Financial Advisors: Blogging Metrics You Need To Know

More financial advisors are writing these days.  That’s smart….financial advisor blogging is one of the most effective ways to generate leads, get traffic to your website and establish your reputation as an expert.

But like anything else, it’s best to have some guidelines to know what works best:

• How often do you need to blog to get results?
• How long does each individual blog article have to be?

Instead of using trial and error, let’s take a look at some research to find out what metrics apply.

Financial Advisor Blogging:  How Often?

The quick answer:  if you’re after results, the more often, the better.  Google and other search engines love fresh content.  So the more often you post on your blog, the higher your firm will begin to rank in search engines.

The detailed answer, based on research:

According to Hubspot, companies publishing 16 or more blog posts per month got about 4.5 times more leads than those publishing 1 to 4 per month.    

It’s important to note that number is leads…not just website visitors.

Blogging generates leads effectively since most prospective clients as well as referrals from your existing clients will use the internet to research your firm prior to contacting you.  If you’ve got blog articles that help show your expertise and how you help clients, you build trust and help visitors get a sense of what it would be like to work with your firm.

For generating traffic to your website, the same research found companies publishing over 16 blog posts per month got 3.5 times the traffic of those blogging less than five times per month.

Big difference!

Then, apparently cumulative volume helps too.  Hubspot also discovered that those businesses that eventually hit a total of 400 or more posts got a boost of twice as much traffic than those who published less.

The moral of the story….with blog posts, more is better!

Remember, this is all measuring original blog content—not posts that others have used as well.  Unfortunately non-original content from subscription services do not help improve your visibility on search engines.  So to get these stellar results, the content has to be original.

Yes, I realize that’s a whole lot of blog posts. What do you do?  There’s a few options:

• Do all the blog content in house. This is ideal if you are part of a large firm and  have associates who like to write, and write well.
• Generate ideas yourself and hire a financial advisor ghostwriter to turn them into polished, finished articles.
• Hire a financial advisor ghostwriter to generate ideas for your review and turn them into polished, finished articles.
• Do some combination of the above.

If you’re a small firm or one on a tight budget, sometimes you need to get creative.  If you can sit down and quickly draft, or record, some ideas, a ghostwriter can often quickly turn those into full-blown articles.

Also there are strategies that can help you get to these higher volume numbers too.  Good ones are publishing a ‘series’ where you break up one topic into several chunks.  You may already have some of this content in your DRIP systems, ready to be adapted.

And it doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing exercise, either.  You may find that a financial content firm can help you get your blog off the ground initially, or can split the work with your in-house team.  Later, after some momentum is developed, it might be easy for your team to step into more or all of it.

Regardless, it’s an inexpensive but powerful strategy and as an advisor, you’ve got knowledge to share.

How Long Should Each Financial Advisor Blog Be?

Now you know you should be writing more blogs.  But, does it matter what kind of blogs you write?  Do short or long ones perform the same?

Again, let’s turn to research to get insight on what works best.

Up until recently, the “ideal” blog article length was about 300 words.  (That’s a little more than a third of the length of this article.)  It’s a very quick read.

Things have changed.  New research shows that longer articles tend to outperform short ones.  In fact, very long articles – starting at 1,000 words and going up to several thousand words in length, tend to perform the best.

But there’s a catch:  these long articles need to be very well-written to get those great results.  If people can’t make it through your long article without nodding off, it’s not going to help anyone.

According to SEO leader Yoast, today a blog article should contain a minimum of 300 words to rank well with search engines.  Long posts will usually rank more easily than short ones, with the caveat that they have to be well written.

Financial Advisor Blogging: Best Practices

In summary, this is what the recent research tells us:

1. Your firm should start writing as often as possible, whether internally, with the help of a financial advisor ghostwriter, or using a combination of the two.
2. Every blog article should be a minimum of 300 words.
3. Blog posts should be as long as possible.
4. Periodically, your firm should make an effort to publish well-written long posts on your areas of expertise.
5. Publish at least 16 blog articles per month, for best results.
6. Strive to reach a total of 400 blog posts over time, for best results.

While blogging does require an investment of time and/or money, by following these best practices consistently, you’ll generate increased traffic and leads.  Of course, you’ll have to make sure the other aspects of your digital strategy are in order, too. Fortunately, even small advisory firms can implement these strategies on any budget.

Stay tuned for more articles on practical ways to get the internet generating new business for your financial advisory firm.

Jeanne Klimowski is the founder of Wavelength Financial Content Inc.  and a financial ghostwriter. Wavelength is a provider of content for financial advisors and financial wellness programs for retirement plan advisors.