Category: Website Design

With regular technological development and change, it becomes increasingly challenging for businesses of all types to keep their personal and customer’s information on their financial website secure. Web security is preventing hackers and cyber-thieves from accessing sensitive information.  In the absence of a proactive security strategy, spread and escalation of malware have a higher probability. These attacks can spread from computer to computer, making it difficult to find the origin. The hackers not only aim to steal your data or mess with your website layout but also attempt to use your server as an email relay for spam, temporarily set web server, normally to serve files of an illegal nature. Other breaches may include using your servers as part of a botnet, mine for bitcoins or ransomware attacks. Reasons that your site could be a target for security breach are financial gains, access to computing resources. The financial website design should be able to tackle all these problems. Web security can be done by:

1. Regular software updates: Up to date software is vital in keeping your site secure. This not only applies to the server operating system but also to any software you may be running on your website. Apply for software patches for third-party software on your website.
2. Prevent SQL injection: This happens when you use standard Transact SQL and unknowingly you insert rogue code into your query, which can be manipulated to alter tables or data deletion. Prevent this by using parameterized queries.
3. Error messages: The information given in error messages should be limited. This prevents data leak secrets on your server. Show only the information that is needed.
4. Validation: Validation of both on the browser and server side must be done. Prevent data bypass through your browser, as malicious code or script can be inserted through it into your database.
5. Passwords: Provide strong passwords to your server and admin area. Minimum character count, the combination of uppercase and lowercase characters etc strategies must be applied. Store these passwords as encrypted values and compare these encrypted values. Use salt password mechanism for enhanced protection.
6. File uploads: Allowing users to upload files to your website can be risky. The risk is that any file uploaded, could contain a script or code that when executed on your server cause problem. Verify all the website uploads. These files should not auto-execute on your server.
7. Secured networking: Pay careful attention towards the address bar of the websites before logging into them. This is a must while dealing with financial websites.
8. Use different emails for dealing with official works and social media platforms.
9. Use security tools to identify the potential loopholes in your website. These are applications that work on a similar basis to scripts hackers in that they test all know exploits and attempt to compromise your site using some of the previously mentioned methods such as SQL Injection.

With the enhancements in the technology, we humans are losing our control over our patience level. While we visit any website what we expect from that particular website is to load within seconds so that we can grasp information without wasting even a single second. We want the website to show up as quick as it can, regardless of device and what if our financial advisor websites takes some milliseconds more as compared to that of others, we obviously tend to hop on to some another option!

Right? Of course yes!

And moreover, if your website is taking more than 3 seconds to load then it may also be one of the major causes for you to lose much of your viewers which eventually mean that you are losing out on your revenue as well!

Not sounding good!

So, let’s give you insight with some of the most appropriate tips and trick which one should bring in use to surge up the speed of their website.

Important Tips to Increase Website Page Load Speed:

• Minimize Your HTTP Request

The first and the foremost step that one must follow is to get the HTTP of their website minimized the fact remains very clear as the requests are counted every time a browser a pages, file or an image from the server, which means that more the requests more will be the time taken by your website to load .

• Get Used to Content Delivery Network

When you tend to host your website on a Content delivery network, it turns out to be one of the most convenient ways to surge up the speed of your website, thus saving 65% of the bandwidth.

The working of a content delivery network is quite simple as it is regarded as one of the high-performance networks of servers which helps the visitors who come from any of the geographical areas to get their website load as fast as possible.

• Work on Your Caching Plug-in

One of the most convenient ways to enhance the speed of your website is to install a caching plug-in such as WP Super Cache etc. Many of the plug-ins is easy and free to download and use as well.

• Optimize the Image that You Use

Images do play a very important role in enhancing the speed of your website. The main reason why optimized images are used is to create a connection between your services and your viewers. If you are working on word press, you can easily install a WP Smush which helps to maintain the quality of your image yet optimizing it!

Bottom Line!

Loading of a page does matter a lot in gaining new customers, so use the above tips while you build your financial advisor websites so that you can provide your new as well as existing customers a perfect website.

A landing page can be easily defined as a page which is visited by a visitor either by clicking on an advertisement or through a redirected link. People who are new to this business tend to make a huge mistake by directing most of their PPC traffic either to their website or mostly to the homepage. When there is a fixed landing page which is directed to different types of offers they tend to be considered as an essential part as they act as an add-on to provide a user-friendly experience for the new visitor. This eventually helps in surging up the conversions for your business!

Conversions of your relevant data into something which is more informed does help as a funnel for the smooth path which helps in the production of more leads and sales for your financial web design. Today in this article we will enlighten you up with some of the best techniques which will help you to allure many of the prospects and transform your visitors into clients.

• Make the Information Crisp and Clear

Talk about a landing page, it must consist of all the information which is relevant and necessary, though the information which is provided should not be a gimcrack as it will gradually be overlooked by them. So always try to provide the information which you think may interest the visitors.

• Make Your Landing Page More Customers Friendly

While you are starting to bring in the optimizing techniques into your business the first thing that you must consider is to make the user experience more easy as well as friendly so that the visitor provides you with positive feedback. Try to make it as easy and mart as you can as it helps your visitor to understand well about the services offered eventually turning them into leads.

• Combine Contrasting Colors

Use colors in such a way that it attracts visitors, try to provide your visitors with contract colors in addition with the clarity. As it will not only make them interested in your content but may also turn them into your clients.

• Bring in Use Call-to-Action Key

When you introduce a Call-to-action button on your website make sure that it is not confusing your visitors, make the information clear and concise. Most of the websites try to stay away from any sort of fancy language which might be difficult for visitors to understand.

• Addition of Contact Information

Addition of contact information in your financial web design is a must thing for a company to follow as it helps the visitor to contact the company directly. You can provide your information in different ways so that it is directly redirected to your landing page.

Conclusion!

If you are just about to get started with landing page optimization on the financial web design then this article will for sure help you in boosting up your conversions!

 

Google has started to work in the direction of indexing web pages and the main reason behind this change is the extreme output of web pages from the mobile as compared to that of the desktop versions available which is popularly known as “mobile first “indexing. After all, this is the only place where people of all the groups are heading over too.

The fact that lies are that mobile has started to overshadow web and now companies with financial web design are understanding the importance of mobile websites. Mobile first indexing playing an important role as the majority of the audience is the mobile users which help to enhance the search rankings as well as the traffic on to the website.

So let’s enlighten you up with some of the most important things that one must consider while preparing a website for mobile first indexing.

1. Opt for Mobile-Friendly Design: Majority of the audience uses the mobile version of your website so always make it a point to make your website more responsive and user-friendly.
2. Content Must Be the Same on Your Mobile Website: Make your content similar on your website as well as on your mobile website and by that it means the links, articles must be the same.
3. Your Mobile Website Must Be Fast: No one likes a slow website so you must make it a point to make your website load as fast as possible. In fact, pages on Google do load in less that 1.10seconds! That’s quite a number to deal with.
4. Structured Mark-Ups Must Be Same: Structured mark-ups are basically a place which contains all of the important information about your website may it be descriptions, titles, etc. Google plays a very crucial role here as it helps to sort and rank your website accordingly.
5. Get Your Mobile Website Verified: This point may sound very easy but just in case if you missed on this point then my dear, your website may face the issues of improperly paced or missed skipped by the most common search engine. Try to get your website verifies as soon as possible in Google search console.

Bottom line!

Start to enhance your financial web design as well as the mobile version of your website because if you don’t start to work on your mobile first indexing you will eventually notice a fall in your traffic which is just not accepted by anyone.

If you invest in one thing to improve your business this year, make it web design.

 

“But I have a website already!”

 

Of course you do. But, is it giving you plenty of business? The reality is, if you haven’t updated your website within the last three years then the answer is probably no. Having a website that is “good enough” isn’t good enough. It could be causing more harm than good.

 

Invest in making your website great and you will reap the rewards. If you’re not convinced of this, let’s take a look at some statistics…

 

Every second counts

 

You’ve got just 50 milliseconds to make an impression. Yes, you read that correctly. 50 milliseconds is how long it takes for a person to form an opinion about your website. If they don’t like what they see, there is a lot of choice out there and they are likely to move swiftly on.

 

If they do like what they see, you’ve then got a whopping 15 seconds to deepen their appreciation, otherwise you’ll lose them.

 

You need to make those precious few seconds count. By having a business website that gives a positive impact immediately, you are going to be capturing more eyes for longer amounts of time. The longer a user lingers, the more likely they are to buy.

 

Keeping people on your website with a combination of great design, intuitive navigation, and useful, up-to-date content is crucial for those conversion rates.

 

If it’s broken, fix it

 

Let’s say you’ve got the user to stay on your home page for more than 15 seconds, but when they start browsing the rest of the site they find it’s tricky to navigate, full of broken links, and bad quality images, all set within a poor layout. You can almost guarantee they’ll be off to one of your competitors before you can say “click to go back.” You can also be fairly sure they won’t have anything good to say about your website either, which reflects badly on your business.

 

A huge 94% of negative website feedback is design-related. That is not a statistic to ignore since there are few faster ways to kill a business than having negative reviews plastered all over the internet.

 

Also, 47% of people expect a website to load in two seconds or less and 39% of people will stop engaging with a website if the pages take too long to load. Slow-loading websites cost the retail sector $2.6 billion in revenue each year.

 

Redesigning your website so it runs at optimum speed with no glitches will gain you customer confidence in no time and ensure you don’t become part of these statistics.

 

Looks matter

 

People are always attracted to beauty. It’s human nature. If your website is an ugly duckling in a river full of swans, few will give you a second glance. Beautiful web design matters if you want people to stay longer than a few seconds on your website and read about what you have to offer.

 

 

Adobe’s survey showed that if people are given 15 minutes to read some content, two-thirds of them would rather view something beautifully designed. Furthermore, 38% of people will leave a website if they find the content or layout unattractive.

 

 

Don’t let an outdated and badly designed website lose you business. A modern design with a considered color scheme and winning typography will go a long way in maintaining your business’s professional appearance.

 

Who you gonna call?

 

According to Curatti, 70% of small businesses fail to place clear call-to-action buttons on their websites, and a huge 40% of visitors will leave a website if there’s no clear contact information available.

 

There’s little point in advertising your products or services if people have no idea how to contact you about them.

 

No-one likes to search a website for a phone number, so having clear and obvious call-to-action buttons and contact information allows users to easily get in touch. This includes location maps and directions if you have a physical location that customer can visit.

Get mobile

With most people now doing their web browsing via their smartphones, it’s crucial for a business to ensure their website is optimized for this. If not, you could be missing out on a huge chunk of business. 85% of adults now think that the mobile version of a website should be as good as, if not better than the desktop version. You cannot afford to ignore this fact.

 

Your reputation is at stake

 

Having a bad website doesn’t only lose you business, it also decreases customer confidence. According to Stanford, 75% of users admit to judging a business’s credentials based on its web design.

 

Your website must make a good impression, otherwise you run the risk of not only receiving bad reviews, but also generating far fewer repeat customers. E-consultancy says that 88% of people are less likely to return to a website after a bad experience.

 

Your website needs to inspire trust and reliability to gain repeat business. Redesigning your website to be user-friendly as well as aesthetically pleasing is a smart business move.

 

Taking all these facts and figures into consideration, there has never been more reasons to put website redesign at the top of your priority list. There’s too much at stake not to do it. If you ignore the needs of your website (and, therefore, the needs of your potential customers) for too long, you risk losing vast amounts of business as well as customer confidence and trust.

 

Most businesses need to redesign or update their websites routinely, but this doesn’t need to be difficult. It is worth hiring a professional design team that can make light work of keeping your website and your financial services business relevant to modern users.

Why web design is as important as content 

If you think visitors to your website are reading your content, think again. There is a high chance that they aren’t. People tend to skim a web page to find words that are relevant to what they are searching for. If your website isn’t optimized for this, the valuable few seconds a viewer spends skimming your page are wasted.

More than half of website page views get under 15 seconds of attention. That’s not a lot of time to make an impression. Even if visitors do linger on your site, they will only read about 20% of written content.

Furthermore, visitors will skip over short words of 2-3 letters and almost always fixate on the longer words, which are more likely to be relevant to what they are searching for.

 

Going by the statistics, if you’re still reading this, you’re doing more than most people!

Unfortunately, businesses spend a lot of time trying to stuff as much information as possible into their sites but nowhere near enough time figuring out how to get people to read it. This is a grave error. Before a business can even think about converting website viewers into prospects or customers, they must first find a way to make them linger on their page and read the information available. 

Fortunately, there are some ways that a business can use high-quality website design to keep the window of opportunity open.

The left side matters

Viewers spend an incredible 80% of their time reading the left-hand side of a web page whereas the right-hand side only gets a mere 20%. This makes sense considering most of the world reads from left to right. 

A good website will make sure it has its most eye-catching statements to the left of the page to ensure maximum exposure when someone visits.

 

People read in an “F” pattern

The first few lines of text get the most attention. The next few get less. The further down the page a viewer goes, the less attention each line of text gets. This results in an “F” pattern of reading across the page.

What businesses should take from this is that they should be placing their value proposition and hard-hitting statements at the top of the page. Menus should be placed elsewhere, such as along the top or on the side.

Typography needs to be on point

Messy, unreadable fonts are an instant turn off to anyone looking for information. It’s fine to get creative with typography, but always keep the viewer in mind when doing so. Clean, easy-to-read fonts get the most positive reactions. 

Also important is:

• Choosing fonts that pair well together.
• Ensuring font sizes are uniform throughout the website.
• Maintaining good contrast between the background and text.
• Keeping headlines short and powerful.
• Avoiding overly wide or narrow text line widths.

Relevant content is key

People are most likely to find the information they seek on a website that has kept its information relevant, on point, and within its niche.

Creating content that doesn’t relate to the overall website makes the specific information harder to find. Keeping content relevant improves the user experience and makes people likely to spend longer viewing your website, which can be good for conversions.

Consumers prefer video

Many businesses are realizing the power of video over text. 45% of web users watch more than an hour of Facebook or Youtube videos a week. That’s a huge amount of people.

A short one-minute video that grabs attention tends to have far more impact than a page full of text. Having a video that auto-plays when someone visits your web page can be very effective.

Pop-up banners are mostly hated

If a business only has 15 seconds to make an impression, it makes sense to direct the viewer to its content, not spend those precious few seconds asking the viewer if they want to sign up to a newsletter or receive a discount code.

It’s no secret that pop-ups are annoying, but well-timed pop-ups can be effective. If you absolutely must have a pop-up make sure you observe the following:

• Delay the pop-up by 60 seconds, giving the viewer a chance to read some of the content.
• Only have them appear every couple of weeks. This prevents irritation from regular customers.
• Make sure the pop-up is relevant to the page being viewed.
• Make sure the information on the pop-up is extremely useful or valuable to the viewer.

Sloooooow web page loading times

• With today’s short attention spans, if a website doesn’t open immediately with all images present and correct, a viewer is likely to move swiftly to the next website. It’s extremely frustrating for someone to click on a page only to have to sit there waiting for it to open.
• It’s imperative, therefore, to optimize your web pages so that they load quickly and without errors.

Here are a few things you can do to ensure this:

• Minimize HTTP requests.
• Enable compression and browser caching.
• Optimize images and CSS delivery.
• Reduce server response time, site plugins, and redirects.
• Prioritize above-the-fold content.

This has never been more important. As of July 2018, site-loading speeds are a factor in Google’s ranking algorithms. Fast-loading websites will be bumped higher up the search results. Slow sites will eventually get buried.

To make an impact, the window of opportunity is small. With knowledge of people’s viewing habits, you can create a website that’s not only full of meaningful information but is also optimized for maximum exposure.

You’ve got 15 seconds. sticky IT can help you make them count.

A dish can be the most delicious tasting food in the world, but if it isn’t visually appealing, we intend to assume it won’t taste good.

Don’t believe us? Imagine your favorite dish, whether it’s a lobster salad, steak, or painstakingly crafted sushi. Visualize it on your plate. 

Now imagine that dish tipped into a blender, mixed for 3 seconds, and the resulting mush poured into a bucket. It’s still your favorite dish, but now it looks awful. The presentation is all wrong.

We can apply this simple but somewhat brutal logic to web design. If a website doesn’t look good, people are likely to assume that the business behind it isn’t great. There is a good chance that those potential customers, like the patrons of the Bucket Restaurant, will look elsewhere.

It’s imperative that business websites look the best they can to attract customers. This means more than downloading pretty pictures though. There are many factors to consider. Taking them all into account when designing a website can be what makes or breaks your financial business’s online presence.

Let’s take a look at these factors:

Fonts

The typography of a website is one of the most overlooked factors, yet it is probably the most important. If fonts are chosen and applied badly, no-one is going to be willing or able to read the content.

When choosing fonts, make sure one is selected for titles and one for the main content. Don’t overcomplicate it by adding more fonts. Two is enough. And they should compliment each other.

Ensure the fonts are easy to read, are compatible with mobile and tablet devices, and reflect the image of your brand. Despite being overlooked, fonts do a lot for your branding. 

The overall text layout should look striking yet inviting to read. To help you, we’ve found some great examples of well-chosen font pairings. 

 

The color scheme

A website’s color palette should be chosen carefully. Colors are always associated with a business’s brand. 

Think of some of the world’s most well-known brands, such as Coca-Cola. They are instantly recognizable by their brand colors.

When choosing a color scheme, go for two statement colors and two or three background colors at the most. Make sure they all contrast or compliment each other. A color scheme that is jarring to the eye will put customers off immediately. The assumption is that if you haven’t paid enough attention to your branding, you may not be paying enough attention to the way you do business.

Keep your colors consistent. For example, all action buttons should be the same color. Have the same attitude with titles, subtitles, icons, etc. An inconsistent color scheme can be as displeasing to the eye as a badly chosen palette.

Take a look here for some award-winning color schemes. 

 

Images and pictures

The average user takes 9 seconds to decide if they like the look of a website or not. That’s an extremely tight time frame in which to make an impression. Having images that stand out can quickly help the user to stay and browse a website in more depth.

Images should resonate with the target market and appeal to your most promising or valuable potential customers. Images that are not relevant to the brand or that use tired stereotypes or boring clichés will prompt a user to look elsewhere. How many times have we seen those images of people in suits shaking hands or having a business meeting? There’s no quicker turn-off than choosing to apply this overused stock photography.

Use stock images wisely or, even better, not at all. Original images can go a long way in making a positive impact. 

 

Layout

Websites should be easy to navigate, easy to read, and easy to understand. If any of these things is a challenge to the person viewing the website, you are unwittingly encouraging them to stop looking and go elsewhere.

Ensuring each page of the website has a clean layout with well-organized text is as important as the text itself. Having navigation buttons that are clear and concise will help the user to find the information they are looking for quickly and easily.

An often overlooked factor is ensuring the layout looks good on phone and tablets as well as on a desktop computer. Most people now browse on their phones so if the mobile version of a website looks messy then it is eliminating a lot of potential customers.

If information is hard to find, it won’t be found by all your potential customers. People’s attention spans are short and competition is fierce in the financial services industry. It’s important to make sure that all information is easily accessible. 

Check out these examples of great website layout and design.

 

Grammar grammar grammar

No one likes the grammar police, but then no-one likes a website with poor spelling and grammar either. The number of professional websites that contain bad grammar and spelling errors may surprise you.

Spelling or grammatical mistakes interrupt the reading experience and cast doubt on the business. It’s imperative to check the text of your website for mistakes. Then check it again. Then get someone else to check it. Particularly in the financial services industry, demonstrating accuracy and attention to detail are critical.

 

Iconography

Icons are a great way to quickly direct a user to a section of text or to encourage them to explore something, such as social media. However, if these are over-used or irrelevant, their impact is weakened dramatically.

Icons should be used sparingly, therefore, and each should be significant. If an icon doesn’t match the text it represents, it shouldn’t be used at all.

Keep icons uniform throughout the website. Check that their size, color, and design match.

By applying the above ideas, we help financial service businesses create appealing websites that are pleasing to the eye.

Gaining customer feedback and professional help can improve your website’s design, which can make all the difference to your lead generation and conversions.

Feel Free to contact us to find out how we can help you.

It’s very easy for those of us working with the financial industry to ignore the growing trend of mobile usage with a simple excuse: the financial industry is slow to adopt new technologies. And for the most part this is true. But even slow adoption leads to adoption eventually. And in the case of mobile, this technology is coming fast and furious, so adopt or get left behind.

It sounds a bit dramatic, but let’s look at some web trends over the past year:

• 70% of smartphone users access email on their device
• Google searches increased 130% in Q3 2011
• Smartphone sales surpassed PC sales in Q4 2010
• The average smartphone user visits 24 websites per day

But what does that have to do with my retirement consulting or wealth management website? Let me paint a few pictures where mobile may become a factor…

1. You’ve just been introduced to a prospective client named Joe by a friend at the country club. Joe is not happy with his current financial advisor and is looking to move. While Joe is now waiting for his tee time, he pulls out his smartphone to learn a little more about you. He types in the URL from your business card, and is now getting a long-lasting first impression of your company on a mobile device.
2. An existing client Mary has been with your company for years. She enjoys your quarterly newsletters, as it helps her keep in touch with the changing market and her fiduciary responsibilities. But Mary is very busy running a company, and lately has only been checking her email on her phone and iPad. She opens your newsletter in her email, which links to more information on your website. She now finds herself on your website reading your newsletter from her iPad.
3. Greg is a prospective client who was recently referred by another client. He is coming into your office to meet with you in person for the first time. But he’s running late, and can’t remember your address. He pulls out his smartphone to look it up, and now finds himself on your website searching for address.

These are, of course, just a few scenarios where users might find themselves on your website from a mobile device. And as mobile usage grows, and it will, these scenarios will change from the exception to the norm. Are you ready for the change? Is your website?