We get it. Building a website for your financial planning business is a big step to take. Even though it’s still a very viable option, growing your business is no longer just about word of mouth. Your advisor website is a 24/7 marketing machine. When you are sleeping, in meetings, with your family and loved ones it’s still there working for you.
Before you get started there are some important questions you need to ask yourself. Is this something that you want to do yourself? Or would be wise to outsource a specialist to help build your website for you? Both options are great, but what option will work best for you and your firm? With so many options out there, each offering its own set of tools, design and marketing assistance and support, these are all incredibly important factors to consider before embarking on your website design journey.
Outsourcing Design for Financial Advisor Website
Working with outsourced specialists on your website design can help take a lot of the work off of your plate. It can also expand your options for incorporating more advanced functionality and elements. Obviously, at Twenty Over Ten we specialize in designing websites just for financial advisors, so we have our process down to a science.
What Does Twenty Over Ten Do?
When you work with Twenty Over Ten, you get an experience, unlike one with any other designer. We connect with advisors. We don’t limit YOU like many other freelancers or providers may, but rather we believe in enabling our clients to explore and tailor their sites for what works for you. Our platform allows advisors to easily build unique, beautiful, compliant websites. As you can see, you have a multitude of opportunities and the chance to work with an award-winning team.
How Does Twenty Over Ten Work With Clients?
This is a question we get a lot from advisors. First and foremost we strive to give everyone the best experience possible. First, we’ll schedule a quick call and demo to find out what you are looking for and determine what package might best fit your needs. This is incredibly important to us to determine right from the start, so we spend time listening and offering guidance because if we both work together, we know that we can create the perfect website.
Depending on what level of help you decide you need from our team you will work one-on-one with your designer and/or copywriter to build the most perfect website for your firm.
We built the Twenty Over Ten platform because we understand that you have enough on your plate as an advisor. Having to navigate through a clunky, hard-to-use website is not on your agenda today or any day. Not only that but it’s important that you remain compliant and secure which let’s face it, in finance that is EVERYTHING.
And if you’re still craving more marketing assistance our add-on packages are the perfect solution to help you excel in SEO, analytics, social media and copywriting.
Examples Of Different Design Frameworks To Choose From:
We currently offer six different beautiful frameworks that we offer to our clients to customize. Each one is hand-crafted by our amazing award-winning designers and they each have very unique features. We know that everyone has different needs and tastes so we let you choose a framework that best suits your company.
1.Prism
The Prism framework features unobtrusive navigation and contained user-friendly features in a trendy, fresh layout by bringing your content front and center.
2.Fresnel
One of our most popular choices is the Fresnel framework. It is incredibly impactful with a full-screen homepage image that immediately captures the attention of your readers in an elegant yet versatile way.
3.pupil
Even though our Pupil framework is simple, it is very crisp and polished with tasteful accents to help your web pages stand out. This design features a multi-level drop-down menu with a large homepage hero image making it a powerful yet versatile choice.
4.rod & cone
The Rod & Cone framework offers will impress your visitors right from the start with bold homepage imagery and text. Additionally, the sticky top-level navigation and sidebar navigation facilitate a user-friendly visit.
5.iris
We love the simple setup of Iris with a single-page scrolling system, which is becoming more and more common. Feature everything on one page giving your visitors a chance to see what you are all about by simply scrolling up and down.
6.acuity
Our Acuity framework has a split-screen style that is unique and makes an impact on those that visit your site. A hamburger-style website navigation menu makes for a distraction-free website experience.
DIY Website Design Options for Financial Advisors
When given access to the right tools, making your own website can be a pretty simple process, believe it or not. We know that as a financial advisor you maybe don’t see yourself as much of a designer or writer and so it can be intimidating to think about writing copy, dealing with design elements and all of the other tasks that go into creating your own website, but fortunately, your options are no longer limited.
Technology has changed for the better and website platforms like Twenty Over Ten allow you to create something beautiful, and compliant in just a few simple steps on your own without needing to know a single bit of code.
Making your own website can be a rewarding experience and it can be much more affordable at times, as well. So, perhaps this will be the best option for your advisory firm? If so, check out some of our DIY information below.
What Is Twenty Over Ten’s DIY Package?
If you choose to go the Do-It-Yourself route, that’s great! We can’t wait to set you up for success as you create your own beautiful and compliant advisor website.
Not to worry, we won’t just toss you into the deep end without guidance. We offer plenty of resources complete with video tutorials, a robust training guide and even FREE marketing webinars to help you out as much as possible.
5 Examples of DIY Advisor Websites
We have plenty of clients that take the “Self Build” route, and we may be biased, but we think their websites look pretty amazing. Explore some of them below:
1. Trailhead Planners
Trailhead Planners was built on the Acuity framework, therefore dividing the screen into two sides. The website is able to showcase a lot of information that is still streamlined and organized. The left side of the homepage includes strong imagery with two calls-to-action while the right side details information about the services that are offered with a simple mission statement. With another CTA on the right side of the page, visitors are offered multiple options to schedule a free call. This simple yet effective homepage is a great way to boost lead generation and get prospects moving down the sales funnel.
2. Plectrum Advisers
Plectrum Advisers, a Los Angeles-based firm serves the incredibly unique niche of freelance musicians in the community. This group often faces unique financial challenges and situations, so they can work with this firm to navigate these waters. they built their website on the Fresnel framework which is evident in their full-screen homepage.
3. Fairpoint Wealth Management
Based in Cleveland, Ohio, Fairpoint Wealth Management captivates visitors with the beautiful hero image with a bold call-to-action enticing visitors to take the. next step. Built on the Fresnel framework, it is simple for visitors to scroll down the page, where they can see publications that Fairpoint Wealth Management was featured in, building credibility, a GIF of Founder and President, Matt Kircher, and his dog, showing the “real” side of him plus a free downloadable “Retirement Guide.” The homepage contains alone contains a lot and provides prospects with ample information.
4. Gap Financial Services
Gap Financial Services was built on the Fresnel framework, as is made evident by the strong hero image with a full-page CTA enticing prospects to “Learn More” where they will then be led to the Services page. With only five main pages, the website is streamlined and visually appealing with simple navigation.
5. All Sky Wealth Management
Built on the Iris framework, the All Sky Wealth Management website has beautiful background images with crisp, clean designed pages. They use straightforward, actionable call-to-action (CTA) buttons and took a very “no-nonsense” approach to their website.
What’s not to love about these sites? Each one of them was able to create a unique and beautiful website all on their own. It’s a great way to express yourself and find what works best for you.
3 Things You Should Add to Your DIY Site
Now comes the fun part. How do you make your website stand out and what should you add? You can completely tailor your site to best fit you and your goals but there are a few key things you shouldn’t miss out on:
1. Calls-To-Action (CTAs):
Even with a beautiful website with multiple visitors, if you aren’t including a call-to-action on your website, then you probably won’t be seeing the type of conversion rates that you want.
If you do not ask your visitors to take some action once they land on your page, then you are missing a very important part of your advisor website. Determining the next move that your visitors should make Choosing a financial advisor is a big step, so many of your visitors probably aren’t ready to make a decision and that is totally okay. By having them sign up for your blog or newsletter, you can keep in touch with them and already start to form a relationship, so when the time does come, you will be first in mind.
The CTA’s don’t have to be anything fancy. Just check out some of the common buttons that are used below.
- “Learn More”
- “Contact Us”
- “Download this free template”
- “Get Started”
- “Want financial insights?”
- “Join our newsletter”
- “Get a Free Consultation”
- “Schedule a Meeting”
These CTA’s can lead to another page on your website with more information, a form, a meeting scheduler, social media channels, blog posts, or any place that will help you better connect with prospects. Make it your own and have fun with it.
The CTA on the homepage of planwithdave.com stands out easily against the hero image with the prompt to “Schedule Time To Chat.” Visitors will be led to a Calendly link where you can schedule a 20-minute introductory meeting.
2. Blog Section
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. This can ultimately help your site rank higher in search engines like Google helping your site to land on the first page of search results where potential clients can more easily find you.
Blogging is a great way to build relationships and credibility with prospects and current clients. Blogging not only informs and proves that you are a thought leader in the industry, but you can make them more personal. Humanize your brand and show everyone who you are. It’s all about letting someone get to know you both before and after they are a client. Blog posts drive engagement and give people another reason to visit your website.
Within the Twenty Over Ten platform your blogging capabilities are endless. With unlimited posts, social sharing options, baked-in SEO options and much more we’re making blogging easy & compliant for financial advisors.
Not interested in penning your own posts? That’s okay. Content Assist is a new type of content offering solution on the market that was developed specifically for financial advisors to assist them in creating blog posts. Built into Twenty Over Ten’s proprietary website-builder, users are able to choose blog posts by category (retirement, home-buying, young adults, etc.), load them into their website, and then edit and further optimize the content for search engines. Advisors have the ability to customize and edit the content to add their voice, SEO keywords, and further promote their expertise, or use the content as-is.
3. Landing Pages
Landing pages are a great resource for any website – DIY or not. On a platform like Twenty Over Ten, we make landing pages super simple to create and once they’re in place, they are a very powerful way to generate new leads for your business. What exactly is a landing page? Simply put, they are pages on your website dedicated to a message or a niche that is not in the main navigation on your advisor site.
They are the perfect tool for marketing campaigns because they can stand alone, which, as we mentioned above, are not in the main navigation and can be accessed by a certain link. You can add forms for lead generation and CTA’s for other actions you’d like visitors to take.
Twenty Over Ten and Lead Pilot User, Maury Schneider, CPA, MBA, CFP® of MLS Financial Planning has a strong sidebar on his landing page. It’s easy to ready with his headshot, name, a quick rundown of what his firm does with links to his social media profiles and his website.
Key Takeaways
We hope that this has helped you to decide if you would like to do-it-yourself or outsource when it comes to building your website. Again, it all comes down to how you feel about a redesign and what you are most comfortable with. Either option is sure to be awesome, so take your pick to begin the exciting journey of a website redesign.
Struggling With What Content to Share on Social Media or via Email?
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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.
