5 Financial Advisors Review our Services

Marketing
Marketing • Posted on Jun 21, 2016

We recently had 5 financial advisors review our services. These fine folks provided some eye-opening feedback. Everyone knows that having a website is important. It has become practically a basic need for all financial advisors. Establishing an online presence, getting traffic, generating leads, you’ve heard it all. However, while we know the main reasons advisors get a website, we wanted to hear from advisors themselves.

- check it out!

Jeff Ritter, AIF, is the founder of Foresight Financial Management, operating out of Indianapolis, IN.

Mike Nielson, CFP, is the president of Nielson Wealth Management Group LLC, a wealth management and planning firm in Greenwood Village, CO.

Peggy Creveling, CFA, is the executive director at Creveling & Creveling Private Wealth Advisory, who provide financial planning and investment advisory services to expatriates and their families throughout Southeast Asia.

Heidi Hebert, is the owner of Garrison City Financial LLC, an independent financial firm located in Dover, NH.

Charles Adi, CFP, is a Houston-based financial advisor for Blueprint 360, who provides comprehensive financial planning to individuals, families, and business owners.

 

 

 

Why did you want to redesign/create a new website?

Peggy Creveling: We wanted to create a responsive design so the website would be accessible on mobile devices and to improve SEO.

Jeff Ritter: We wanted a better user experience with a focus and clarity around our values and client relationships.

Mike Nielson: Our previous website wasn’t SEO friendly, you couldn’t find it on Google. By redoing this website, it was easily searchable. Plus it looks a lot better.

Heidi Hebert: Our old website was like a novel - way too much text at the front. We wanted to get a clean cut website.

When you look at a website, what is the first thing you notice?

Charles Adi: Financial websites are all very similar. So I look for differences in layouts. Something unique.

Creveling: The visual appeal, and a clear articulation of the advisor’s value and professionalism.

 

Peggy Creveling Peggy Creveling, CFA

 

In your opinion, what’s important in a website?

Hebert: Clear cut, straight to the point, portrays value proposition right away.

Nielson: A professional, well done website that’s interactive. Should be clean, easy to navigate.

What do you like the most about your new website design?

Ritter: Simplicity, the ability to scroll down and see everything on one page, easy navigability, one full page. Also, it answers clients’ first questions right away, which makes for a better user experience for visitors.

 

Jeff Ritter Jeff Ritter, AIF

 

Creveling: It uses responsive design and has an easy to follow lay-out.

Adi: Mine is a very custom site. So the uniqueness definitely stands out.

How was the process in terms of building your website? How much input did you have?

Adi: Hands on. I provided all the images to the design team with my instructions. Particularly with homepage layout. Designed it myself, using the different templates Advisor Websites have. I clicked through and put together 4 different templates to make my own personalized homepage layout.

Hebert: There was a little bit of input. I gave the design team my main ideas, and they ran with it.

 

Mike Nielson Mike Nielson, CFP

 

Creveling: We used a standardized template with modifications suggested by us and our marketing team.

Nielson: Ours was more about the layout and the content. Moving this article here, or that content there, or rearranging it towards the top or in the profile. Originally, I picked out the pictures. I tried to make the pictures to personify Colorado, give it that feel.

Ritter: We had a good amount of input. We received suggestions from the Project Management team at Advisor Websites on structure, organization, and continuity.

What feedback have you received from your clients about your new website?

Ritter: Good positive feedback, we actually had two of our advisors send out an email announcing the new website re-design, which received good responses.

Nielson: Good so far. We had one client mention “Hey, you re-did it. It looks great!”

How does your attract clients - for example website, social, networking, SEO?

Creveling: We use all of these, and word of mouth, too.

Hebert: Prospecting and networking are the main ways of attracting clients. We are looking into email marketing, social, and building up SEO.

 

Heidi Hebert Heidi Hebert

 

Adi: Most of these, yes. SEO hasn’t happened yet, but it’s on our roadmap. We have plans to push that out heavily soon. Right now, we’re focusing on branding and ensuring our technology is integrated and works well together.

Nielson: I’d absolutely like to be able to digitize prospecting. It’s something we would like to implement.

How has social media factored into your marketing efforts?

Ritter: We are starting to put out social media, but so far our website is the first step towards digitization. It’s been the foundation of our initial web presence.

Hebert: We’ve actually just set up social media, time has been the major constraint for us.

What are some of our partner integrations you use on your website?

Creveling: Sharefile.

Hebert: Redtail is set up, but we have not actually used the integration yet.

Adi: We use Redtail and Mailchimp. I use those partners now. We are looking at using Riskalyze, I find it interesting. We want to explore that for our clients and as a digital prospecting tool.

 

Charles Adi Charles Adi, CFP

 

What is one thing you want to improve when it comes to your site?

Adi: My website was very custom, so there was a lot of back and forth with the project management team trying to get it right. So the little bit of headache I endured, the end product more than made up for it.

Hebert: We would like to be found again in web searches.

 

Below are all the advisors' websites:
Foresight Financial Management - Jeff Ritter

Nielson Wealth Management - Mike Nielson


Creveling & Creveling Private Wealth Advisory - Peggy Creveling


Garrison City Financial - Heidi Hebert


Blueprint 360 - Charles Adi

CEO-Graham

About Advisor Websites, A Snappy Kraken Company

Founded in 2012, we specialize in helping financial advisors stand out and grow their business online with conversion-friendly, personalized websites and targeted digital marketing solutions, all of which follow FINRA and SEC guidelines.

Disclaimer: The content of this article is for informational purposes only. If you are planning to implement a new marketing practice and are unsure what the regulations are, always contact your compliance department first.

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