What Should a Financial Advisor Website Include?
Three advisory sites in any town are indistinguishable. Here is what actually separates one of them.
Look at three advisory websites in your area and the experience is almost always the same. A photograph of a couple on a beach, language about goals and peace of mind, and an invitation to schedule a conversation.
A prospective client cannot distinguish between them, so they default to whoever was recommended. Which means the whole category has effectively handed the decision to the referral network.
What separates a site here is specificity and honesty about how the relationship works. Both are permitted, both are rare, and both are easier to get through review than persuasion is.
This is general marketing information, not compliance guidance. Requirements differ by registration type, firm and jurisdiction. Confirm anything in this area with your compliance function before acting on it.
Describe who the practice serves
Individuals and families tells a reader nothing. Everybody says it.
A defined group says something: people approaching retirement from a particular industry, households navigating equity compensation, business owners planning an exit, families managing an inheritance.
Prospective clients are not comparing investment philosophies. They are asking whether you have sat across from someone in their exact situation before.
Describe the situation rather than a demographic. Pre-retirees is half the market. Households with concentrated stock positions approaching a liquidity event is a situation with specific problems you can name.
Specificity attracts better-fit prospects and reduces the enquiries you will decline, which matters for a practice limited by adviser capacity rather than by demand.
Put it in the first screen rather than on a separate page.
This is general marketing information, not compliance guidance. Requirements differ by registration type, firm and jurisdiction. Confirm anything in this area with your compliance function before acting on it.
Be explicit about how you are compensated
This is the most searched and least answered question in the category, and a meaningful share of prospects screen on it before making contact.
Describe the model plainly, and explain what it means for the client in a sentence or two rather than only naming the structure. The public understanding of these distinctions has improved considerably, and a practice that does not address it is often eliminated before a conversation happens.
Put it somewhere findable rather than only in a disclosure document. Being locatable is the point.
Avoid characterizing other models. Comparative claims about how other advisers are paid are a common source of problems and rarely necessary to make your own position clear.
How compensation must be described, and what disclosures accompany it, depends on registration type and firm policy. Draft it and have it reviewed rather than publishing and revising.
This is general marketing information, not compliance guidance. Requirements differ by registration type, firm and jurisdiction. Confirm anything in this area with your compliance function before acting on it.
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State any minimum
An account or planning minimum is not unfriendly. It is respectful of the reader's time and it signals a practice with a defined shape.
Stating it prevents conversations that cannot proceed, on both sides. Someone below the threshold discovers it on the website rather than after a meeting, and you stop fielding enquiries that end awkwardly.
Some practices state a minimum for ongoing asset management while offering standalone planning at a fee for people below it. That serves a wider market without diluting the core service, and it can be a useful path for younger clients who will later qualify.
If a firm minimum applies rather than a personal one, say so plainly rather than implying discretion you do not have.
How a minimum is characterized can carry implications about the nature of the engagement, so have the wording reviewed.
This is general marketing information, not compliance guidance. Requirements differ by registration type, firm and jurisdiction. Confirm anything in this area with your compliance function before acting on it.
Show the people properly
Prospective clients are choosing a person they will speak to for years, often about the most private part of their lives.
Real photographs of the actual team, names, credentials, and one line each on what they handle. Not stock imagery.
Say what a credential means in one line, because most prospective clients recognize the letters without knowing the standard behind them. That single sentence does more than the acronym.
Include genuine professional background: prior roles, education, how long in practice, and how long at this firm.
If clients will work with a team rather than one person, describe who does what, because a prospect who expects one relationship and gets three is disappointed for reasons nobody explained.
Keep it human without being informal. Warmth and rigour are not in tension here.
This is general marketing information, not compliance guidance. Requirements differ by registration type, firm and jurisdiction. Confirm anything in this area with your compliance function before acting on it.
Explain the first meeting in full
This is the highest-value section on most advisory websites and it is almost always missing.
Prospective clients delay because they do not know what a first meeting involves, whether it costs anything, whether they need to bring documents, or whether they will be sold something.
So describe it: length, cost, what will be discussed, what to bring if anything, whether anything is decided, and what happens afterwards.
Two details matter more than people expect. Saying that no commitment is expected changes booking rates. And many practices ask for nothing at a first meeting, so saying so removes a barrier for someone who assumes they need to gather statements first.
This information costs nothing to publish and removes the main reason people postpone.
This is general marketing information, not compliance guidance. Requirements differ by registration type, firm and jurisdiction. Confirm anything in this area with your compliance function before acting on it.
Related Guides
Describe the ongoing relationship
What happens after onboarding is what the client is actually buying, and most sites stop at the sale.
Describe the shape of a year. Meeting frequency, what gets reviewed at each one, what reporting they receive and how often, and how to reach you between meetings.
Say who they contact for what, particularly if a team is involved. Nothing frustrates a new client more than not knowing whether a question goes to the adviser or to an administrator.
Describing the service calendar does more for a prospective client than describing your philosophy, because it answers what their life with you will actually look like.
It also sets expectations that reduce friction in year one, which is when most relationships either settle or sour.
This is general marketing information, not compliance guidance. Requirements differ by registration type, firm and jurisdiction. Confirm anything in this area with your compliance function before acting on it.
Handle disclosures properly, not reluctantly
Required disclosures, links to filings, and any necessary notices belong on the site and should be easy to find rather than buried in a footer nobody reads.
There is a practical argument as well as a compliance one. A prospect who is looking for your disclosures and struggles to find them draws a conclusion, and it is not a good one. Making them locatable reads as confidence.
What is required, where it must appear, and how it must be worded is firm and registration specific. This is a compliance question rather than a design one, so get it specified rather than guessing.
Build review into the site build from the start rather than treating it as a final step. Practices that leave it to the end end up rewriting rather than reviewing.
This is general marketing information, not compliance guidance. Requirements differ by registration type, firm and jurisdiction. Confirm anything in this area with your compliance function before acting on it.
Who you serve, specifically. How you are paid. Any minimum. Who the people are. What the first meeting involves. What the ongoing relationship looks like. Disclosures handled properly.
Seven sections, plainly written. In a category where almost every site is interchangeable, being the one that answers the actual questions is the whole advantage.
This is general marketing information, not compliance guidance. Requirements differ by registration type, firm and jurisdiction. Confirm anything in this area with your compliance function before acting on it.
Action Plan
- Rewrite your who we serve section to describe a defined group and situation.
- State your compensation model in plain language, with compliance review of the wording.
- Publish any minimum, including whether it is a firm or personal threshold.
- Add real photographs, credentials with one-line explanations, and genuine background.
- Write a full description of the first meeting, including that no commitment is expected.
- Describe the ongoing service calendar and who to contact for what.
- Make required disclosures easy to find rather than buried.
- Build compliance review into the site build from the start, not at the end.
Not sure where your practice's marketing is weakest? Take the free Marketing System Scorecard. Twelve questions, about a minute, and you get your score plus your three biggest gaps on the page, no email required.
The Financial Planner BrandPack includes the website structure, meeting booking, onboarding communication and campaign templates, all intended for your compliance review before use. Start free for 14 days, then $97 a month, no setup fee, cancel anytime. It also includes the full Bookkeeper, Accounting and Tax Advisor BrandPacks at no extra cost.
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