Sponge Project Blog ~ Web design in Tewkesbury

I’ve worked in financial services with or for financial advisers for over 10 years and have seen a lot of different websites - both good and bad. However the vast majority of websites fail to achieve what their owners want and so the service that provided the mechanism is blamed. However I’d like to help dispel the myth that all financial adviser DIY website solutions are bad - the blame invariably rests with the website owner. Now not all DIY solutions are great, many are absolute rubbish but as the age old adage goes: A bad workman blames his tools.

So, to help financial advisers from falling into the trap of web mediocrity, I’ve complied a list of top ten tips broken into three categories: Getting started; Building the website; and Launching and maintaining the website. Essentially ten things to do or not to do if you want your website to be a success.

Getting started

1. Have clear objectives - the most critical thing you can do before anything else is sit down and think through what you want the website to do. Without this your website will end up mis-guided and useless to clients. Treat this process as a fact find if you like: interview yourself, colleagues and some clients to establish what they want from a website. Not only will this help you find the right solution, it will help analyse the success of hiring a 3rd party.
2. Plan - having a robust plan will enable you to stick to a suitable time line and give you a target date to focus on. Many website start in well-meaning ways but due to a lack of a plan end up taking too long or even abandoned. Even if you don’t hit the target date, having a plan allows you to manage your time to ensure you get a quality end result.
3. Hire a designer/developer - invariably many DIY websites fall foul and end up looking bland and uninspired. Spend the money and get a proper designer/developer in who knows about these things and can advise you on the best course of action. They can also advise on the best CMS for your needs allowing you to self-manage the website after launch.
4. Reliable hosting - nothing puts people off more than a flaky website. If a client relies on you and your site for key financial information and it’s down, you’ve blown your chances and potentially affected the overall relationship. I’d highly recommend NuBlue hosting, who provide really good hosting and support for this site.



Building the website

5. Make it accessible - part of the brief to your designer, in addition to the objectives, should be to make the website accessible to as many people as possible. Not only is there a legal requirement to do so under the Disabilities Discriminations Act (DDA) here in the UK, but you’ll feel good about yourself, give your business a good image and also increase your potential revenues as you’re accessing more customers.
6. Write clear content - try to avoid jargon and abbreviations. I know this industry is guilty of jargonising (is that a word?) and abbreviating everything into meaningless letters or phrases, but just because you and I know that AMC stands for Annual Management Charge and what it means, doesn’t necessarily mean your clients will too. Use glossaries and abbreviations in the right context or explain as you write. Also chunk your content appropriately. People don’t read huge swathes of text, they tend to skim. So in response you should write engaging copy and then “slice” it into digestible chunks, thereby helping your customers to learn and encouraging them to read it all.
7. Limit or avoid adverts - there’s a temptation to monetise your website as soon as it’s up and running with random text adverts from Google Adsense. This just detracts from what you’re trying to achieve, which is getting people to become to stay clients of yours and keep them informed and reassured. If you are going to advertise something make sure it’s relevant and in-keeping. By all means run a seasonal campaign that targets ISA customers, but don’t stick an advert for tractors because they pay you ?10 per click.
8. Use images - a picture paints a thousand words and boy does that ring true on a website. Particularly so in financial services where some complex terms need to be explain. Use graphs. Use tables. Use pictures of happy people smiling at the camera. If it helps gets the point across then use a picture, but only if it helps gets the point across.



Launching and maintaining the website

9. Tell people - you’ve spent the money so make sure you get a return. Stick it on your business card, on your answerphone, on your car, in your window, on your email signature, on your brochure or? company literature…basically anywhere a client or prospective client is going to see it.
10. Keep it up-to-date - the cardinal sin is to build a website and leave it to gather dust. Compliance issues aside, regularly updated content keeps people coming back to your site. It also helps with search engine rankings who rate newer and more regularly updated content above old, stale content.

So that’s my 10 ten things to do or to avoid when building a financial adviser website. There are many more hints and tips that I could offer so feel free to comment if you have any more.

Images courtesy of net_efekt, Steve Sawyer and jurvetson.