12 reasons Why your website is not bringing you leads & how to fix them

So, here’s a statistic. 8 out of 10 leads that we get are through our website www.ifanow.com. I have over period reviewed websites of lot of financial advisors in India. I see few mistakes a lot of these sites make and have drawn a conclusion:

These websites are not helping these advisors get enough leads. Ask yourself, is your website in the same category?

What’s the main reason behind a website? If you think the main reason why your website exists is because other financial advisors have it, then don’t read any further. Else, I believe, you probably want your website to help you increase your business but somehow hasn’t.

The purpose of this post is to list down those critical factors that can help you generate leads. Go back and identify if your website lacks on any of these parameters and start working on it right away.

1. It was never meant for lead generation:

Most of the financial advisor websites I see here are created by a handful of vendors. Now, the mandate given to them or given by them was to create a corporate brochure rather than an active lead generating machine. As such, there is a fundamental design flaw. In other cases, it has been created by some creative agencies who do not really understand the science of online marketing.

I hear advisors telling me “but we do have a ‘contact us’ section.” But ask yourself, is that brining you leads?

2. No call to action buttons:

Ask yourself the question? When a visitor comes to your site, what is the end goal you have? Is it making him do that?

E.g. if your primary goal is to “contact me” is that the main “call to action” on your home page? Or are there 10 other things he can possibly do? If yes, these 10 other buttons are competing with your primary goals of “contact me”.

Let’s look at an example of a site called www.mint.com. Their primary call to action is to make users to sign up. Looking at the image below, can we derive that the users can clearly do that?

Try going to any page on www.mint.com. You will see the same Sign up button everywhere. You never know, when a user will be prompted to contact you. At that point, he should be able to quickly contact. In your case it could be something like “Contact us for a free consultation” or “Setup an appointment Now”.

3. No or inactive blog:

A blog is a real good reason to keep updating your prospects about who you are and what you do without being too sales’ish. If you have a list of prospects with their e-mail IDs, it is a good idea to put them in your regular mailing list and keep sending them links to your latest blog.

They won’t convert right away, but probably if they keep reading you, some day they will contact you.

4. No team profile:

I fail to understand why should a website not have the financial advisor’s profile? For a service industry like ours, it is even more important that the website visitors know who they are going to be dealing with. They expect a team/people section on your website and want to know the people whom they will trust their money with. Without that, I’m afraid the lead conversion will be very low.

5. No clear service offering:

I see a lot of website just writing basic stuff about certain products like Life Insurance/Mutual Funds etc. Your website visitors need more precise information. What is your offering? Can you productize the service, and price it?

So instead of writing generic stuff about financial products you are rather creating content that the client can relate to. E.g. talk about services like Complete portfolio review, Tax planning and filing, comprehensive insurance planning, comprehensive financial planning, financial planning for single women etc.

6. Pricing is not clear:

If the pricing is set up front and the leads still contact you, you can be rest assured that they are dead serious about your offering. What it also does is that it shows them that you are transparent about your revenues.

In above case, it makes sense to price those offerings E.g. Tax planning and filing could be priced attractively at Rs.1,999 or a comprehensive financial plan could be priced at Rs.9,999 etc. You may have your own pricing which could be a certain % of the asset under advice. Whatever it is, be clear and upfront.

7. No testimonials:

A financial advisor’s website without client testimonials and real faces will not generate enough emotions. You need to have a great testimonials page with real photos of the client’s family. Create a couple of client stories rather than just a few lines of testimonials. That will create a more engaging content and visitors will be able to relate to it.

8. No use of trust marks:

Remember when you are about to transact on an e-commerce site or make a payment towards your utility bill online? It will always have trust marks like Verisign Secure, 256-bit encryption etc. etc. The idea is to build trust in the mind of the website visitors that is it safe to transact here.

In our case, we can use things like CFP certification image or IRDA/SEBI/AMFI license registration number on the footer of the home page. It just builds some sort of trust.

9. No contact details:

This is such a basic thing but if it is prominently placed on all pages it just makes the client feel that this company is just a call away and will provoke them to pick up the phone and call you up.

10. Lack of forms on every page:

If your primary goal is to make the client “Contact for a free consultation” or “Setup an appointment” then put up a small form on all pages that asks them to do exactly that. Somewhere on the left of right bar or at the bottom. Do not make the form too lengthy. Just Name, Phone, Email address and, if required, a message field. If it’s there, it will be on the back of the visitor’s mind to try and contact you, else it won’t be!

11. It is just not active:

Most of the time, the content is not updated for years. That’s a stale site. Look at your site and see if that is the case. Here are things you can do:

• You organized a workshop? Put up photos.
• You have created an e-book? Why not let the users download it for free? But only before they part with their information.
• Embed your twitter or facebook feed if you are active there.

12. Not optimized for search engine:

Making your website rank in search engines is a vast topic and beyond the scope of this post. But what you can do ask your website agency is whether the basic SEO is there in place or not. The following things should be there: a sitemap, proper URL structure, page title, meta description.

Conclusion:

Remember, none of these points in isolation will bring you leads. It is when most of these points are working in tandem that they create an overall impact and lead visitors into leads.

Have you tried any other ideas on your website which has got you lots of leads? Do share in the comment section below.