If you are building your own website, maybe with WIX are some other “Free” there may be things clients hate about your website. A look of professionalism and consistensy is crucial. If your website looks like a template or that you have phoned it in, clients will notice. There is not substitute for hard work and the sense that you put some real effort into it. That being said, people want answers fast so get to point quickly. As Tom Petty says “don’t bore us, get to the chorus!”

Here are some not so obvious no-no’s:

TOO MUCH TEXT

If you feel the need to tell your companies history, keep it off the landing page. The motivation to read the “about us” page may be directly related to the amount of money they could be spending. Be concise. You have around 8 seconds to capture your audience. Potential clients are asking “Am I at the right place?” or “Do they have the product I need?” and all importantly “How much does it cost?” More text does NOT equal more value.

MAKE NO ASSUMPTIONS

It takes forethought to organize a website. You can’t make every link to every page available on your homepage. That results in too much clutter. Your visitors will stall when they confront the ocean of poorly laid out choices in front of them.

Before a single word or link is put on a page, think about how much content you have. Think about how they are related to one another. Once you have pages associated with their respective category (e.g. resources, taxes, investments, etc.) you or your web developer can think about how to organize it all throughout your website. Not only does thoughtful organization help you show search engines you mean business, it makes it easy for people to find out what they need to know in order to give you their business.

3. LACK OF PERSONALITY

Pay attention to how you come across with your written material. Do the words you use convey anything about how dedicated, skilled, or personable you are? Take some time to craft a brief message which outlines your mission, highlights your story, and shows others you’re the business are looking for.

List of your services and credentials isn’t enough. In the end, people choose to work with YOU, not a spec sheet. You are in the people business; we all are.

4. HIDDEN CONTACT INFO

A prospect is ready to call or email you. Now what? Don’t make them search for this information for too long. It’s not a scavenger hunt. People are conditioned to look up and to the right of a website for a number, they look for a “Contact Us” link, or for address info near the sides or bottom of the page.

If it takes people more than 2 or 3 seconds to find something as simple as your contact information, they will get frustrated. They might even leave because it’s far too easy to go back to Google and look up someone else who has their contact information where it should be.

5. NO WAY TO GET LEADS

In addition to emails, calls or walk-ins, make sure to provide a way for prospects to start a dialogue with you.

Start with a simple form.

Don’t give your prospects too many fields to fill out or options to choose from. You’re not trying to hard sell them on working with you, so make it personable. You can include a form which encourages prospects to ask you a question, or have them sign up for a weekly/monthly email newsletter.

6. VALUELESS CONTENT

It is a failing strategy to create content for the sake of gaming the system. The internet is littered with garbage people have published in the hopes that the “right words” will trigger better rankings in Google, Yahoo, or Bing, etc.

It is important to use relevant words that people are searching for…but do it naturally. You are the defacto expert in your field so talk about what you know. Educate!

Believe it or not, the software that powers search engines is getting much better at separating filler content, and at detecting what people will find interesting or useful.

Before you hit that publish button, ask yourself what kind of value you are providing. If you don’t care about what you’re publishing, you shouldn’t expect anyone else to.

7. INCONSISTENT BRANDING

Don’t let your website say this about you: “Inconsistent!”

Most advisors stay on brand when it comes to their brochures and print collateral, but they miss the mark when it comes to a website. Having your business name and logo present isn’t enough. The color scheme, font choice, and tone of the message should all align with your brand.

Remember, all of your marketing needs to be able to represent your firm and sell for you when you’re not there to do it in person.

And you want your efforts to be impressive, both online and offline. Keep it consistent.

8. NO SIGN OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Linking to your social media profiles from your website provides multiple benefits. First, the obvious: It lets people click through and engage with you via their preferred channel.

Additionally, these links serve as badges that boost your credibility. They send signals to clients and prospects that you have a modern practice and are up-to-date with technology. There is a lot more to say about social media, but we will cover this in greater detail soon.

9. NO IMAGES OF REAL PEOPLE

Do you agree that trust is a big deal when it comes to our industry?

Imagine this: Someone is looking into you and your firm. They arrive on your site, and not a single image of you or your team is available. To make matters worse, they see images of people, but they’re generic images of models in business attire. You might see this as a functional way to make your page content look better.

A prospect, on the other hand, may feel like you’re being disingenuous…or that you were too lazy (or cheap) to get professional images taken of you and your staff. Don’t risk damaging your credibility this way.

10. OUT-OF-DATE CONTENT

It can be embarrassing when your website features something prominent like “You should be on Facebook” People see stale content like this and will be less comfortable about contacting you. “If the website is this out-of-date,” they think to themselves, “then they’re probably not that current in other areas.” Make sure your content is current. Blogging is key. Engage your potential clients.