Whether it’s being interrupted, talking during a movie, or wobbly tables – we all have pet peeves that drive us absolutely mad. Just as pet peeves exist in the “real world”, they are also evident in the digital world too.
As a Financial Advisor, you should be aware of some of the pet peeves your prospects and clients may have about your website. In this article, we will go over 7 things people hate about your Advisor website and how you can avoid them.
1. It takes forever to load
Everyone is always on the go, including your clients. Can you recall a time when you got frustrated with a website because it took forever to load? Well, if your website is anything like that, your audience will feel just as frustrated as you did.
47% of consumers expect a web page to load in two seconds or less, and 40% abandon a website that takes more than three seconds to load.
If you want people to stick around your website, make sure that you’re putting the time in to optimize it. For example, use images that are sized for the web rather than print. This will help decrease a page’s overall load time.
2. It offers poor navigation
When someone lands on your website, do they know what to do? Are you leading them through your website or letting them navigate through it all on their own? Are you providing your visitor with direction and a number of different progression points? Easy to follow navigation is not only good for customer experience, but can help you convert those leads into clients.
According to Small Business Trends, 70% of small business B2B websites lack a call-to-action. A Call to Action (CTA) is a button or link that you place on your website to drive prospective customers to become leads. If the goal of your website is to create sales and get more business, then it is important that your website has effective CTAs.
Some quick and easy tips to improve your Financial Advisor websites navigation include:
3. It’s littered with cheesy stock photography
You may already know that using images is great for SEO and grabbing (and keeping) your audience’s attention. So when it comes to picking the right images, cheesy stock photography is not the way to go. Picture this: someone lands on your website and the first thing they see are images like these:
Are these pictures really believable or even realistic? Are these even your employees? Images are great for clarifying or enforcing an idea to your visitors. However, generic stock photography doesn’t accomplish either of those things.
Try to use real pictures of real people at your company. If not, try to pick the best free, not-so-cheesy stock pictures. Using relevant and believable pictures on your Financial Advisor website will take your business a long way.
4. It contains a contact form but no contact information
A “Contact Us” form may seem like a great way to generate an opt-in email list, but to a potential client, this provides very minimal or even no value because there is no incentive for them to give you their information.
About 44% of website visitors will leave a company’s website if there’s no contact information or phone number.
If a client or prospect has a one-time problem or request, they likely want help immediately. Having your contact information somewhere clear on the website, such as the footer or the contact page, is more useful to a client because it gives them a way to directly contact you. Whether it’s your email, phone number, or office location (ideally, all three), let people know how to contact you and make that information easily available to your clients and prospects.
5. It has an unintelligible value proposition
Who are you? What do you do? What makes you unique, different and better than other Financial Advisors? A solid value proposition is an essential tool to attract new clients, differentiate yourself from other Advisors, all while helping you to create a distinct and recognizable brand.
About 60% of investors found it hard to distinguish among Advisors because of their value proposition.
As a Financial Advisor, you want to create a unique and effective value proposition to help differentiate yourself in the industry and accelerate your business. Your value proposition concisely explains why a prospect needs you as their Advisor, and not your competition. (Read this blog post to learn more about writing a great value proposition).
6. It doesn’t have a blog
Inbound marketing is one of the most effective ways to grow your business, and comes at a lower cost. In 2015, content marketing generated 3 times as many leads as traditional outbound marketing, but cost 62% less. Blogging is one of the best ways to attract your target audience by creating and providing interesting and quality content, all while uninterruptedly marketing to them.
Businesses that blog receive 77% more traffic and 97% more links to their website than those that do not.
Blogging is a means of building credibility and thought leadership, and keeping your visitors coming back. Providing your prospects with useful information will build trust and add value to their experience on your Advisor website. When people search for information and answers – be a source they go to and trust. Your business will greatly benefit from this. As an added bonus, Google loves dynamic websites. Frequently writing blogs will help boost your overall search engine ranking, which in turn will increase your websites overall visibility and digital reach.
7. It’s not responsive
Have you ever visited a website using your mobile device and had to zoom in with your fingers because the text was too small on your screen? That’s because the website you were checking wasn’t mobile-responsive. With a higher percentage of people using their smartphones instead of their desktop when looking at information online, responsive design has never been more important.