Is Your Website Working for You?

By Matt Peterson, Make It a Great Day, Inc.

A Website Development Guide for Financial Advisors

Under The Hood (Technology) Web 2.0 means different things to different peo-ple. For me, it’s the powerful combination of accessibility, flexibility, and design. You might start with a marketing website and then add on an integrated blog, client portal, social network-ing integration, custom forms, and more. It's simply able to grow with the ever changing Web environment and your business needs. NO Frames! (Accessibility) One of the biggest problems with framed web-sites (and sites that are built on tables) is that

they look different across browsers and mobile devices. Meaning your site might not look the same in Internet Explorer (IE), Firefox, Chrome, or Safari. Nor might it display correctly on an iPhone or Blackberry. And we all know that not every investor uses Internet Explorer, like most advisors do. In fact, in March of 2010, 46.2% of all Internet users were using the Firefox browser and only 15.3% were using IE8. You might want to install the latest version to see what your company site looks like. Find a developer that uses the (latest) "Tableless CSS" design method. These sites utilize absolute positioning and cascade style sheets to ensure accurate design and consistent layout across browsers and mobile devices. NOTE: Framed sites also tend to produce a large amount of code which can increase loading time and decrease search engine ranking positions (SERP). Content Management, Compliance, and Back Up Features Make sure these things are happening automatically on your site. • Content Management Platform (easy to use) • Content Version Archiving - If you make a change to a page on your site.

The previous version(s) are saved/archived in the database.

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• Manual Backup Option - Our sites let advisors backup their site manually and download the zipped (compressed) file to their local computer (optional).

• Daily Automatic Backup on the Server • Data Center Reliability Layout (Design) Often times I'll see sites that are designed by advisors for advisors. This is great if you are trying to attract industry professionals. But not if you are trying to appeal to the common investor or make life easy for your clients. Design your site from the prospective of your… Prospects (target market or niche) Because information is so easily accessible within many different online mediums (sites, searches, videos, maps, social networking, forums, and more) your site's lay-out is key. When viewers hit your site for the first time, they need to know who you are, what you do, and how you can help them within about seven seconds! My Formula Use Headers & Bullets (for scanning viewers) + Whitespace & Modules (for separa-tion) + A Call To Action = Better lead generation opportunities. Try these two tests that I use on client sites, on your website: My 7 Foot Test 1. Pull your website up on your computer. 2. Stand seven feet away from your computer screen. 3. Can you easily identify WHO, WHAT, WHY? My 7 Second Test 1. Find someone who has not seen your website. (A neighbor over for a BBQ is

always a good choice.) 2. Pull up your website for seven seconds and then close it. 3. Now ask him/her... What did you see or learn about our firm? Clients Your clients usually return to your site for… 1. Account Info & Reports - Link to account access logins / client portals and make

it easy for clients to find. Train your clients to go to your site for all their needs (even if you are linking to external sites).

2. Articles & Newsletters - More advisors are beginning to display these in a "blog style" format. Clients can then subscribe to an RSS feed, so they get automati-cally notified every time a new article is added to the site.

3. Forms & Contact Info - Make it easy for clients to find your contact info. A con-tact form is always better than an email addresses on your website (this will re-duce your spam). More and more advisors are now posting their custodian forms on their website to make it easy for clients.

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Marketing Your Site Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Meta Data It's important to add a site description and keywords from a global (site wide) per-spective. And now many platforms (like ours) allow you to add them at the page level as well. 1. Descriptions - The maximum number of characters is 25-30. Google will cut off

anything more than that in search results. So keep it less than 25-30. And be sure to keep the content relevant to the site and/or page topic.

2. Keywords - The thing that most people don't realize is that you can be black-listed for (a) using too many keywords (spamming) or (b) using keywords that are not relevant to your site/page topic. So stick with a handful (3-12) of key-words for each page.

Not sure which keywords are the most popular among searchers? Go to Google and search for "keyword tool." The adwords external keyword tools works the best. Title Tags Your website platform should dynamically make these things happen automatically. If not, make sure your website developer does them for you. 1. In the Browser - Your page title should show up in the top of your browser. This tells you that your title tag (keyword) is setup for that page.

2. In the URL (Clean URLs) - We've all seen URLs like [index.php?

option=article&id=43&Itemid=43].

Not good for SEO. Where are the page titles (keywords)? Make sure your site URLs are "clean" (easy to read), with keywords for search engine spiders. 3. Page Titles are Links - Ever notice that all of the page/blog titles within all of our client websites are links? Shh... Google spiders rank linked keywords higher that text (non-linked) keywords in content.

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NOTE: It also can't hurt to link keywords in the main body of your pages to other internal pages of your website. Inbound Links The more popular external sites that link to your site the better. This tells Google that your site must be important if other popular sites are linking to it. I've created a simple program here to help advisors increase inbound links to their sites. Submitting Your Site XML Sitemap Your website developer should create an XML sitemap for your website and submit it to the three major search engines. This gives you control over "what" and "how often" search engine spiders access your site. Example XML Sitemap. You can also do it yourself. 1. Generate a sitemap. 2. Submit your domain and site to Google, Yahoo, and Bing. 140+ Directories The Open Directory Project (ODP), also known as Dmoz , is an open content direc-tory of World Wide Web links. It is owned by Netscape, but it is constructed and maintained by a community of volunteer editors. ODP uses a hierarchical ontology scheme for organizing site listings. Listings on a similar topic are grouped into cate-gories, which can then include smaller categories. The ODP powers core directory services for some the most popular portals and search engines on the Web, includ-ing AOL Search, Netscape Search, Google, Lycos, and HotBot, and hundreds of others. More... It's most effective to apply your listing by Regional > US > State > Business & Econ-omy > Financial Services. Then click "Suggest URL" (upper right corner) and submit your site. Local Listings (Map Sites)

Ever notice that when you do a Google search for a service, a list of map locations appears at the top? Try it! Do a search for "financial advisor". Google knows your location and shows all the top rated financial advisors closest to you. Get your site listed today and be sure to (a) list your services (popular keywords) and (b) link back to your website (inbound link). Watch the Video. • Google Local • Yahoo! Local • Bing Local Social Networking Many advisors are reluctant to try social networking. Whether because of the compli-ance factor or the perception of time lost or the learning curve involved. My recom-mendation is to give it a shot!

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• Just by pasting in your company profile and linking it to your site, you are taking ad-vantage of these powerful inbound links.

• Build credibility with savvy, high net worth investors. In December 2009 there were over 307 million users on social networking sites. (Source: Quantcast)

• Create a profile on LinkedIn and connect with your "A" clients. Then promote your annual "client appreciation dinner" and see what happens.

• Use Twitter like short and quick email campaigns. Link to things that build credibility. • Compliance: Easily archive all your social networking communications using Social-

Ware.com Pay Per Click (AdWords) Most advisors are not buying into pay-per-click marketing, [yet]! Please understand that this is truly the only way to guarantee search engine placement. And now with the re-cent addition of local campaigns, advisors are able to target local regions within their adwords campaigns. My advice? Save money and increase traffic by jumping on this before every other advisor does. Because I think they will. And when they do, you'll be paying more for popular keywords (as demand goes up). Watch this video. Website Stats Harness the power of Google Analytics (free) stats for your site. It's much more than the number of hits and popular pages. By Adding Google Analytics to your site, you can also see the major cities from which your hits are coming. You can also find out which keywords are being entered into Google to find your site. Our clients receive monthly email reports which can also be easily set up inside of Google Analytics. If your site is not set up, simply create a free account and send the code to your webmaster. Sources: Browser Stats: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp Firefox Browser: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/personal.html Keyword Tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal Create Inbound Links: http://www.miagd.com/resources/blog/1-latest-news/167-got-stepping-stones-to-your-site.html Sample XML Sitemap: http://www.selectadvisors.com/index.php?option=com_xmap&sitemap=1&view=xml Find a Sitemap Generator: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=sitemap+generator&aq=0&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=sitemap+g&gs_rfai=&fp=caec63d5ff72707a Open Directory Project: http://www.dmoz.org Social Networking Archiving: http://www.socialware.com/ AdWords Videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TqVPoLg3sE&feature=PlayList&p=ED3C71CD18F14C56&playnext_from=PL&index=0&playnext=1 Google Analytics: http://www.google.com/analytics/