How to Make a Finance Website: A Step-by-Step Guide

This guide helps financial advisors and small firms build their first website without a dedicated IT team. It presumes you have some comfort with online tools and will create a site from the ground up. If you have a large budget, you may want to hire an agency instead.

We cover the entire process, from site structure and design to domain and hosting setup. We also explore key tools and explain site tests to meet financial compliance standards before you go live. This ensures your digital presence starts on a secure and professional foundation.

Step 1: Plan Your Site Structure and Gather Your Content

Before you build anything, you must define your website's purpose. This initial planning prevents costly redesigns and ensures your site meets client needs and compliance standards from day one. Start by identifying your target audience and the key actions you want them to take.

Map Your Navigation

First, list the top three actions you want visitors to complete, such as scheduling a consultation or accessing their client portal. These actions guide your page priorities. Sketch out a site map with core pages like Homepage, About Us, Services, a Blog or Market Commentary, and Contact.

Keep your main navigation menu to seven items at most. For a financial firm, the "Services" page might have subpages for Wealth Management, Retirement Planning, and Estate Planning. You must also include a page or footer link for mandatory legal disclosures, like your Form ADV Part 2.

A common mistake is to use unapproved client testimonials. This can lead to compliance violations with FINRA and the SEC, resulting in fines. Instead, work with your compliance officer to develop approved case studies or focus on clear descriptions of your process and philosophy to build trust.

Collect Your Assets

Create a shared folder using a service like Google Drive or Dropbox to organize all your materials before the build. A central repository prevents delays and ensures consistency. Gather everything you will need in one place.

• Logo files and official brand color codes.
• High-resolution, professional headshots of your team and office photos.
• Written content, including team bios, service descriptions, and your mission statement.
• All legally required documents and disclosures for download.
• Logins for any tools you will integrate, such as scheduling or client portal software.

For team photos, aim for a consistent look with the same background and lighting. Inconsistent images can make a firm appear disorganized. A professional appearance is vital for establishing credibility and trust with prospective clients who visit your site.

Step 2: Choose Your Design Approach

Your website's design is the first signal of your firm's credibility. A professional look builds trust in seconds, while a poor one drives potential clients away. Your choice depends on your budget, timeline, and technical comfort.

For most financial advisors, a premium template is the most efficient path. These cost around $40-$100 on marketplaces like ThemeForest and provide professional layouts. This approach balances quality with a manageable budget for a fast, credible site launch.

If you have some comfort with code and want more flexibility, consider a UI kit. Resources like Tailwind UI or Bootstrap themes offer pre-built components like navigation bars and footers. You assemble these parts to create custom pages, giving you more control than a fixed template.

For firms with a budget over $2,000, a custom design offers a unique brand identity. A designer creates mockups in a tool like Figma for your approval before development. This process takes longer but ensures the final site perfectly matches your vision.

A common mistake is choosing a template with excessive animations. This slows your site and can appear unprofessional to clients who value clarity. Instead, select a clean, fast-loading design that prioritizes straightforward information to build trust.

Define Your Style Guide

Before you customize your design, create a style guide. This document ensures your brand appears consistent and professional across every page. It serves as a reference for all visual decisions.

• Colors: Select one primary brand color, a secondary accent, and a neutral like gray. Document the exact hex codes for each to maintain consistency.
• Typography: Limit yourself to two fonts from a library like Google Fonts. Use a readable sans-serif for body text and a distinct font for headings.
• Spacing: Establish consistent padding and margins, typically using multiples of 4 or 8 pixels. This creates a clean, organized layout that feels polished.
• Buttons: Define styles for primary buttons ("Schedule Consultation") and secondary ones. Clear button styles guide visitors toward key actions.

Step 3: Set Up Your Hosting and Domain

Your domain is your website's address, and hosting is the land it sits on. Both choices are foundational for your firm's online presence. A professional domain builds credibility, while reliable hosting ensures your site is always available to current and prospective clients.

Choose Your Domain Name

Select a domain that is short, memorable, and includes your firm's name. Prioritize a .com extension to appear professional. Avoid hyphens or numbers, which can seem untrustworthy and are harder for clients to recall when they need to find you online.

Register your domain through a service like Namecheap, Squarespace Domains, or Cloudflare Registrar for about $10-$20 per year. Enable auto-renewal immediately. A common mistake is to let your domain expire, which disrupts client access and can damage your brand’s reputation.

Select Your Hosting Provider

For most financial advisors, managed hosting from providers like Kinsta or WP Engine is the best choice. They handle security and backups, which is vital for compliance. Alternatively, builders like Squarespace or Wix bundle hosting into their plans for simplicity.

Your hosting plan must include certain features. A free SSL certificate from a service like Let's Encrypt is non-negotiable, as it secures your site and builds visitor trust. Also, confirm your plan includes daily automatic backups and 24/7 customer support for any urgent issues.

After you purchase both, your host will provide instructions to connect your domain. This process updates nameserver records at your registrar and can take a few hours to complete. This final step makes your website accessible to the world on your custom domain.

Step 4: Build Your Site With Replit

Replit offers a new way to build your website. It uses an AI agent to turn your plain-language descriptions into a fully functional site. This approach provides more custom power than a template, without the need to write code yourself.

Use AI to Generate Your Site

You direct the build process with simple instructions. For example, tell the Replit Agent to "create a financial advisor website with pages for services, team bios, and a form to schedule consultations." The AI handles the code, design, and deployment.

The agent also tests its own work to find and fix bugs automatically. This self-correction process ensures the final product is stable and professional. You can then refine the site with more feedback, like "make the 'Schedule a Call' button more prominent."

Key Capabilities for Advisors

Replit moves beyond static pages and can build dynamic applications for your firm.

• Full Site Generation: Describe your ideal site, and the agent creates the pages, navigation, and forms.
• Automatic Backend: It sets up infrastructure for secure client accounts or payment processing via Stripe.
• Instant Deployment: Your site goes live immediately and you can connect a custom domain later.
• Design Imports: If you have mockups from Figma, the AI can implement those designs directly.

A common mistake is to input sensitive client information into prompts. This creates a major compliance risk. Instead, use only placeholder data and general descriptions to guide the AI. Never include any non-public personal information in your instructions.

This method allows for rapid development. For instance, one founder launched seven applications in three months, which shows the platform handles real business needs, not just prototypes.

Step 5: Integrate Key Services

A website rarely stands alone. It connects to services that handle specific functions better than you could build yourself. Set up accounts for these tools, then connect them to your site to add powerful features without any custom code.

For appointment booking, use a service like Calendly or Cal.com. These tools let prospective clients schedule meetings directly in your calendar. They manage time zones and availability, which presents a professional image and avoids back-and-forth emails. Embed the booking widget on your contact page.

Collect Data and Measure Performance

Use a tool like Tally or Jotform to create your contact forms. Embed them directly on your site instead of linking out, as each click away risks losing a potential lead. Ensure submissions route to an email you monitor actively.

A common mistake is to request sensitive information on a basic contact form. This creates a major compliance risk. Use forms only for initial inquiries. Handle all non-public personal information through a secure client portal, not your public website.

Install analytics on day one. Google Analytics 4 is a free, comprehensive option that shows you how visitors find your site and what pages they view. This data helps you understand what services attract the most interest. For a simpler, privacy-focused option, consider Plausible.

To send market commentary or newsletters, use a platform like Mailchimp or ConvertKit. Add a simple signup form to your site’s footer to build a list of interested prospects. All marketing emails must follow compliance rules and include an unsubscribe link.

Step 6: Build and Populate Your Core Pages

Work through your site systematically, starting with high-traffic pages first. Each page needs a clear purpose and a single action for visitors to take. This ensures every part of your site contributes to your business goals, from attracting prospects to serving clients.

Start With Your Homepage

Your homepage acts as a triage station. It must quickly convey who you serve and what you do. Use a strong headline and a clear call-to-action button like "Schedule a Consultation." This directs high-intent prospects to the next step in their journey with your firm.

Follow this with social proof, like trust badges or statistics, to build credibility. Then, briefly outline your services with links to detailed pages. A newsletter signup in the footer captures leads not yet ready to commit to a meeting.

Develop Key Content Pages

Create dedicated pages for each core part of your business. This organized structure helps visitors find information and improves search visibility. Focus on clarity and building trust with every section.

• About Us: Tell your firm’s story and introduce your team with professional photos and bios. A common mistake is to use generic corporate language. This fails to build a personal connection. Instead, write with a human voice to establish the trust needed for financial relationships.
• Services: Create separate pages for offerings like Wealth Management or Estate Planning. Clearly describe the benefits for your target client and what the process looks like. This helps prospects self-qualify.
• Legal Disclosures: Your footer must link to your Privacy Policy and other required documents, such as your Form ADV. You can use services like Termly or Iubenda to generate a baseline policy.

Step 7: Test Across Devices and Get Real User Feedback

Testing reveals problems that are invisible during development. Budget time for this step. A rushed launch with broken features damages the credibility you worked hard to build. This final quality check ensures your firm presents a professional and reliable digital front to every visitor.

Conduct Device and Browser Tests

Your site must work flawlessly everywhere. Test on mobile phones, including both iOS and Android, as many prospects will find you on the go. Check that text is readable without zooming and that buttons are easy to tap. Also review the site on tablets and major desktop browsers like Chrome, Safari, and Firefox.

Use your browser’s developer tools to simulate different devices. For more comprehensive checks, services like BrowserStack or LambdaTest offer access to real devices remotely. At a minimum, test on your own physical phone, as emulators can miss real-world performance issues.

Perform Functional and Performance Checks

A common mistake is launching without a full functional test. This can lead to losing a high-value lead because your contact form was broken. Instead, verify every interactive part of your site works as expected before you go live. This simple check prevents missed opportunities.

• Click every link and submit every form to confirm they work.
• Test integrations like your Calendly or Cal.com booking widget.
• Ensure required documents, such as your Form ADV, download correctly.

A slow website appears untrustworthy. Run your URL through tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix to score your site’s speed. These tools provide specific recommendations to improve load times and build visitor confidence.

Get Feedback From Real People

Find three to five people unfamiliar with your project and ask them to complete specific tasks. Watch them use the site without any help. Their confusion will reveal usability problems you are too close to the project to see. This feedback is invaluable for refining the user experience.

Give them goals relevant to your firm, such as "Find information on retirement planning" or "Try to schedule an initial consultation." Where they hesitate or get lost highlights unclear navigation or a weak call to action. Fix these issues to ensure your site effectively converts visitors into clients.

Step 8: Launch Your Site and Plan for Maintenance

The launch of your site is not the final step. A thoughtful launch strategy and a consistent maintenance plan ensure your digital presence remains effective and compliant over time. This protects your firm’s reputation and keeps the site a valuable asset for client acquisition.

Final Pre-Launch Checklist

Before you go live, perform one last review to catch any errors. This final check ensures a professional first impression for every visitor. Work through each item to confirm your site is ready for public viewing and meets all functional and legal requirements for a financial firm.

• Replace all placeholder content with final text and images.
• Verify all contact information and test every form submission.
• Confirm external links work and that legal documents like your Form ADV are accessible.
• Set unique meta titles and descriptions for each page to aid search visibility.
• Ensure your analytics code and SSL certificate are active.

Announce Your Launch

Coordinate your launch announcement across all your communication channels. Email your client list, post on social media, and update your URL on business cards and email signatures. If you have a local office, update your website on your Google Business Profile to help with local search.

Establish an Ongoing Maintenance Plan

A common mistake is to neglect the site after launch. This leads to outdated compliance documents and broken features, which erodes client trust. Instead, schedule recurring maintenance tasks to keep your site secure and professional. Set calendar reminders for these checks:

• Monthly: Use a tool like Dead Link Checker to find and fix broken links. Review analytics to understand what content attracts visitors.
• Quarterly: Review all pages for outdated information, especially team bios and service descriptions.
• Annually: Conduct a full content audit, review your design, and confirm your domain auto-renewal is active.

Want a shortcut?

Replit offers a faster path to a custom website. Instead of templates, you use plain language to direct an AI agent. Describe your ideal site, and the agent builds it, including pages, navigation, and forms. This method provides more power than a site builder, as it can create dynamic features like a secure client portal.

The AI also tests its own code to fix bugs automatically, which ensures a professional result. You can launch a site that meets your firm's specific needs without code. Sign up for free to start your project today.