See what a StoryBranded website looks like for a financial advisor and find out "5 things to think about when redoing your website."
We’ve all been to a financial advisor’s website. They are all terrible!
Why?
There are too many words about things you don’t care about.
You don’t care about their strategy for growing money. You don’t care about all their awards. And you don’t care about gimmicky marketing language about “how much they care.”
What you do care about is if they will make beginning this engagement with them easy. You for sure don’t want to feel talked down to. You want them to hear you out. You don’t want to feel like just a number in their long list of clients. AND the last thing you want is to feel pressured.
Could a financial advisor feel a little more human? Could they get over themselves and speak to what their customers actually want?
We think so!
That’s what we did with Judy Steele of Steele Financial Advisors.
Just a side note… Judy Steele is one of the most kind-hearted knowledgeable people I’ve had the privilege to meet. When we did client interviews we were blown away by their love for Judy! Find yourself a financial advisor like her!
Below is what Judy’s Website looked like before we worked with her:
Even with her old website, you get the feeling that Judy cares about being approachable. This is a core value Judy carries into her interactions with all her clients.
However, we believed we could make this value shine even more!
Here is her completed website: steelefinancial.org
So what did we do?
I know what you might be thinking, “Of course our website makes the customer the focus. It’s giving them the information they need to do business with us.”
While this might be true, it’s important to recognize where browsers are mentally when they begin this website journey with you.
They aren’t actually looking for a financial advisor. What they are looking for is someone who can identify the roadblocks they typically face when hiring a financial advisor. And then they want to know, can you help them overcome those roadblocks?
This entire website recognizes and addresses customer roadblocks. Here are a few:
And the list goes on.
To effectively map out the customer’s pain points and tell the story they care about we worked with Judy to create a BrandScript. You can read more about BrandScripts HERE.
A BrandScript lays out the story your customers care about as it relates to your business. This BrandScript became the foundational language for the entire website.
Studies show you have 5-8 seconds to capture a browsers attention before they click onto a different website. That means in that short amount of time you want to communicate something that’s simple and clear. Confusion is your enemy.
Judy’s old site had a scrolling feature where articles were the first thing that was showing. Scroll features are way too much information for a person to digest in a very short amount of time. Kill your scrolling messages now!
The rule of thumb is this, write a header and sub-header that quickly identifies the main problem you are looking to solve for your customers and how you solve it. That’s it. Nothing more.
You’ll be surprised by how powerful your website header becomes by simply stating what it is you do.
For Judy, the main header is “An engaging wealth practice for women”
Sub-header “Gently guiding you to a place of financial confidence”
We quickly communicate that this is a financial advisor focused on women.
And then we communicate a huge roadblock potential customers have with financial advisors--feeling pressured. Judy’s approach is gentle. Not only is it gentle but it will help you feel confident.
Write headers and sub-headers that are simple and clear. Communicate quickly what you do and how you do it.
Judy’s old site did not have tons of navigation links. Most financial advisor websites are way worse, full of links that make the browsing experience way too complicated.
We identified on Judy’s old site two links that were potentially confusing, “Tools” and “Resource Center.” By looking at the two it’s hard to know what the difference is between them. A tool feels like a resource and a resource feels like a tool.
We decided to combine the two into a “blog” link. Most people understand that a blog houses useful content and information. By combining these we eliminate a link that was not needed in the site navigation.
When thinking through your website try to make it clear what your links actually do. Title them clearly and look to eliminate links whenever you can. The less links in your navigation bar the better! If a link isn’t necessary either get rid of the page entirely or throw that link down into the footer where you display your sitemap.
People don’t read websites. They skim them. It’s not that your website browsers don’t care or are lazy, they are just busy and distracted. They probably already have 25 tabs open on their computer and have 5 quick minutes to research solutions to their problem before their lunch break ends or they have to help their kid with homework.
Content-wise your website headers need to be short and punchy and paragraphs need to be no longer than 2 or 3 sentences.
Think about the last time you were driving and wanted to eat. You weren’t sure about tacos or burgers and ended up seeing two restaurants side by side, one with tacos and one with burgers. One said “50% off for kids” in the window and the other says “Fresh farm to table ingredients.”
But what’s funny is you end up noticing a third restaurant for sushi beside the other two because their window says “Happy Hour Specials Everyday.” You weren’t even thinking about sushi until then!
Our customers are the same way. They make split second decisions based on the skimmable sound-bites you have placed on our website.
In a split second they make a decision depending on the type of messages on your site. It’s important you know the words that resonate most with your customers and highlight them throughout your website.
If your website is skimmable with the right content you’ll start grabbing new clients at a high rate.
People know that doing business with someone requires a first step. Typically you need to setup an appointment or schedule a meeting.
However, people typically stress about this first step. They fear what might happen if they reach out to someone. Will this engagement become scary? What if my worst fears come true? What if they really are a pushy condescending financial advisor? What if they make me feel stupid?
It’s crazy how many people end up going with the first person they talk to. Why is this? Because it took so much energy to just talk to one person! They built up the courage to fill out that form on your website. They don’t want to have to do that with multiple people. It was stressful enough with one person.
If on your website you can communicate how the process for doing business with you is going to be simple and easy, you are way more likely to get people to fill-out your form vs. filling out your competitors form.
A simple 3 step process helps bring comfort to your potential customer. It helps them visualize what’s about to happen which builds a whole lot of confidence and makes them more likely to reach out to you.
On Judy Steele’s website we laid out a path for doing business with Judy.
Create a simple 3 step process on your website to start seeing more people reach out to you to do business!
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