Our team has navigated the professional world of digital marketing for financial advisors over the past few years and we’ve learned two very important lessons. One is that content is the backbone of almost every successful marketing strategy. In fact, according to Forbes, businesses who prioritize blogging experience a 13X increase in ROI. Countless statistics back up the fact that content marketing is clearly worthwhile. However, lesson number two is what often prevents people from pursuing it to the degree that they should. There’s no doubt that content marketing takes a lot of time, effort, skill and creativity, which are all resources that many working professionals don’t have much to spare.
That’s why we created Content Assist. We knew our users wanted a service that would give them the direction and tools necessary to effectively run and manage the content marketing for their financial firm in one place. Since blogging and content marketing have recently gained so much importance, we wanted to make it as easy as possible for advisors to publish unique blog posts that are tailored for their firm’s voice that also speak to their unique niche. This feature has been super popular among our clients, so it’s now FREE in all Twenty Over Ten website packages. Yep, you read that right!
Content Assist is our solution to all of this. Developed specifically for financial advisors, Content assist is just that — a marketing assist to help you create 🔥 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. Once adding the post, advisors then have the ability to customize and edit the content in their unique voice, add in SEO keywords, and further promote their expertise.
Since launching Content Assist, our users have had a lot of success in leveraging this tool and, while it is already straightforward, we wanted to make it even easier for you to get the most out of the articles you post to your blog. By making small tweaks to your Content Assist articles, you can add specifics like location and demographic information that can do wonders for your SEO. Today, we’re breaking down how to make these quick edits to your Content Assist articles and sharing some additional tips on how to fit articles to achieve your firm’s needs.
step 1: Choose an article to deploy
First, you’ll want to go through and pick which article you’d like to deploy on your website. Depending on the services offered by your firm and the age group you target, this can vary. On the left, you’ll find the articles sorted among different categories in order to make it easy to find what topic you may be looking for. As soon as you find one you like, simply select “Add Post” to begin editing.
step 2: start customizing your article
You’ll automatically be taken to your chosen article and see that all of the content has been loaded in as a default. This includes formatted header styles which are a simple and user-friendly boost for SEO. While you can most definitely choose to use the article as-is, we highly recommend that advisors take just a few minutes to edit the articles to make them more firm-specific.
Making these changes will not only make your articles much more relevant for your audience and site visitors but it will also help your website appear higher in search results. Content Assist articles are not considered “canned” content simply because it is editable. Therefore, multiple websites will not be using the exact same articles as you. With the help of our inline editor, it will only takes a few minutes to make a big difference.
step 3: boost your post title
To start out, the post will automatically be populated with a title and URL slug. This URL slug is important as it will become the unique link you’ll share on your social media channels and in newsletters to help promote your blog posts. The title is a great first edit to make. Keywords in your blog post titles are extremely important because they end up in the URL and will be the first thing your reader often times looks at. You can easily add a location or demographic to make it more applicable and attention-grabbing for your audience.
For example, in the screenshot above we added “Columbus, OH” to this title in order to give it a more specific search criteria and help your blog stand out for those located in Columbus, Ohio. You’ll notice that changing the title will automatically update the URL slug. This example would be perfect for an advisor located in Columbus targeting millennials who may be looking to buy a house soon. You could also create a title such as “How Much Does Someone Under 40 Need to Buy a House in Columbus, OH?” It all depends on the specifics of your firm and your goals.
step 4: optimize the content
Next, you can go into the body text of the article to add in a few more things that will help your blog post rank higher and attract your audience. Using the same example as above, you could change this paragraph header to “How Much House Can You Afford in Columbus, Ohio?” or “How Much House Can a Typical Millennial Afford?” This adds location and audience-specific keywords in the H1 and H2 headers that are essential to your boosting your SEO and these headers also help your readers know that an article will be ultra specific to their needs.
Another great idea would be to do a quick search of the average home price in Columbus for the year and changing or adding in numbers to match that. If you make an adjustment like that, be sure you stay consistent and make the numbers accurate throughout the entire article. Including the most expensive suburbs of Columbus or fastest growing areas would also be great additions. By doing this you could then incorporate a couple sentences on where readers may expect to pay more and where they can get a great deal. All of this will continue to make your content more relevant and accessible for your audience.
step 5: add in metadata
The final and perhaps most important edit we suggest making to your Content Assist articles will be in the SEO Description section. Luckily, we auto-populate a generic meta description for you here. However, it will be even more beneficial for your SEO to add in more specifics to the pre-populated meta description.
In the example below, we added “The average home in Columbus, OH is now $250,000” in the SEO description section. Now, when someone goes to search in Google, this brief description will appear under the link and they’ll know it’s relevant to what they’re looking for.
Struggling With What Content To Share on Social Media or via Email?
We are offering access to our content for advisors to use via Lead Pilot for 7-days completely free (even on our month to month plans).
