they won’t recommend a business with a poorly designed website on mobile.

If you want to see if your website is responsive to mobile usage, then simply type your website’s link into the below box and see if it is mobile-friendly.

9. Make It Easy To Get In Touch

You want to make sure that your prospects are able to easily get In touch with you. If someone likes what they see on your website but they can’t find a way to reach you, then your conversion rate will obviously greatly lower your conversion rates.

When creating a contact page, make sure that your prospects have more than one way to get in touch with you by including a contact form, phone number, email address and a physical address with a map. Additionally, including a meeting scheduler on your website is a great way to drive turn more leads into sales, and Calendly is a great tool for this. It streamlines the process and makes it much easier to schedule a meeting.

In a 2019 survey about the effectiveness of digital marketing for financial advisors, we found that advisors who get 6-10 or 11+ clients per year had a calendar link right on their website, which is why I suggest using Calendly. 

Twenty Over Ten client, Mission: Advice uses the Calendly app to help schedule meetings. Prospects can easily book an introduction call, financial planning consultation or a 60-minute meeting with a single click.

10. Optimize, Optimize, Optimize!

It’s important that you are optimizing your advisor website so that it can convert as many leads as possible. At Twenty Over Ten, we provide SEO services so that we can help clients to optimize their websites in order to boost their online presence. It is important that advisors are focusing locally and using strong keywords in their title tags, meta descriptions, blog posts, etc. When this is done correctly, advisors can see a huge boost in organic traffic and conversions.

Final Thoughts

Is your website converting as many visitors as you would like? There are a lot of moving pieces that go into creating a strong advisor website with high lead conversions, and while this won’t happen overnight, these simple tweaks and additions can make a world of difference.