Top 6 Resolutions For Your Financial Advisor Website in 2020

“Out with the old and in with the new,” as the old saying goes. If you are looking to start fresh in 2020 and kick your advisor website into gear, then we’ve got 6 resolutions that will help you achieve that. You don’t have to do them all at once, but figure out what works best for your site and firm and then go from there. Check them out below and watch your SEO rankings skyrocket!

1. Declutter your Website

Starting by decluttering your website, so this will require you or one of your team members to go in and make sure everything on your website is up to date. If someone is checking your services, you don’t want them to be taken to incorrect information, do you? So, make sure that you remove any old and outdated information.

Maybe your pricing has changed or you have added new services. Did you gain or lose any team members? If you did, then make sure the past employees have been removed and new ones have been added with correct contact information. Maybe you are due for some new headshots at your firm. If so, put that on the “to-do” list, as nothing looks more professional than some good, clean headshots with a bio. Are there any broken links on your website? Go through and check that all links are working and will take visitors to the correct location.

Optimizing your blog posts

This is something else that you can do that will really help with driving traffic and decluttering your site. Blog posts are a huge traffic generator, and according to HubSpot, 55% of marketers say blog content creation is their top inbound marketing priority. If you took the time to create an awesome blog, then shouldn’t you get the most bang for your buck? The best ways to easily do this are to:

UPDATE YOUR KEYWORDS

When checking your keywords, make sure they are still used to define the content on your website. Are there any other words that you would like to add to your site to help you to show up in more search rankings? By optimizing them, if you know that something is trending or being heavily googled, go back and see if you can put those keywords into your blog post.

Twenty Over Ten client Trisuli Financial Advising specializes in working with soldiers and veterans as he has a strong military background. He provides assistance to all walks of life, but that is his main niche. This is made evident on the homepage with the use of the keywords in the tagline across the hero image.

Ensure content is accurate

Things change quickly in this industry, so many something you blogged about is no longer relevant, but you could link to some sites that currently do pertain to your site. Add those new links in and take out the old ones. If you are sharing data points and analytics, then link to other resources,  and articles and ensure that the information shared is still accurate and up-to-date and that all of the links work.

OPTIMIZE your headings

Header tags are a huge factor in SEO ranking as search engines see them when they “crawl” on your webpage. Make sure that you are using keywords in headers since they play such a big role in if search engines understand your website and when deciding the results that will show up when you search.

Once you have done all of this, then change the publishing date so it’s fresh on your website and reshare them on your social media platforms! This will make your blog come up in the search engines and people that hadn’t read it initially will have some fresh content that was previously buried.

2. Evaluate Data

Google Analytics is an awesome tool that you should definitely be implementing on your website. Now is the time to understand what worked well in 2019 and what didn’t work out as well for you. If you don’t audit your site, then you wouldn’t have a true understanding of what needs to be changed and what really worked out so you should continue to write about what you were blogging about or any additional content. This data evaluation includes everything from main pages on your site to blog content that got read the most, landing pages that performed well, anything on your site really.

Google Analytics can measure 10,000 metrics, which is overwhelming we know, but you can break down the top ones and figure out where you are getting the most traffic.  The top ten metrics that you should measure are:

1. The total numbers of visitors to your website
2. Demographics
3. The total number of pages a user will visit in one session
4. Acquisition
5. The three most visited pages
6. How are your landing pages performing?
7. What is the bounce rate?
8. What is the conversion rate?
9. How long are visitors staying on your website?
10. How many unique page views are your pages getting?

When you read into this content, you can definitely get a feel for what you need to change and what worked really well for you in the past year, so you can really optimize those pages and hit that content hard to make for an even stronger 2020.

Want to learn more about these key performance indicators? Check out this helpful video from our CMO, Samantha Russell.

3. Align SEO and your Content

Just like you should evaluate your Google Analytics, you also need to take a look at your Google Search Console data. Take a look at what keywords phrases and long-tail keywords people are searching for and use those keywords to inform your content strategy for the new year. This is not only an easy way to uncover great new blog topics but a way to help your firm to rise to the top of the rankings in google.

It’s great to use Google Analytics and Google Search Console hand-in-hand, as they both work well together but they also differ. While Google Analytics tracks more of your digital marketing efforts and helps to keep your website running smoothly, Google Search Console is the place to get SEO information on your website directly from Google. Keep in mind that simply installing it will not improve your SEO, but it can be used as a tool to really improve your SEO efforts and boost organic traffic to your site.  Some of the top metric to track on Google Search Console are:

1. Search analytics
2. Links to your website
3. Mobile usability
4. The top keyword queries
5. Index Coverage Reporting

Utilize both of these awesome tools can really improve your website and once they are used properly, you should definitely see a difference in how your website performs.

4. Update Your Meta-Descriptions

What is a meta-description? Simply put, it is a short snippet that provides a summary of a web page. It forms an HTML tag that search engines will show in search results as a preview. For your content to show up, the searched-for phrase typically has to be in your meta description, which makes optimizing it super important.

The purpose of a meta description is simple, and that is to get internet searchers to click on your content. Not only will this get more eyes on your firm’s content, but it will also boost your click-through-rate, which Google uses to determine how reliable your content is. The more people that click on your work, then Google will see that you are an accurate and trustworthy source, and therefore they will boost your rankings.

How do you create a strong Meta-Description?

It’s essential that you create a strong meta-description, because even though it’s such a simple thing, if it’s not convincing, then people won’t want to click on your site to find out more. So, how do you create a strong one?

1. First things first, make sure it is 160 characters or less. Keep it short and sweet!
2. Provide a quick summary of what you are offering and why people should want to find out more.
3. Make sure it is specific and enticing.
4. Use keywords that are relevant to your page.
5. Think about the niche you are serving.

Twenty Over Ten client Simon Quick Advisors has a meta-description that is very short and sweet using strong keywords, where they also briefly touch on the niche that they serve.

You can easily update them using the Twenty Over Ten Platform

Start by logging into your Twenty Over Ten Account

Step 1

Access your “page settings” from your sidebar.

Step 2

Scroll down until you reach the SEO description box and add your content.

Step 3

Your metadata should be a short 1-2 sentence description (rich in keywords) of the content appearing on that particular page. After you have added the content of your choice, click the save button.

What if your click-through rate is low?

Check out your Google Search Console and see what needs an update. It could be that your meta-description was simply not strong enough and it could use some updating. This is just another great example of all of the different ways that incorporating Google Search Console onto your advisor website can help you figure out the best ways to improve your website and create a lead-generation machine.

5. Rethink your Call to Actions

Simply put, a call to action is is text or a graphic strategically placed on a website to entice visitors to take a proactive step in engaging with your business. It should consist of a short phrase of only 3-5 words and create a sense of urgency. Without one, your visitors will not know that they need to take another step, and there will essentially be a dead end on your site with no way to get your visitors to continue down the sales funnel.

Do you have a call to action on each page that compels your visitor to take any action at all? If not, you need to make sure that you are including them on your website. What are some of the ways that you could be using CTAs on our site?  It could be to promote related content, offers or services to order to keep your visitors engaged.

Twenty Over Ten client, Sequoia Financial has a beautiful website with call-to-actions that stand out boldly on their website. As you can see in the above image after touching on if a client is a good fit for them, they have at the bottom of the page, “Schedule A Complimentary Consultation.” With the Calendly integration, prospects can quickly schedule a FREE initial consultation to find out more about the firm.

Additionally, you should provide forms that they can fill out to view content and offers. One of the key ways to convert your site visitors into prospects and eventually customers is that you need to provide them enough value for them to want to give you their contact information.

Have you noticed that none of your CTAs got any clicks or conversions in 2019? You should simply consider changing up the language you are using on your CTA. For example, instead of simply “Download Now,” you could be more specific and say “Download your 6-page playbook to Retirement Now.” That way the visitors will understand exactly what they are downloading and the value that it will provide to them once they download it.

6. Consider a Redesign

You can put so much time and energy into creating great content, but if it looks outdated or overall has a poor user experience, your visitors will bounce. This is used literally, as bounce rates are much higher when websites are outdated and have poor navigation.

Some common websites mistakes that you should consider fixing are:

• Do you have random or broken links?
• Are your images low quality?
• Do colors not match?
• Are font families and sizes the same?
• Are your color schemes not matching or steering away from your brand?
• Is it not mobile-friendly?
• Does your website run slowly?
• Is your site too text-heavy?
• All of the above problems are very common mistakes, but they can be easily fixed! Keep in mind that as your company continues to upgrade and evolve, then your website should keep the pace and do the same. 

Key Takeaways

These simple tweaks will help you take your advisor site to the next level. It’s all about improvement as we start off not just a new year, but a new decade! It’s so common for people to make New Year’s resolutions to better themselves, so why not do the same for your advisor website? As we head into the new year, take a look at what needs changing and do this to create a site that is better than ever!