WEBSITE DESIGN FOR FINANCIAL ADVISORS

The planning takes one week. The design usually takes two weeks, plus any delay due to revisions at your end. The Development takes two weeks from the time we receive your website content, written and photographic. Then a week to optimise and test, so usually between 4 to 8 weeks.

Yes this is the same for Wealth Planner Website Design or Financial Planner Website Design or financial consultant website, as the process is the same

The planning takes one week. The design usually takes two weeks, plus any delay due to revisions at your end. The Development takes two weeks from the time we receive your website content, written and photographic. Then a week to optimise and test, so usually between 4 to 8 weeks.

Do it yourself. Do it with you. or Do it for you.

Yes, if you have the time, in theory you could do it all yourself, plan, design, develop and optimise a website for your independent financial advice firm. In fact if you want to DIY the project, read our blog articles to find out how to tackle each step properly. It could be a good way to start.

Or talk to us about doing it with you, where we guide you and you do the work or even the marketing, whichever bits you want, once we write up a plan with you to give you some guidance and support.

Or we can do it all for you, whilst you focus on your own Business. In which case we need to use the new website to make you more money than you are investing with us. This is the sort of challenge we readily take on and overcome evry time. Yes, actually, we do Guarantee it. :0)

Our own team based here in Ireland, mainly Donegal. We do not offshore our work. The developers and project managers are team members on the web design agency payroll. The designers are all local and hired per project, as they all have different styles. We match the right graphic designer with your project. All website are custom designed for you individually. We do not even offshore SEO strategy, as our senior SEOs are also on the staff.

In fact, our Financial Controller and co owner Edel is a Qualified Financial Advisor.

Yes, we actually design for mobile first viewing and then make desktop work too. Mobile page load speed is very important, especially since Google introduced Web Core Vitals, as an important ranking factor since May 2021. Responsive and mobile should be a basic expectation for you.

This depends on how many services you want to promote. It could be as low as 5 and as high as you like or need. How may financial advice services do you offer? Add Home, About, Contact and News. What about a blog or a page to reference SFDR Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulations in line with Brokers Ireland. Or explain your Terms of Business as per the Brokers Ireland Compliance Manual. Add a page for Pensions advice or Mortgage advice or any other financial service that you might offer.

Every page is a sales page or a conversion page, so done well each one will generate business. However you can start low and build up, so you dictate the budget totally.

You do. We can get original written content done for you by a content writer. And we can buy photos for you too if you need them. However when it comes to Financial Advice, you are the expert. Your content on the Home page should explain:

• Do you help people like me reach my goals?
• How do you do that?
• Do you have a proven process? Show me.
• How do I know I can trust you? Show me some testimonials and case studies.

We do not sell or resell hosting. It is too important to be used as a way of making a little side profit. We recommend suitable WordPress hosting for your specic WordPress requirements. The hosting, like your domain name, should be in your name and on your credit card – much like the deeds of your house.

No, you do not. However we often recommend having one.

This is to allow you add supporting content for your main financial advice service pages. If you have a service page called Critical Illness Cover, then why not write a supporting blog article about what is required to get the best deal in Critical Illness cover in Ireland. Or what are the typical charges are in relation to Critical Illness cover.
Or explain about Insurance-Based Investment Products (IBIPs) and how you look at your customer’s ‘sustainability preferences’, especially where there might be a conflict of interest or how the IBIPs are a contract of insurance which offers a maturity or surrender value and where that maturity or surrender value is wholly or partially exposed, directly or indirectly, to market fluctuations.

Basically you can use your blog posts to show your experstise to Google and to visitors.

Yes, absolutely. Insist on this from your web design agency.

If you work with us, we will set you up as a User. And we will provide you with a Website User Manual. Plus you can book training with us as often as required. The website is a Content Management System and is designed to allow you add, edit or delete content.

Yes. Unusually for our industry, we do in fact stand over our work with a Guarantee. We are happy to have some skin in the game.

We agree targets. We even offer money back because we only take on projects where we know we can add value to Financial Advisors. We have never had to give any form of warranty refund. And why not talk to Pascal or Gwen or any of our clients.

Marketing Strategy – Create awareness in your target market of your financial advice services.

Tactics
1. Content Marketing – Ideally you want people coming to you organically. One of the best ways is to give them useful content to read, that makes them realise that you are the right Financial Advisor for them. Answer questions in detail, just like you would if someone asked you a question in the office or over the phone. Think of the money questions you get every day or regularly, as in Frequently Asked Questions. Ensure that this content is on your website, then promote it through SMM Social Media Marketing via your Social Channels, Linkedin, Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads or Google Ads PPC Pay Per Click Advertising. You can even create a Facebook Group if you want to use it as a medium to engage with existing or potential clients. Adding video is a good way to get engagement and the video can be shared or promoted or put it on your own video marketing platform in Youtube.

2. Blog – Write some useful financial guidance articles to add value to your website for visitors. Show people you know a lot about these financial products or financial services you offer clients. If you feel that you cannot write or do not have time, hire someone to create ‘original’ content for you. No boilerplate content that gets published on dozens or hundreds of financial advisory websites. Use SEO Search Engine Optimisation to help your pages and posts get found in Google search for relevant key terms. Are you featuring on page one in Google for these key terms? You can use an email Marketing Campaign to send content via a Newsletter, to inform or bring people such as existing clients to your website to read more. Can you guest blog on other financial advice websites to show your authority.

3. Niche – if you specialise in ‘Retirement Planning’, then focus any content creation on that specific area, rather than trying to write content on too many topics. Financial Planning is a vast area. What about niching further, say retirement planning for nurses or firemen or men in a certain area of Ireland and of a certain age, whatever is your best space.

4. UX/UI – With all this wonderful content you are creating, make sure that it is easy to find in your website. Usually referred to as User Experience and User Interface. All artices on any given topic can be clustered or grouped together and be easy to flow from one to another in a logical way. Your Blog may have Categories of different finance advice posts. Your service pages may be in sub navigations, to break up the content and funnel people to where they want to go.

5. CTAs – On each page or post, have a logical CTA Call to Action, such as ‘Get a FREE Quote for Life Cover’ or ‘Make an appointment with a Qualified Financial Advisor now’ or whatever is right for that page. Only have one CTA if possible to avoid confusion and help with flow.

6. Updating – when you create these pages or posts you will need to keep the financial advice up to date. And you may well think that your clients would not read 5000 words about Life Cover options, and you may well be right. However some of them will like to get the long answers to their queries. And Google will definitely like it, so they may then rank you higher than other financial advice firms for this query. This is important, if you are not ranking on page 1 in a Google search in Ireland for your key financial terms who is going to find you?

7. PPC Ads – You could spend lots of money competing with Pay Per Click advertising. This can get quick short term results as long as you pay to play and works faster than SEO which is a longer term play.

Sounds like work! Yes it is, but this way you say it once to many rather than many times to one person again and again. So this will save you time in future. And more importantly, it allows you to answer questions for potential clients, whenever they ask the questions 24/7/365. Plus it helps you get found by people who do not know you even exist yet.

The Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) is a European regulation introduced to improve transparency in the financial advice market for sustainable investment products, to prevent greenwashing and to increase transparency around sustainability claims made by financial market participants.

It imposes comprehensive sustainability disclosure requirements covering a broad range of environmental, social & governance (ESG) metrics at both entity- and product-level. The main provisions of the SFDR have been applicable as of 10 March 2021, with a statutory instrument known as a Delegated Act containing more precise disclosure standards yet to be adopted by the European Commission. The SFDR is a fundamental pillar of the EU Sustainable Finance agenda, having been introduced by the European Commission as a core part of its 2018 Sustainable Finance Action Plan, which also include the Taxonomy Regulation and the Low Carbon Benchmarks Regulation.

Read the full details from 2019 at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32019R2088&from=EN in the Official Journal of the European Union.

What are the Sfdr classifications?
SFDR product classifications fall under 3 categories: Article 8, Article 9 and ‘Other. ‘ Article 8 and Article 9 products consider sustainability in a binding way. Article 8 products promote social and or environmental characteristics whilst Article 9 products have a sustainable objective.

Who does SFDR apply to?
The SFDR regulation applies to FMPs such as investment firms, pension funds, asset managers, insurance companies, banks, venture capital funds, credit institutions offering portfolio management, or financial advisors.

Who needs to report under SFDR?
SFDR Level 1 requires financial institutions within the European Union or marketing to EU investors, to make principles-based disclosures on ESG Environmental, Social and Governance related activity. Firms must report not only on the sectors they invest in, but also on their portfolio companies. And SFDR disclosures are not limited to marketing materials. Private and Corporate investors apply these non-financial factors, more and more every year as part of their own analysis process to identify material risks and growth opportunities.

What are Environmental, Social and Governance financial products?
ESG funds are portfolios of equities and/or bonds for which environmental, social and governance factors have been integrated into the investment process. This means the equities and bonds contained in the fund have passed stringent tests over how sustainable the company or government is regarding its ESG criteria of its use of or dependence on fossil fuels, its use or management of water and other resources and its pollution levels.

What is ESG or Environmental, Social and Governance marketing?
Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Marketing is based on the ESG criteria. The aim of these criteria is to help consumers and investors to get in touch with products and companies that demonstrate similar values to their own.

What is YMYL Your Money Your Life? And how does it affect Financial Advisors websites?

Any website that sells a product or provides a service or even just information that can be deemed to impact someones ‘financial wellbeing’ or ‘financial safety’ and their ‘happiness’ or their ‘health’, can be classified or categorised by Google as YMYL “Your Money or Your Life”.

The very definition of the service you as a Financial Advisor provides means that your content could be so classified. Bear in mind this is a ‘topic’ so it is not just a page, but rather the whole website that gets classified as YMYL. One page or post could classify you in this category. It is not necessarily a bad thing or even something that you can avoid. However, you do need to be so careful about what you write or post in your website.

As the CEO you are responsible for anything posted by other members of the financial services team or your digital marketer, so do check your website content regularly. Talk to your Search Engine Optimisation team about what content to create, which financial advice to give and how to display it, as well as link to it. Your SEO can tell you if your website is affected positively or negatively by the content you are posting, which might be considered YMYL.

There are ways that you can use your website to recruit Qualified Financial Advisory staff?

1. Post a Position or job vacancy for a Financial Advisor or Mortgage Broker etc on your website.

2. Give as much detail as you can in the job description. Include details of the post, the workplace, the team, the type of clients you deal with, the salary range on offer and any other bonuses or targets etc. You cannot give too much information, so keep typing until you run out of ideas. Let the reader know what it would be like to work with you and your team. Make the reader feel welcome and show them how good the position is. Sell it as if you were talking to someone who answered an advertisement for the job.

3. Optimise the page so that it can rank in Google search. This could save you a fortune in recruitment agency fees. Get your web design agency or SEO to do this if you do not know how to do it.

4. Use the link to this post and paste it in to Facebook and Boost it if you like to whichever demographic or geographic area you want to target.

5. Use the content of this post and paste it in to your Google Business Profile.

6. Use the link to this post and paste it in to Linkedin and promote it if you want to try a small spend. Bear in mind that Linkedin is expensive.

7. Use the content of this page to do an advert on your local digital news website and include the hyperlink to this post in your website.

8. Create a blog post about working as a QFA or how to become a QFA. Answer as many questions as you can.

9. Post the details in any Financial Advisors ‘Groups’ in Facebook or Linkedin or any ‘Forums’ that you may belong to.

10. Create a poll in Linkedin and ask people what would make them choose a particular Financial Advisory firm to work with.

We ‘Custom Design’ your website design for your target clients. We can work with your graphic designers if they design for web. Or we can have the design created by our own local talented web designers. Remember the adage ‘simplicity scales and fancy fails’, so do not get too caught up in getting a design that could win an award for aesthetics, unless you have a 5* property and a 5* budget. Winning design awards does not necessarily win you business. We need to design for your specific audience and for both desktop and mobile interaction.

Yes. We are a 100% WordPress open-source web design agency. We do not work with Wix, Weebly, Squarespace, Shopify, or any other ‘locked’ proprietary platforms.

CMS Content Management System – everything a business website needs

What Does a Good Business Website Cost?

Every website project is different, so talk to us about yours, so that we can give you a proper quote. Expect to pay about €250 per page to €350 depending on which services are required plus any custom design. Any less and you have to wonder if the web guy knows what he or she is doing. Imagine a doctor giving you a prescription, before doing a diagnosis, based on a consultation. See the details of the full website costs.

At a minimum, you want a Content Management System, plus Initial Content Entry for the first 10, 20 or so pages, (add unlimited pages yourself later), Attachment Management, Image Manager, Image Gallery, SEO Tools, Google Maps, YouTube, Preview Mode, Query Form, User Manual and/or training, Website Statistics/Analytics, plus Custom Website Design, if you have the budget for it.

Monthly Support & Maintenance or SEO Options if required:

A. CMS – Agree on a set monthly plan to cover website updates, security patches, server support, and any plugin updates, etc.
B. Ad Hoc hourly rates to cover site, server support, and any edit requests, etc. Monthly Support Deals Optional Business Website extras – agree on an hourly rate with your web partners for these: Website Content Editing or creation New Web Page to Website – Free if done by you SEF – to make a page Search Engine Friendly Image – produce, resized, insert Downloads – Add to articles Google Map – FREE and recommended YouTube Video – produce, resized, insert SEO – Optimise the website to get to your targeted market.
C. Ongoing SEO Services

Optional Business Website items or add ons offered

• • Content Creation – do you want us to write it for you
  • Content editing – can you edit your own text
  • SEF – making pages Search Engine Friendly
  • Image – Producing, sizing, and adding to the website
  • Downloads – any pdfs, guides, ebooks, etc
  • Google Map – adding location pins
  • YouTube Video – adding and optimising video
  • Google Analytics – set up reporting in Dashboard
  • Google Business Profile – We can set this up or optimise it for you

If required, we can also refer Clients to industry Specialised SEO or Online Digital Marketing specialists for Enterprise eCommerce sites. Or we can use our tools to drive your business and get higher conversion rates. Good ‘Independent’ honest advice for you, is our way of doing things – no exceptions.

Business Website Design Checklist & Layout Plan

The planning takes one week. The design usually takes two weeks, plus any delay due to revisions at your end. The Development takes two weeks from the time we receive your website content, written and photographic. Then a week to optimise and test, so usually between 4 to 8 weeks.

Everybody asks how quickly can my website be built. Our answer is “Once we have all your content in Dropbox and you have signed off on this final content. We can schedule your website, which will be built in one week. We will schedule that within the forthcoming four weeks. So the website will take one week to be developed by the team and it will be done within a month of having all the content ready. “
Does that make sense do you?

CMS Business Website Design Costs Explained

At a very basic level, anyone who can use a computer, can ‘build’ a website. Much like anyone with a calculator can add, it does not make them an Accountant. Anyone who can get flour is not necessarily a baker or a good baker.

If you choose a website designer, based on getting a low price, you will end up doing it all over again in the future. If someone has a set price, before they get to know about your project in detail, walk away. No, run away.
Remember that you are looking for a website that will deliver results, such as more sales or enquiries. If you make the wrong decision, you may reduce the initial investment, but it will cost you opportunity.

Imagine a doctor giving you a prescription, before doing a diagnosis, based on a consultation – that is malpractice.

Every website project is different, so talk to us about yours, so that we can give you a proper quote. Expect to invest from €250 to €350 per page depending on which modules are required – Get a Free quote now.

You probably want this website to be your online salesperson, how much would you expect to pay a salesperson?

Results – Your website needs to do a lot more than look good or just be there, it needs to get found by Google and convert visitors to customers. Pick a web design agency team who can prove that they have done this for other firms in your sector.

Support – Lastly, pick an agency who will be there to support you when you need help again, next month or next year. Ensure the agency you choose has staying power, has been around for years and look like they will be there for you in the future, even if some of their team members change over the years.

Our own team is based here in Ireland, mainly in Donegal. We do not offshore our work. The developers and project managers are team members on the web design agency payroll. The designers are all local and hired per project, as they all have different styles. We match the right graphic designer with your project. All websites are custom designed for you individually. We do not even offshore SEO, as our SEOs are also on the staff.

Yes, we actually design for the mobile-first viewing and then make desktop work too. Mobile page load speed is very important, especially since Google introduced Web Core Vitals, as an important ranking factor in May 2021.

This depends on how many services or products you want to promote. It could be as low as 5 and as high as you like or need. How many services do you offer? Add Home, About, Contact, and News.

You do. You can give us written content about your firm and your services. Likewise send us original photos or engage a photographer to create some new photos of you, your team and your premises. Don not worry about how well written it is. We can make it look well and optimise it.
Likewise, we can get written content done for you by a writer. And we can buy photos for you too if you need them.
But we do guide you through all this, step by step, as we have done with hundreds of clients in the past.

We do not sell or resell hosting. It is too important to be used as a way of making a little side profit. We recommend suitable WordPress hosting for your specic WordPress requirements. The hosting, like your domain name, should be in your name and on your credit card – much like the deeds of your house.

No, you do not. However we often recommend having one. This is to allow you add supporting content for your main service pages. If you have a service page called Conveyancing, then why not write a supporting blog article about what is required to get conveyancing done. Or what are the typical charges are in relation to conveyancing.

Yes, absolutely. We will set you up as a User. And we will provide you with a Website User Manual. Plus you can book training with us as often as required. The website is a Content Management System and is designed to allow you to add, edit or delete content.

We are a web design agency with a team of people and we have someone to replace everyone. If one of us gets knocked down, you will stil be in good hands.

If you get knocked down, we will be available to train up your replacement in how to use the website.

FREE Google tool to Test Your Website – Google PageSpeed Insights (PSI).

How good a job did your web developers do on your website? Do not take their word for it, run this FREE Google test, to find out for yourself.

Google PageSpeed Insights (PSI) is a FREE tool from Google. It tests your website and then gives you a report on the technical performance of a given page on both mobile and desktop devices. On top of that, it then provides suggestions on how this particular page can be enhanced. Page Speed Insights or PSI is useful for capturing true, real-world user experience.

The results do two things. Firstly, it gives you a score out of 100 for your mobile and for your Desktop versions of your website. On top of that, the report gives you all the data you need to improve your score, by improving your website.

Does this affect your search engine rankings – yes it does. Keep working on your website to get a score as close to 100 as you can. At least get it into the Green zone, scoring 89 or above.

This tool gives you control. Now you can see how Google sees your website. And it is FREE.

Yes. You post your website videos on Youtube or Vimeo and we use the links or embed code to make them appear on your website. We do recommend using good-quality video for your website and social channels like Facebook and Linkedin.

Yes. Unusually for our industry, we do in fact stand over our work. We agree targets. We even offer money back because we only take on projects where we know we can add value. We have never had to give any form of warranty refund.

Imagine we are having a conversation three years from now. And you are very happy with your progress. What needs to have happened in order for you to be that happy?

No. Website hosting and email hosting are two different things. Or they should be. You could set up email on your website hosting. But if the website is offline for a few days you will survive. Having your email services down for a few days is much more stressful.

We recommend you get your IT guys to set you up on AWS or GSuite or now Google Workspace, Outlook, or Microsoft Office. eMail is usually critical to a business.

Very important question. If you have a website already, it is critical to bring over any Google history to the new website. This is so valuable, so we make the most of it. 301 redirects may have to be done. Getting is wrong is common place and can be very expensive in lost sales.

Outside City Hall, Dublin

No. Google does not allow for that.  Otherwise, everybody would be at it. However, a good SEO specialist should have an idea of how they can do it. This is still a wild guess until the first few months have been done.

Yes, we will submit a Sitemap to Google to let them know your website is live, including all of its individual pages. If someone searches your domain, you will be found. If they search your trading or company name you will be found within a few weeks. It does take time to rank on the top pages. That is an SEO or Search Engine Optimisation issue. You may engage us to work on your SEO or you may engage someone else or even do it yourself if you feel you have the skills. Where you do rank will depend on your SEO and your competition and how good they are at SEO.

This depends on what you ask us to do. We can make the pages of your website search engine friendly. We can work on optimising your website for agreed key terms or phrases. We can even do the research on your behalf to determine the best key terms to optimise for your case.
We will submit a Sitemap to Google to let them know your website is live, including all of its individual pages. If someone searches your domain, you will be found. If they search your trading or company name you will be found within a few weeks. It does take time to rank on the top most pages. That is an SEO or Search Engine Optimisation issue. You may engage us to work on your SEO may engage someone else or even do it yourself if you feel you have the skills. Where you rank will depend on your competition and how good they are at SEO.

This is a very common question. The truth is that this varies depending on the competitiveness of your key terms or words or your industry. And how well your competitors in the Leinster region do their Search Engine Optimisation. Nobody can honestly guarantee you a Page 1 ranking for Dublin or Ireland. However, a good SEO might give you an indication after the first month or two. It depends on how competitive your business is in search. As any golfer in Portmarnock or Luttrellstown or Druids Glen would tell you, it is all about playing the course in front of you on any given day