The Two Most Important Pages Every Financial Advisor Needs on Their Website
If you have a website for your financial advisory firm, you’ve either spent significant time building it yourself or paid significant money to have someone else build it for you. Either way, your website should be working hard for you.
But for many financial advisors, their website is doing anything but. Why is that?
The answer lies in the copy and content you have on your site. If your website has high bounce rates, low page views, or has never produced a single lead, something about your website copy isn’t connecting well with your target audience.
Luckily, there are things you can do to fix that and turn your website into a 24/7 lead generator. You can start by making sure you have an effective “About Me” page and an effective “About You” page. See why these two pages are so important below.
(Pro tip: You do not have to have the most beautifully designed website in the world. You do need to have compelling content that communicates effectively with your target audience and drives them to take action.)
Why Growing Financial Advisors Need a Website
The purpose of your website is to gain clients; plain and simple. So if you have a website that isn’t yet producing leads, something isn’t working yet.
And I’ll be honest – writing content for your website isn’t easy. Most advisors I know can confidently tell me about the value of their services in about a minute. But when they try to turn those spoken words into written words, something gets lost in translation. (Don’t sweat it; you’re a numbers professional!)
Here’s the good news: If you currently rely on referrals, networking, or some other growth strategy to bring on more clients, you already know how to talk about the benefits of your services in a way that builds trust and communicates the problems you solve and how you solve them. You just need to be able to communicate that value in your online content.
The reason this is so difficult is because every client interaction you have is highly personal. You’re either managing someone’s life savings, advising them on some of the most important decisions of their lives, or doing some combination of the two, so you know your relationships with your clients need to be built on a solid foundation of trust from the first time you meet.
That type of trust isn’t easy to establish online.
But referral- and network-based growth strategies can take up a lot of your time, and you may need or want to grow your business much more quickly. For many of the clients you want to sign on, the first time they “meet” you will be on your website.
Therefore, the purpose of your website should be to build trust from the moment someone lands on one of your pages.
Two Must-Have Pages Financial Advisors Need on Their Website
To build trust effectively with prospective clients on your site, the two most important pages every financial advisor needs to have are an “About Me” page and an “About You” page. The actual titles of these pages can vary: About Us, Our Team, Our Firm, Who We Serve, Who We Help – all are effective page titles.
What’s important is the content, because the content on these two pages builds the most trust with your prospects. When done correctly, these two pages communicate who you are, how you’re different from other financial advisors, how you can solve your ideal clients’ problems, and why you’re exactly the right fit for the prospect looking at your page.
(Pro tip: Always include a photo of yourself on your About Me page. Prospects like to know who they’ll be talking to before they schedule an appointment, especially for something as personal as personal finance.)
The “About Me” Page
For most advisors, the “About Me” page is the page that gets the most visits after the Home page (1). Your prospects want to get to know who you are before they fill out your contact form or pick up the phone to call you. They want to see what you look like. They want to get a sense of your personality and style. And they definitely want to know your values regarding investments and financial planning.
Here’s the tricky part: Your “About Me” page shouldn’t really be about you - at least not totally. Instead, it should be about why and how you help your prospects solve their financial struggles and obstacles. Your prospects do not care about your resume. (If you absolutely cannot fathom leaving your experiences and education off of your “About Me”, provide a link to your LinkedIn profile.)
Don’t be afraid to write a lot of copy on the “About Me” page, as long as most of it is about your prospects or a relatable background story you can share about yourself. “About Me” pages that are too light on words are actually offputting to prospects because they don’t get to learn anything about you. And after all, they clicked on this page to learn about who you are and what you can offer.
The “About You” Page
The “About You” page – perhaps better known as the “Who We Serve” page – is equally as important as the “About Me” page. The “About You” page describes your prospects to themselves. If it resonates with them as it’s meant to, they’ll think: “Wow! This is the perfect financial advisor for me because she understands exactly what my problems, needs, and goals are.”
Of course, writing an effective “About You” page requires that you know who your ideal client is. It requires that you’ve niched down in your business, often to a significant degree. Because let’s be honest, no matter how much you want to serve anyone and everyone who needs financial advice, you can’t do so very effectively. No one can.
Although it may sound counterintuitive, narrowing your focus will actually help you attract more clients. When you attempt to target “everyone”, not only do you risk getting lost in the sea of financial advisors who are also targeting “everyone”, you also end up speaking to no one because no one can resonate with your generic messaging.
For example, if you’ve ever been divorced and you’re getting ready to retire, you’d likely choose to work with a financial advisor who specializes in helping divorced pre-retirees over an advisor who specializes in helping all pre-retirees. Divorcees have specific, often complex problems they need to solve when it comes to finances.
Likewise, if you were a physician, you’d likely choose to work with an advisor who specializes in helping physicians over an advisor who helps “high-net-worth professionals”. Physicians often carry high student loan balances late into their careers. So in addition to hiring an advisor who specializes in investment management, many physicians also need an advisor who can help them with debt repayment plans.
The point is, the more specific you can be about identifying your ideal client, the more of those ideal clients you’ll attract and sign on to work with you. You also differentiate yourself from all the other financial advisors out there. And finally, it becomes much, much easier to create relevant, compelling content that your target audience will actually want to read.
That, my friends, is a win-win-win.
Does Your Website Need Some TLC? Here’s How I Can Help
If you need to add these pages to your website, or if you’ve realized that you have these pages but they’re not quite up-to-snuff, I understand if you feel a bit overwhelmed. It’s not easy to write an “About Me” page that’s actually about your ideal clients.
Nor is it easy to connect with your audience’s pain points on an “About You” page that shows your expertise but is also empathetic, compelling, and reassuring. Because on this page, you want to tell your clients how you help them rather than what you do for them.
I’m here to help. At Gale Creative Agency, I work with financial advisors and financial coaches to dial in their target audience and develop content that resonates. Whether your strategy is to get clients to book a call, download a lead magnet, or subscribe to your newsletter, we’ll develop copy that inspires them to take the next step in developing a relationship with you.
To see how I can help, please send an email to hillary@galecreativeagency.com or schedule a free, 20-minute consultation call with me here.
1) https://blog.twentyoverten.com/back-to-basics-google-analytics/#:~:text=But%20if%20we're%20only,%E2%80%9D%20or%20%E2%80%9CGet%20Started.%E2%80%9D