It’s been 10 months in the making – lots of planning, a massive amount of decision making, and a few bloopers along the way, but it’s finally done. I’m resting comfortably in the knowledge that between my designer, my developer, and my writing, I’ve come up with a beautiful destination for my prospective clients. There are still many details to take care of but the site is mostly done.
You can see it here:
https://www.prosperitycoaching.biz
This is my third coaching website in my nine years as a Business Coach and this project was the most extensive re-do in my business history. I’ve made mistakes along the path. My first site was very basic and although beautifully designed, it lacked search engine optimization (SEO) and a niche market focus.
My second website, more heavily focused on financial services, was very successful at closing new clients from referrals, my number one most successful marketing tactic. But what I didn’t foresee was the power of the “lurker” factor. As the internet became a more important part of our lives, people enjoyed the opportunity to “check me out” or “lurk” in the background before hiring me. Thus the website did a great job of presenting my Value Proposition and keeping prospects in the pipeline.
For this third website, I decided to focus on the ONE THING I do very well and go DEEP. What is the one thing I do really well? I AM A COACH! This website contains extensive content around my coaching expertise in financial services, be it business coaching, marketing and sales coaching, or career coaching. For this site I wanted to go DEEP and explain all the elements of the coaching I do.
What else did I do differently this time around?
- I wanted to provide social proof in the form of visual testimonials on every page.
- I decided to highlight my free reports by putting the sign up form in the upper right hand corner.
- I wanted to have a strong visual call to action on every page. See the “Request a Consult” visual box halfway down the home page.
Is your financial advisor website generating leads for you?
My clients report that they are getting 50% of their new clients from their custom websites using Inbound Marketing. Your website can serve to establish your unique value proposition and pre-sell your services to your niche specialty client who will find you through an internet search. This is a proven method to get new clients in the digital age.
What you need to be willing to do:
Hire me! I’m obviously NOT going to give you all the exact answers in this blog post. Putting this website engine in place means performing a series of actions, some of which are detailed below. There are many moving parts to the successful implementation of this strategy, so please be prepared to take my advice.
Invest in your brand – Your off-the-shelf logo and tagline are not going to present you at your best in the internet world. You’ll need to create an image of sophistication and experience to convey the depth of knowledge you have acquired over the years.
Invest in a custom website – Custom is the way to go. Financial industry template websites don’t work because they are mostly composed of duplicate canned content that is practically useless. The only people who make money from financial industry websites are the website companies selling them.
Here’s an interesting statistic: “46.1% of people say a website’s design is the number one criterion for discerning the credibility of the company.” (Source: Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab)
This is especially true for financial advisors as the “trust” factor is HUGE: your clients are giving you millions of dollars to invest. If your brand isn’t visually appealing, you’ll lose that trust.
What annoys me the most about financial industry template websites is that my clients come to me after paying from $40 to $60 monthly for MANY YEARS – for a site that does them no good whatsoever! They could have invested that money in a custom site that they own. My clients are surprised to find out that they really should only be paying $6 – $10 monthly for hosting their website.
Write good content using sound strategies – As mentioned above, canned content is weak. It doesn’t sound like you. It doesn’t serve your clients. The worst part about canned content is that it is despised by the search engines. So if you’re putting this type of content on your blog or website, you are actually harming yourself and defeating your efforts.
Time – Be willing to wait six to twelve months for the effects of our work to kick in once your new custom site is up and running. It takes time for the search algorithms to hone in on your content and your message and then display your pages high in the results.
Use stunning visuals – Your ideal clients are surfing the internet using ipads and macbook pros with retina displays. Financial planning and wealth management are ideal concepts to utilize quality visuals. See this article: 19 Reasons You Should Use Visuals in your Marketing.
Ever since my second website debuted in 2007, I’ve been running a pretty full coaching practice from a combination of the above factors and a few I’m not telling. My competitors love it when I blog about my success because they want to know what the heck I’m doing so that they can copy me. Lucky for them I believe that there’s more than enough business for anyone who wants it!
If you want to learn more about working with me, please read THIS.
