Congratulations! All of your hard work has paid off – your new website is officially live. It may feel like you’ve reached the finish line but the journey is only just beginning. In order to effectively market yourself online, you will need to maintain your website and continue to complete your online presence. Here are six steps to get you started:
6 Steps to Get Started Once your Website is Live:
1.Sign Up for Google My Business
One of the first things you can do to improve your search results is to sign up for Google My Business. This will help you build validity with Google and control what results appear when someone searches for your business.
Setting up your GMB listing is incredibly beneficial to financial advisors, since you need prospective clients to find your financial services easily online, Google My Business helps to make this connection.
In fact, according to Google, half of all the individuals who conduct a search for a local business will visit that business within 24 hours. If you don’t claim your listing, then Google will attempt to provide the best information about your business, which may not always be accurate, so if you claim your GMB profile, then you can verify and edit all the information about your business as it appears on Google.
WealthKeel, LLC has claimed their GMB listing, that includes a map with their address, phone numbers, reviews and more.
2. Index Your Site on Google
Index your site on Google to start appearing in search results. Note that it can take a couple weeks or even a month for Google to properly index your site. This is especially important to do if you recently launched a website with a new domain name. You can quickly do this by following the simple steps below:
- Go to Google Search Console
- Navigate to the URL inspection tool
- Paste the URL you’d like Google to index into the search bar
- Wait for Google to check the URL
- Click the “Request indexing” button
For specific searches for your company name (ex: John Smith Financial Planning), having your site listed in the results can take a few weeks to a month to popular. For your site to be listed in the results for more general searches that don’t include your company name (ex: financial advisor in Cleveland) – it can take much more time and is dependent on many different SEO factors including well-maintained and updated content.
3. Promote Your Website
Social Media
Announce your newly launched site on social media and share a photo/link for people to check it out. Mention Twenty Over Ten on Linkedin, Facebook or Twitter in your post and we’ll be sure to spread the love too. It’s a great way to drive more traffic to your website from your social media platforms.
This example shows where Jay Rishel, CFP® of Overman Capital Management shows a great before and after so that viewers can see what their new site looks like.
Add your new website to your email signature so that people who receive your emails have a chance to easily visit your site.
Newsletter
Make an announcement about your new site in your client newsletter. At Twenty Over Ten, we send out monthly newsletters, as well as bi-weekly blog blasts providing recipients with useful blogs that we think will help them with their marketing tactics. Newsletters are a GREAT way to connect with others and nurture prospects while also continuing to provide people that are already clients with information. If you put your new website in one of your newsletters, this is a sure-fire way to get eyes on it without breaking the bank.
Blog
Consider writing a blog post about your new site design and give some behind-the-scenes insight into why you made the change, what factors you took into account, and highlight your new features.
Cross-Promote Your Content
Like many industries, the financial industry is all about forming relationships. So, now is the time to work with your partners to get them to cross-promote your content. See if they wouldn’t mind sharing some industry news about your new website on their social pages. This can go a long way when it comes to forming a lasting symbiotic relationship.
4. Complete Your Twenty Over Ten Training
We know that using a new platform can be daunting at first, so we’ve created a training guide to show you the ropes. Follow the courses within to familiarize yourself with the platform and how to manage your website. This is self-guided training including seven courses teaching you everything you need to know from account basics, blogging to site styles and styling.
Also, be sure to check out the Twenty Over Ten Support section as your go-to resource for when you have a question or need help managing your website. Here, you can watch videos, read quick support articles, or submit a ticket for further help.
5. Get Started with Google Analytics
We’ve made tracking your website analytics with Google Analytics incredibly easy with our one-click integration. After signing up for your Google Analytics account add your tracking number to your new website. When checking your website analytics be sure to track these metrics and check out our other Google Analytics resources. You can easily integrate Google Analytics into your website so that you can start tracking how your pages are performing to see what is working for you and what needs some tweaking.
Step 1: Access your “site settings” from your sidebar.
Step 2: Click the integrations tab to expand and see all your integration details.
Step 3: After you have inserted your Google Analytics code, click the save button.
6. Educate Yourself About SEO
There are many factors that determine how your site ranks for various search terms. No single SEO factor will guarantee search engine rankings. Having a great HTML title won’t help if a page has low-quality content. Additionally, having lots of links won’t help if they are all low in quality. Having several positive factors can increase the odds of success while the presence of negative factors can worsen those odds. Review our ultimate list of SEO resources for financial advisors.
Basic SEO factors Every Financial Advisor Should Consider:
Content:
Sharing fresh, updated content regularly is one of the best ways to improve your site’s SEO. Google Says: “Creating compelling and useful content will likely influence your website more than any of the other factors.” The best way to do this is to blog consistently. In fact, according to Forbes, businesses who prioritize blogging experience a 13X increase in ROI.
Twenty Over Ten client, McIntosh Financial Group, Inc. has a robust insights section with blogs, webinars and even a video peppered in. They consistently provide relevant content to their audience which will not only show they are a thought-leader in the industry but boost their SEO rankings, as well.
Social Media:
If you haven’t already, create accounts on social platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. This will allow you to share your blog posts and other relevant content that your target audiences will find compelling. If others share your content, it will create links back to your site, which also contributes to improved SEO. The more your content is liked and shared on social media, the more exposure you’ll have.
Tapparo Capital Management is active on social, and they do a great job of not only sharing their own content but also third-party sources. When you share other relevant content, it is more likely that they will share your posts in the future, therefore directly more traffic to your website.
Meta Descriptions:
At Twenty Over Ten, we give you direct access to manipulate both your site-wide and individual page meta descriptions. Meta descriptions appear on search engine results pages, just beneath the main title text that you would click to visit a page. For example, this is a meta description from Arista Wealth Management:
Including these on your site are a great way to make others want to click more after the meta-description has enticed them to find out more.
Key Takeaways
When you’ve worked hard to get your advisor website ready for launch, you want to ensure that everything goes off without a hitch. The items above will boost your online presence and SEO rankings, ensuring that your website generates more leads and increases your conversions. We hope that this helps so that you can create the advisory website that you have imagined!
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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).
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.
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