The Essential Guide to Financial Services Website Optimization
- Build Trust and Credibility: Secure your site with HTTPS, display licenses and certifications, and publish helpful content that addresses client concerns.
- Prioritize Speed and Mobile Performance: Ensure fast load times and mobile-friendly design to reduce bounce rates and improve the client experience.
- Leverage SEO for Growth: Use local keywords, optimize Google Business listings, and create content that aligns with customer search intent to increase visibility.
In the early days of the Internet, having a website for your financial services business was something of a novelty. It was little more than a virtual business card, just letting people know you were out there and, at a glance, how to contact you.
Flash forward to today, and if your business doesn’t have a fully functional, properly optimized website, it may as well not even exist at all. Especially when you’re talking about a financial services business, getting new clients requires you to have someone put their faith in you. Having a website that acts as a single source of truth for your practice not only enhances credibility but it expands your reach among your target audience.
But how do people find that website? In a word: Google.
According to one recent study, about 92% of all global Internet traffic comes from Google. This means that if someone needs a business like yours for any reason, they’re probably going to find it via Google – giving you exactly one opportunity to make the strongest first impression that you can.
Search engine optimization, otherwise known as SEO for short, helps make sure that when someone does search for “financial services” near me, the first website they find (and click on) is yours. Know that financial services also have one of the highest returns on investment for any industry when it comes to SEO, at 1,031% according to one study. That is only exceeded by real estate and medical devices, beating out higher education and even the oil and gas fields.
All this is to say, having a properly optimized financial services website is critically important to your ability to attract new customers and retain them for as long as possible. It can give you a major advantage over your competitors and give your true services the chance they need to shine. Getting to this point isn’t necessarily difficult, but it is time-consuming, and you will want to make sure that a few basic elements are in place or you’ll be in trouble before you’ve even had a chance to get off the ground.
If You Don’t Have Trust, You Don’t Have Anything at All
The first and most important element is trust and compliance. In financial services, trust is currency. The goal isn’t just to make a website that looks nice, mind you. It’s to dive a little deeper than that, and that makes someone excited about becoming a client of yours.
A beautifully designed site without visible proof of credibility is like a bank without a vault. It just feels wrong.
Visitors should see, right away, that you take their security and privacy seriously. Display licensing information, security certifications, and regulatory disclosures clearly, much like a firm might frame its credentials on the wall where clients can see them. Even something as simple as having a secure HTTPS connection with the little lock symbol in the browser can make visitors feel they are in the right place.
Of course, a big part of building that trust will come down to showing, not just telling, that yours is an intelligent voice worth paying attention to. Content is where you showcase that expertise.
Every blog post, case study, or resource should be written with the client’s needs in mind. Rather than centering the conversation on your firm’s greatness, focus on answering the questions your clients are asking. A post like “How to Prepare for a Market Downturn Without Losing Sleep” is more valuable than “Why Our Firm is the Best at Risk Management” because it addresses the client’s anxiety directly.
To put it another way, content is your chance to prove you’re not just knowledgeable but also approachable and helpful.
Don’t Neglect Speed, Especially in the Mobile World
The next most important thing you can do to optimize your financial services website involves focusing not just on speed, but on mobile friendliness. Remember that if your site doesn’t load quickly, people will likely hit the “Back” button on their browser and run right into the arms of one of your competitors. If it loads slowly on a mobile device, you’re probably done for – so you might as well kill two birds with one stone.
Pages should load in a blink, and the site should work seamlessly on any device, whether someone is browsing on a desktop during lunch or checking rates on their phone while commuting.
Optimizing image sizes, reducing unnecessary scripts, and regularly testing the site’s performance can make the experience feel as smooth as walking into a well-organized lobby where everything runs on time.
The Nuts and Bolts of a Much Larger Structure
With a well-optimized website, the goal isn’t necessarily just to push visitors into a hard sell but to create natural opportunities for them to engage. Instead of hiding calls to action at the bottom of the page, place them where they make sense, like an invitation to schedule a free consultation after reading an article on retirement planning.
The tone should be benefit-driven, answering the question in the client’s mind: “What’s in it for me?” This is like a friendly host at a networking event introducing you to someone who might help you, rather than shoving a business card into your hand.
That segues directly into another one of the hallmarks of a properly optimized page: financial services SEO, otherwise known as search engine optimization.
If you serve a specific region, make sure your site is optimized for location-based searches. Think of this like putting a sign outside your office – if it’s hidden down a back alley with no markings, people won’t know you’re there. Local keywords, updated Google Business listings, and clear office location details make it easier for the right people to find you.
When all these elements work together, you create a digital presence that feels both professional and personal. If you had to make a list of all the words you want people to use when describing your financial services business, those would undoubtedly be right at the top. It’s not about chasing the latest web trend but about making sure every visitor leaves with more trust in your brand than they had when they arrived.
Finding the Pieces of the Optimization Puzzle
In the end, remember that while having a properly optimized website is essential to the success of your financial services firm, it’s also just one small part of a much larger story.
What about the types of online reviews that your customers are likely to leave? You need to respond to all of them – both the good and the bad – to let people know that you’re active and receptive to feedback and potential criticism. That can take up a tremendous amount of time alone.
What about those targeted SMS text messages that you send out to people during the ramp-up to tax season, for example? Or at the end of the year? Those aren’t going to write and send themselves.
Not only that, but think of the sheer volume of data you need to pore over to make sure that your efforts are actually paying off. You need to not only be able to track revenue, but also cost per lead, which channels bring in the best customers, and more. This is all in the name of making the most informed decisions possible so that you’re only getting better over time.
Thankfully, Surefire Local was built with tools like these and others in mind, acting as the top marketing platform for businesses like yours. It’s a platform designed to automate not only review requests but also SEO, social media management, online advertising, and more. As is true with a properly optimized website, it’s a chance to grow your online visibility, your customer base, and your revenue, all without letting it all turn into a full-time job that takes away from the financial services you’re supposed to be performing in the first place.
New customers are going to form a first impression of your financial services firm very quickly, typically after just one interaction. For the vast majority of them, that interaction will come by way of your website. You need that site to be firing on all cylinders – acting as the perfect representation of who you are, what you do, and why it matters. That way, someone will take the next step and give you a chance to actually perform your unique blend of services for them. At that point, you’ll have all the time and attention needed to give them the level of care and detail that they won’t be able to find anywhere else.
If you’d like to find out more information about all the essential elements every financial services website needs to have, or if you’d just like to discuss website optimization in general in a bit more detail, please don’t delay – contact us today. You can also click here to attend a Surefire Local demo to see just how much time you can save by putting a powerful all-in-one marketing tool to work for you – time that could be better used serving your clients.