As if running a successful advisory practice isn’t stressful enough, financial advisors these days need to ensure that they have a killer website, as well. While referrals are still a great way to generate business, you need to use strong inbound marketing tactics as well to drive traffic to your site and increase your site’s SEO rankings. So, how do you do this? One great way is to integrate blogging into your website. It used to be seen as an “extra,” but in this day and age, it’s much more of a necessity!
The Bureau of Labor Statistics had reported that the number of Financial Advisors in the United States was expected to grow by 30% between 2014 to 2024. That’s a huge jump and with those kinds of numbers, you need to find a way to stand out amongst the competition!
By 2024, there will be an increase of nearly 73,900 advisors in the nation.
The bottom line? This may very well be the most growth we have seen, ever!
As you compete for business among other advisors, it is especially important that you convey your UVP (Unique Value Proposition). Why do you do what you do? What do you enjoy most about your profession? What topics or subject matter do you wish your clients and prospective clients knew more about?
One of the easiest ways to get your unique message heard is by including a blog on your website, and then sharing those blog posts on social media.
Blogging is such a great way to share content and increase your SEO rankings by driving more visitors to your site. Keep in mind though, when you are blogging, not only is it important to create consistent content but make sure it’s strong and shows the value of your firm. If you are stumped though and don’t quite know where to get started, let the five tips below give you the jumpstart that you need!
5 Helpful Blogging Tips For Financial Advisors
1. Convey Your Personality
Your blog is the place to share your style and allow visitors to get a sense of who you are. Are you generally known as a funny person? Are you artsy? Maybe you really enjoy technology and like to stay up to date on the latest trends. Whatever it may be, this is your opportunity to really showcase your personality. Even though it’s important to remain professional, keep in mind that when you are going to be working with clients for a long time and helping them make important decisions about their finances and future, don’t you want to show that you are “human,” and genuinely care about them outside of work? Showing this off in blogs is a great way to make prospective clients feel at ease and that they can trust you.
For example, when it comes to blogging, you can write more informally and share personal stories, like you are simply having a conversation with your clients. As research shows, sharing personal information makes us more vulnerable, which allows for rapport-building, and ultimately trust to develop over time.
In the above image, we love the blogs that Twenty Over Ten client, WealthKeel has created. In the blog post above, he includes video and makes the post relatable as he uses real-life examples of what it’s like to budget when you first have a baby. So many people can relate to this incredibly exciting yet sometimes stressful time, and Chad Chubb CFP®, CSLP® does a great job of breaking it down for his readers in a way that they can understand while also coming off as relatable.
2. Consistency is Key
One major factor for any successful blog is consistency. It’s so important that you schedule your posts out so that you develop some sort of rhythm. Your readers will come to expect this and will be more likely to check your blog on the day that it is set to run.
Let your readers know when to expect new posts, whether its the first Monday of every week or the last Friday of every month. It seems simple enough, but few advisors actually develop a consistent posting schedule and stick to it. Things pop up all the time, client needs, etc. and blogging will start to take a backseat to all of this. So if you are the rare advisor who does remember to post often, you’ll naturally have an edge in this regard. What’s even better is that you can set up your blog to automatically email your list whenever you add a new post.
Additionally, don’t forget to share all new posts on social media and routinely reshare old posts as well. Sharing on social is so important because it’s an additional outlet for your clients and visitors to find your information and reshare themselves if they really enjoyed it!
In the above image, you get the picture of how important it is to keep a schedule and write it down to stick with it! It shows that you can publish your blog at 10 am on Tuesday, share it on social and many other digital marketing tactics to effectively drive traffic to your site. Remaining consistent will boost SEO rankings and prove that you are a trustworthy and efficient source when it comes to creating and sharing relevant and informative content.
3. Write About Your Specialty or Niche
As an advisor, if you offer your services to a certain niche, then this is such a great way to get more value for your marketing dollar and gain more quality leads. What you blog about should ultimately showcase your knowledge and expertise, and your blog titles should compel readers to want to read more.
When marketing to a certain audience, your posts should include helpful descriptions regarding your business, practice, and the services you can provide to your current and potential clients. Whether you specialize in retirement planning, tax strategies, investment management, or provide services to a specific niche, post about it! Your viewers want to hear your experience and your thoughts.
In the above image, Twenty Over Ten client, Ascension College Planning does a great job of consistently posting blog content that pertains to their niche and helps families to better prepare for college financially and pay off student loans. As you can see above, many of their blogs speak to the content that this audience faces, so this is the type of article that will show that you are a thought-leader in the industry and can provide useful information to help your niche reach their financial goals.
4. Historically Optimize Old Blog Posts
When you historically optimize older blog posts, you are getting the “most bang for your buck,” and who doesn’t want to get more legs out of a post, considering how much work you have already put into it. So, if you created a blog post several years ago or even just months and notice that it generated a lot of traffic but now is slowing down, this is a great opportunity to go back in and update the blog, refresh it and repost it, so that way you can begin to drive more traffic to the post again. What’s even better is that optimizing a blog does not take as long as starting from scratch, so you can still drive traffic while saving some time. So, how do you do this, here are four quick tips to give your older blogs some SEO juice.
- Update your keywords
- Optimize your headings
- Ensure that your content is accurate
- Republish and Reshare
Doing this can really help drive traffic to your site, so we recommend checking your Google Analytics to see which blogs were getting traffic but now have dropped off and then update the older posts.
5. Start A Link-Building Strategy
A strong link-building strategy is key to boosting your SEO, and when it comes to doing that, there are two types of links that you need to include and those are internal links and external links. So, what is the difference between the two?
Internal Linking
An internal link is simply a link that leads to another page on your website. They are links that go from one page on a domain to a different page on the same domain. When you write blog posts, you can use internal linking to other blog posts, which is a great way to utilize older posts and provide bots with a smooth transition when they crawl your site and find other content.
External Linking
External links are hyperlinks that target any domain other than the domain where the link already exists, so for example, if another website links to you, then this is considered an external link to your site. And if you link out to another website, then this would also be considered an external link. When it comes to linking, make sure that you are linking to quality sites, which is much more important than quanity, so make sure you are linking to a strong resource that will help your audience if they read it.
Additionally, when you are linking to another business, then this is a great chance to form relationships because when you link to an outside source, they will know that you are linking to them, which will make them more likely to link back to your website in the future.
Conclusion
Creating strong content consistently is no easy feat, but it’s such an important part of your overall marketing strategy. By implementing the above tips, we hope that we have made this process easier for you so that you can start or continue writing articles that stand out from the competition, drive more traffic to your website, address the pain points your audience is facing and ultimately gain more clients.
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About the author
Blair Kelly
Blair is a digital marketing assistant at Twenty Over Ten and has a passion for uncovering what drives online traffic and the highest engagement. She follows more animals on Instagram than humans and her greatest achievement is her daughter, Grey.
