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Written By: Blair KellyWe’ve worked with thousands of advisors and we understand that embarking on your website redesign journey can be a huge undertaking. But you don’t have to do it alone! When choosing a website provider it’s important to first research and make sure you have a general understanding of your provider’s basic infrastructure so that you can spend more time focusing on the important stuff.
What is a Content Management System (CMS)?
First things first, what exactly is a content management system or a CMS? Great question! In layman’s terms, a CMS is a platform that allows you to create and manage your website’s digital content. Content management systems remove the stress of managing a website. Aside from saving you ⏰ and 💰, investing in a CMS offers so many benefits. In fact, it can be one of the most beneficial investments you make in your firm’s online presence.What Are the Benefits of Using a Content Management System?
When it comes to trying to decide whether or not you should leverage a CMS we’re exploring all of the benefits and sharing six great reasons why you should use one and how it can improve your overall digital presence! 1. NO CODING OR WEB EXPERIENCE NECESSARYWe put this benefit first for a reason. It’s by far one of the greatest benefits of joining a CMS. I mean, let’s face it – we’re not all designers and developers. And that’s okay! That’s where content management systems come to the rescue. When we created our content management system, Twenty Over Ten, we did so with our users in mind, financial advisors. Our seamless dashboard allows you to edit & customize your website in a snap, without touching any code.You may be thinking, “I have no background in design!” or “I have no clue how to work on the backend of my website.” That is totally okay! You don’t have to know how to do anything technical in order to make updates to your website. Within a CMS, your web content, such as, images and text, can very easily be inserted and uploaded onto specific pages and styled in a content editor that is similar to something that we know you’ve all used before: Microsoft Word.
2. SEARCH ENGINE FRIENDLYContent management systems typically also offer a number of great tools that can help your site to rank higher in major search engines. This is obviously such an important part of driving traffic to your website and hopefully generating more clients. Implementing a basic SEO strategy into your website, is so simple and efficient, that you really can’t go wrong with this extra added benefit!At Twenty Over Ten, we provide our users with a slew of really amazing “baked-in” SEO options. The first is our Content Assist tool. Content Assist is a type of content offering solution on the market that was developed specifically for financial advisors to assist them in creating blog posts. Built directly into our CMS, users are able to choose blog posts by category, load them into their website, and then edit and further optimize the content for search engines. Advisors have the ability to customize and edit the content to add their voice, SEO keywords, and further promote their expertise, or just use the content provided as it is. Content Assist is a game changer, especially when you are too busy to create your own content from scratch!
In addition to Content Assist, the Twenty Over Ten CMS also offers a few really helpful on-page SEO features. Add and edit all of your website’s metadata, even on individual blog posts! This type of data helps search engines evaluate the relevance of page content which determines whether a page will or will not be displayed within search results. We’ve also provided tools that help structure pages including social sharing, image alt-tags and customizable URLs.
3. SECURITYSecurity is always of the utmost importance but especially in the financial services industry. The last thing that you want is for your website to be hacked, especially when it may contain valuable client information. Not only that, but your rankings in search engines can also take a dip if your website is not secure.Fear not! There is good news in all of this, and that is that content management systems are usually consistently tested by a team of developers in an effort to protect users against any and all potential security threats.As the first website provider to provide free SLL certificates to financial advisors we take the topic of security very seriously. We firmly believe that added security and better SEO is our responsibility to our clients at Twenty Over Ten. That’s why all users on the Twenty Over Ten platform will never be required to incur the added costs or technical challenges required to implement SSL security for their website.Twenty Over Ten users feel more confident now than ever about the security of their websites, and as an added bonus, websites hosted on Twenty Over Ten with SSL enabled will also enjoy a boost in search rankings as Google and other search engines are now prioritizing HTTPS websites. 
4. COST EFFICIENTIf you have a static website, then maintenance generally becomes a HUGE expense. Calling a web designer or developer to make frequent changes really starts to add up after a while. In addition to cost, you also probably won’t see your changes right away as you are getting your work done on somebody else’s time.So, investing in a content management system up front, you’ll save you both time and money in the long-run. With a CMS in place, you no longer have to rely on a web developer to make simple or common site changes. You can instantly make these changes yourself exactly when you need them done! That almost pays for itself with the first change!Related: 13 Low-Budget Marketing Ideas to Skyrocket Your Advisor BusinessRelated: Should You Create a Second Website for a Niche Audience? 5. EASILY ACCESSIBLEWith a content management system, multiple people have access to your website, as well as, the ability to collaborate. Using individual accounts, multiple people can add, edit, or update content on the site right from their own computer or other devices. CMS’ also store all of your online content for you in one place and is available to anyone with access to the website.This is extremely important especially in the financial services industry when working with a compliance team. The Twenty Over Ten Providence platform makes collaborating with your compliance team on your website edits a breeze. Say goodbye to sending several varying files to different individuals back and forth via email. Your team can quickly recommend changes using the live chat tool to send attachments and communicate directly with advisors. You can work individually or as a team. Create unlimited officer accounts and optionally assign advisors to streamline your workflow. And when it’s time to have things reviewed you’ll have access to a private website URL, print-friendly documentation, as well as a robust compare tool to identify changes. 
6. INSTANT MAINTENANCEAs we’ve mentioned already, without a CMS, making changes to your site can be both time-consuming and expensive. Your schedule is hectic enough and we believe financial advisors shouldn’t have to worry about maintaining their websites. Most content management systems constantly update their platforms to improve security and fix various other bugs. Which is great but that also means your site will need to be updated as well. So, if your site is using a custom plugin, etc. and they’re not regularly updated by your developer you risk the performance of your site.With Twenty Over Ten, all necessary maintenance updates are executed by our team of developers and are automatically deployed across all users sites as needed. You can rest assured that with us, you’ll never have to lift a finger.