Web Traffic Is Critical To Build Your Practice

When advisors launch their own firm, attracting clients and web traffic becomes a top priority. Raising their profile often means boosting their online presence.

On any given day, hundreds of people prowl the internet for a financial planner. They may type “advisor near me” or narrow their search by getting more specific.

The challenge for advisors is increasing the odds that a potential client can find them. This involves a deep dive into web analytics and search engine optimization.

For techies, it’s relatively easy to craft their website to boost their search rankings. But for many advisors, the process involves a steep learning curve.

“It has been a huge effort,” said Cecil Staton, a certified financial planner at Arch Financial Planning in Athens, Ga. Because he seeks to serve clients nationwide, he’s especially eager to strengthen his new firm’s web presence.

Staton credits his membership in XY Planning Network and the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors with helping him gain access to resources that bring more web traffic to his fledgling firm. Their online directories of fee-only advisors and other services make newly minted firms easier for consumers to find.

“Both have helped increase my local SEO rankings,” he said. Other members have also shared tips to help Staton expand his visibility on the web.

For instance, an XYPN member introduced Staton to Wealthtender, a search tool that helps consumers find advisors. For a monthly fee, Wealthtender raises Staton’s digital profile by creating content that highlights his practice, which in turn boosts his search ranking.

Web Traffic Digital Tools For DIY Advisors

When launching their own firm, many advisors want to keep their expenses in check. Hiring a digital marketing firm to create and implement a comprehensive SEO strategy can prove costly.

When Fadi Issa set up shop in early 2021, he considered hiring experts to attract potential clients to his website. But he soon changed his mind.

“My biggest mistake, especially from a time perspective, was trying to find and hire people that could help my website generate traffic by doing more SEO work,” said Issa, who runs Boardwalk Wealth Management in Ann Arbor, Mich. “I realized a lot of these companies are super pricey and do things one can learn real quickly.”

Given his lack of experience with website design and digital marketing, Issa raced to catch up to build web traffic. He researched how to build online visibility and optimize his digital front to impress website visitors.

He soon identified three questions to guide his efforts: What tools can I use to attract more people to my website? What factors make search engines rank a website higher? How can I track web traffic to my website and user activity once they get there?

For starters, he learned how to use the Keyword Planner tool on Google Ads. He also became familiar with Google Analytics to monitor user behavior on his website.

Simple steps such as writing blogs — and tagging them with keywords — improved his results. Google Search Console enabled him to analyze user activity more closely, comparing the number of impressions (when a visitor sees an ad) with the number of clicks on that ad.

Pick The Right Keywords For Web Traffic

Researching which keywords would increase his SEO rankings — and then integrating those keywords and phrases into his website (and including them in the headers on each page) — also worked well for Issa.

Some lessons took longer to learn, Issa says. For months, he’d post blogs but notice that Google did not add them to its search engine.

“Sometimes, Google doesn’t crawl my website, which means my new blogs weren’t searchable,” he said. Eventually, he discovered he could submit a free request through Google Search Console to index his content so users could search for it more easily.

Some advisors invest in “paid search” — paying search engines to advertise their website atop others. Advisors report mixed results paying to appear near the top of the list. And some do-it-yourselfers, like Issa, gain traction organically.

The trick for advisors is lacing their websites with keywords and phrases that match what their target audience might type into a search engine. A common SEO metric is the amount of competition for a specific search term to rank near the top.

Staton works with dentists. He has found that while there’s a limited volume of searches for advisors who work with dentists, he also sees an opening to attract more prospects within his niche.

“Because there’s not a lot of competition, there’s a lot of opportunity for keywords to rank for,” Staton said.

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