Background

There are multiple ways to approach building an online presence now. The early 2000s were limited, with one widely accepted option: a website.

Businesses have become more sophisticated. Building digital assets, such as private groups, landing pages (single-page websites), YouTube channels, and other social media profiles, has become common.

In saying this, websites still hold the role of the central hub for creating a professional online presence, particularly for financial services businesses.  

Introduction

Once your website is created, you will deal with two pressing matters:

1) Ensuring your website promotes credibility and trustworthiness.

2) Attracting traffic.

This article focuses on achieving (1) via the website’s content. This article assumes that the other essential facets that assist with (1), such as design and user experience, have been adequately handled.

Low-quality content websites fail to engage and retain visitors, leading to high bounce and low conversion rates.

These websites may need more valuable information or contain outdated and irrelevant content. As a result, they fail to establish credibility and trust with their audience.

Implement these 3 “instant website boosters” to ensure you are not losing prospective clients before speaking with them!

These quick tips are designed to positively impact your performance immediately, not rely on a long-term SEO strategy that can take months to see results.

The best part is that these enhancements are transferable, so if you move to another business or industry, they can be applied to your new website.

The top 3 instant website boosters

Client reviews

This is a simple first action but a powerful one.

Client reviews allow site visitors to envisage the value you could bring to their business. Simple and concise reviews that solidify that you can deliver are all that’s needed; nothing too extensive is necessary.

It’s important that at least a portion of your reviews are recent. It reflects poorly on the credibility of your business if you are purely showcasing reviews from years back.

You can counter having to continually update the reviews on your website by utilising a plugin called “Widgets for Google Reviews by Trustindex.io”.

This tool allows the reviews left on your Google business page to automatically transfer to your website in real time.

Your website no longer has to look ancient due to someone’s 2014 review that you manually posted when the website was first created.

Collecting reviews post-delivery is often not prioritised in financial services. Don’t follow the status quo here.

Make it simple for the client to say some kind words, and provide them with an email containing the exact link to your Google business page review section so they can post in the correct location.

If you want to eliminate the risk of someone from your team forgetting to send an email requesting a review, investigate using automation software to trigger an automatic review request email to be sent out to a client once they have paid an invoice.

Call Scheduling (Call to action)

The way to think about the goal of each webpage is to consider that you always want to give the visitor ample opportunity to take an action that requires a more significant investment than simply reading.

This action can be basic, such as entering their email address to be included on the EDM (electronic direct mail/newsletter) list or something more involved, like encouraging visitors to head to the checkout and enter their payment details.

In marketing, encouraging someone to take an action is known as a call to action. Encouraging visitors to schedule a call is a great default call to action for almost any webpage.

A scheduled call allows:

• The ability to take control of your schedule and not be disrupted by spontaneous calls throughout the workday.
• The opportunity to showcase professionalism by requesting pre-call information so you can prepare for the subject you need to address.
• The opportunity to provide answers that consider a client’s specific circumstances.

Calendly, a call scheduling software, provides a free solution for implementing a pop-up scheduling window on your website to simplify scheduling.

Digital downloads in exchange for contact details

Creating this asset can be time-consuming if you make it without the help of an expert.

Regardless, it is the best way to ensure you can connect with a prospect interested in your services but is not ready to contact your business for an immediate conversation.

Additionally, digital downloads have the benefit of:

• Providing a free yet valuable resource that will benefit the reader.
• Being easily deliverable via email or immediate download.
• An indicator of the specific interests of the visitor who downloaded to help facilitate further communication.

The digital download you create should be impressive as it is a tool that showcases how knowledgeable your business is. It can be challenging to select which topic you will choose for a digital download, but try to meet all these points when making your selection:

• Solves a specific problem or educates on a particular issue.
• Focuses on a contemporary topic.
• Built for a specific audience (it should appeal to a select few, not the masses).

If you have the technical capabilities, consider mining your CRM software for clues as to what your client’s concerns have been in the past. This can be an intelligent jump-off point for selecting a topic; more on the power of CRM mining here.

Digital downloads in the form of E-Books, email courses, white papers, calculators, and templates are some formats you can consider.

The format you choose depends on multiple factors, and there is no formula to help you determine the right choice.

However, consider questions such as:

• How much do you have to say regarding a topic?
  An E-book typically features the most words, whereas an email course and white paper are generally shorter.
  
• Does your audience have technical expertise?
  White papers might suit a more technical audience, while e-books or email courses can cater to a broader range.
  
• Is your audience self-directed learners, or do they require structure?
  Email courses may be best for audiences requiring structure, as the content comes in timed increments instead of a single download like white papers and E-Books do.
  

If you would like to discuss any of the topics raised in this article or would like to arrange assistance to implement any of these website boosters, please message us.