Around 550,000 new businesses are being launched almost every month. Each of them would run an online platform. Considering that there would be a thousand sites as your competitors, how would your potential clients find yours?
There are various solutions now, including social media ads, search engine optimization, or the old yet gold smart email marketing. But you should start with your own website. Here are six tips on how to create an engaging and winsome financial online platform.
Accuracy is a Must
It should go without saying that everything in your site should be 98% (considering human error) accurate. Get rid of outdated product information or even simple grammatical errors. All of these are a total turn off to your potential clients.
The feedback might go like, ‘if they even overlooked two wrong digits, the same might happen to my account! It’s not secure to invest in them.’ Simple lapses can leave a bad impression on them. So it’s best to periodically check every corner of your site, especially after making updates anywhere else, before it goes live.
Be Specific to Your Services
As the owner, you should know that your financial consulting business is versatile. It may serve as a moneylender, financial advisor, or insurance agent. While being multifaceted is a good thing, be specific to the services you provide.
Potential clients expect to see your services either on your site’s homepage or on another Services page. Either way, the problem is that search engines typically don’t like repeated content. Not only precision, but the application of creativity on your service page is crucial in your site. Web developers, like the MotoCMS developers, can solve this for you, though.
Whether you can get a quick cash loan straight away or have to undergo an in-depth background check with a chatbot, several web developers out there can sort your business services and make sure that these features are in the spotlight on your site. Check CreditNinja’s site and how they sort their services.
Create a User-Friendly Platform
88% of Americans have negative impressions of brands with buggy websites. Among them, 28% say that they would immediately go to a competitor’s website if the first site is too slow. This report implies that every site owner should consider the clients’ need for speed.
There’s a ton of must-dos that you should keep in mind so you can avoid an unimpressive slow online platform. Optimize images and videos for faster downloads, keep your software updated, and opt for website hosts that can manage higher bandwidth demands are some of them.
Also, there’s a need to consider the users of your website. Your online platform should be easy to navigate and easy to understand. You don’t have to put everything on your menu. At least, place 5-6 clearly labeled tabs in your top-level navigation menu. Too much information will surely overload the readers’ minds. Again, web developers can help you in sorting things out.
Sorting the navigation menu isn’t a very big deal, though. Potential viewers would use the search tool to look for what they need. But don’t forget to set a clear way to let readers return to your home page wherever they land.
In addition to information overload earlier, it’s deemed necessary that readers can retain the new information. As mentioned, when a site has too many details, viewers might be unable to understand them in context. Create a clean page by applying a balance of graphics and text. Remove widgets that don’t support your page’s purpose, as well.
Generate a Forum Section
There are other meticulous clients who are into checking other people’s points of view, which is understandable. Of course, provide them with what they want and build a forum section. The chances are, viewers will stick around when your platform is interactive.
Even before, one-on-one, in-person communication is a known financial strategy. But thanks to the Internet everything seems easier now. You can easily interact with clients through online forums.
Offer Audio-Visual Presentations
Adding to online forum sections, another means of being interactive is placing the right videos on your site. This is pretty helpful for those clients who are visual learners, or should I say those who don’t like to read. Make sure to include your services, the perks of choosing your brand, how to sign up, and the like in the audio-visual presentations.
Provide Useful Tools in Your Site
You might have come across those debt calculators on other online platforms (for sure, you’ve checked other companies for your research). That’s an example of a financial tool that you can integrate into your website.
You may also add up some marketing or analysis tools, depending on what your services are. We’ve rounded up a few tools and other online platforms that may be useful in building a pioneering website:
- Adobe Fonts – formerly called as Typekit, a marketplace for fonts
- Asayer – a user session replay tool, typically used so you can find and solve bugs faster
- Credit Union Web Design – boosts website conversions, improves customer loyalty, and creates immediate brand recognition of any financial institution through in-depth persona research and content strategy
- Colicious – a color generator online platform
- Font Face Ninja – a browser extension that can let you buy font on any websites
- Jimdo – a website-builder, especially for those without any web design experience
Web developers have extensive background on this, so you don’t have to worry. But, in case you’re going to do everything alone, you can rely on these tools and sites. There are more of these online. You just have to do some research. Anyway, these tools, especially the debt calculator, would make your website more trustworthy, which would attract more clients and eventually increase your website’s traffic.
Takeaway
Attracting traffic is your top priority. When developing an online financial platform, you have to be keen on selecting the right angle where you would build your site. This angle involves the niches relevant to your business, easy yet unique domain name, transparent services, and the like. Every business has different experiences to face. You’ll learn more along the way.