5 Easy Ways to Take Your DIY Website to the Next Level

Are You Still on the Fence About Creating Your Own Website?

When given the right tools, making a website can be a pretty simple process. As a financial advisor, you may find it daunting to think about writing copy, dealing with compliance, and all of the other tasks that go into creating your own website, but fortunately your options are no longer limited. Technology has evolved and website platforms like Twenty Over Ten now allow you to create something beautiful, and compliant in just a few simple steps.

Truly, who knows more about your brand than you? When building a website yourself, you have complete control over what visitors see. You have the ability to accurately portray your business, your work, and yourself with your own personal touch. And this is a bigger opportunity than you may think! Your website is the first place prospects will find you, meaning it is also their first impression of you.

Other than making a striking impression on prospective clients, websites provide many benefits to financial advisors. They can also serve as a lead generation machine, a showcase of your expertise, a place to harvest thought leadership, a host to all of your services, a home to your client guides – the possibilities are endless.

You Created Your Website. Now What?

A website is an essential piece of your financial services firm success and provides ample benefits, but only if your utilizing it right! We’ve come up with a list of 5 ways to easily upgrade your advisor website and take it to the next level. These simple 5 tips can help transform your site in just a few minutes.

1. Add CTA’s (Calls-To-Action)

Ask yourself – what is the goal of my firm’s website? Does it have anything to do with connecting with prospects and clients? If so, you need to make them take action! Even if they are not ready to necessarily work with you, it’s still important that you engage with them.

This can be as minimal as enticing your visitors to continue to a different page of your site with a “Learn More” button or as straightforward as using a “Schedule a Meeting” button. Here are a few common ways we use CTA’s for advisor that you can integrate today on your own website:

• “Learn More”
• “Contact Us”
• “Download this free template”
• “Get Started”
• “Let’s do this!”
• “Want financial insights?”
• “Join our newsletter”
• “Get in touch with us”
• “Follow us”
• “Get a free Consultation”
• “Schedule a Meeting”

These CTA’s can lead to another page on your website with more information, a freemium, a form for lead generation, a meeting scheduler, social media channels, blog posts, or any place that will help you better connect with prospects.

So, how do you create one? We recommend using only 2-4 words on your button that provide some type of benefit to your prospects, then link it to a related source. Lastly, format it as a button. Twenty Over Ten allows you to easily create unlimited CTA’s throughout your website where ever you think they would be beneficial!

2. Add a Blog

We know some advisors get nervous when they hear the b word – “blog.” Immediate thoughts are usually around time intensity, compliance risk, fear of the unknown. We are here to tell you it is not that scary! In fact it can be very easy, compliance approved, and only take a small chunk of time each month.

The fact is, you can’t be scared of the “b word” because you will not see this marketing tactic go away any time soon. Simply put, blogging has a boatload of benefits for your website and your business.

Blogging not only can improve your SEO through added keywords for your geographic location and niche but it can also lead to an increase in site visitors and engagement, and a decrease in bounce rates. This can ultimately help your site rank higher in search engine like Google helping your site to land on the first page of search results where potential clients can more eaisly find you.

Additionally, blogging is a great tool to build relationships and credibility with prospects and current clients. For example, through a blog post you can showcase your expertise as a financial advisor by blogging about tax tips, what retirement options are available, and any thought leadership that is relevant to your services. This becomes a resource for clients and prospects alike and helps build your ethos and trust with them. Blogging also gives you the ability to write more personal blog posts that showcase your brand and personality. It’s all about letting someone get to know you both before and after they are a client.

You don’t need to dedicate a lot of time to blogging. We recommend that your blogs be at least 400 words long (only a couple paragraphs) and you release at least 11 blog posts per month. As a beginner, this is something you can definitely work up to slowly and only need to dedicate a few hours each month.

Blog posts drive engagement and gives people another reason to visit your website. Don’t miss out on the added opportunity to share your blogs on your social channels for maximum benefit!

3. Add Landing Pages

Landing pages are a great resource for DIY websites because they are powerful and super easy to create on the Twenty Over Ten platform! These are pages on your website dedicated to a specific message or a unique niche that are not in the main navigation of your website.

For example, maybe you have an open house event coming up and want a destination page for all of your marketing efforts. If you share the invite on social media and in emails, you can link back to the landing page, which would include more details about the open house event as well as a registration CTA.

Landing pages are the perfect tool for marketing campaigns because they are standalone and no longer static. Standalone means these pages are not in the normal navigation of your website and are accessed only by the unique link you share. On the Twenty Over Ten platform, your landing pages no longer have to be static either, so you can add forms for lead generation and CTA’s for other actions you’d like visitors to take. These two features make landing pages the perfect resource for events, special promotions, new services, and other specific marketing campaigns.

4. ADD Third Party Integrations

Third party tools can make both your life and your website go-er’s life so much easier! You have probably used a third party integration today yourself without even knowing it. For example, maybe you were on a website where you signed up to receive their newsletter. Your sign-up was more than likely triggered by a third party integration. There are also back-end third party integrations most websites use without the visitor ever knowing.

Third party integrations are most commonly used to generate leads, by adding contacts directly to your CRM system. Today, we’re talking about three integrations we use in most of our advisor websites: MailChimp, Redtail, and Google Analytics.

Redtail

Redtail CRM is a customer relationship management tool designed specifically for financial advisors that is cost effective and enables easy lead generation on your website. On the Twenty Over Ten platform, it is incredibly easy to integrate Redtail with your website. Under the integrations tab, find Redtail, and press “set up.” You’ll connect it to your Redtail account in just a few steps and then a form on your site will automatically add leads to your Redtail CRM system. Easy as pie!

MailChimp

We love MailChimp around here. MailChimp is an email and marketing automation platform. On your website, this integration can use forms to capture leads and add prospects directly to your mailing lists. If you use email marketing or are thinking about adding a newsletter to your marketing efforts, MailChimp is a must! To integrate, similarly to Redtail, enable under the integrations tab. Just one click!

Google Analytics

Most successful websites are using Google Analytics, but as visitors to a site, we would never know it. It’s no secret how powerful Google Analytics can be when adding it to your marketing efforts and you can no longer ignore it. You didn’t build your website for nothing – you want to see it perform, right? To be successful in your website efforts, tracking and monitoring your website analytics is the most essential step. Google Analytics offers a amazing amount of insights and data that will impact your website’s ROI. You can add Google Analytics with just one click in your dashboard.

5. Add Quick Forms

Last but most definitely not least – quick forms! Quick forms are simple forms you will ask prospects and clients to fill in while they’re on your website. They can be used to capture leads for your CRM, your newsletters, or interest in a new product or promotion.

We recommend making these forms as short as possible, including email, name, and maybe one other criteria. This increases the likelihood you will gain leads because as you ask more questions, people become less likely to fill them out.

Placement is also key when using quick forms. We typically see advisors use them on the contact page of their websites, but they can be strategically placed in other places. Adding them in side bars also allows the quick form to be more accessible. They can also be add between sections of your website as you scroll or after relevant pieces of information.

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You may also like: 5 Easy Steps to Creating a Website on Your Own Using Twenty Over Ten and Creating Killer Blog Content Ideas for Your Financial Planning Blog