You cannot fix what you do not measure
Ask most financial advisers how their website is performing and you get one of two answers: "I think it's doing alright" or "I have no idea." Both are essentially the same answer. Neither is based on data.
This is surprising for a profession that lives and breathes numbers. You would never assess a client's portfolio without looking at the data. Yet most advisers assess their website, often their single biggest source of new business, based on gut feeling.
The good news is that website performance is not complicated to measure. Five numbers tell you almost everything you need to know, and most of the data is already being collected. You just need to look at it.
74%
of IFA websites have Google Analytics installed but never reviewed
Source: Adviser Home survey, 2025
The five numbers that matter
There are dozens of metrics you could track. Ignore most of them. These five tell you whether your website is working, and where to focus if it is not.
Importance for IFA websites
1. How many people visit your site each month?
This is the starting point. If nobody visits your website, nothing else matters. You cannot convert visitors you do not have.
Where to find it: Google Analytics > Reports > Engagement > Overview. Look at "Users" for the month.
Benchmarks for IFA websites:
| Feature | Traffic level | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Under 100/month | Critical | Your site is effectively invisible. SEO and content are the priority. |
| 100-500/month | Low | Enough to start optimising conversion. Content strategy will grow this. |
| 500-2,000/month | Healthy | Solid base. Focus on converting a higher percentage of these visitors. |
| 2,000+/month | Strong | Conversion optimisation is your biggest lever. Even small improvements move the needle. |
If your traffic is under 100, go back to How to Get Your IFA Website Ranking on Google. You need more visitors before conversion optimisation matters.
2. Where do your visitors come from?
Knowing your traffic volume is useful. Knowing where it comes from is actionable.
Where to find it: Google Analytics > Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition.
The chart above shows a healthy mix for a typical IFA website. Here is what each source tells you:
Organic search is visitors who found you through Google. This is your most valuable traffic because these people were actively searching for what you offer. If organic search is below 30% of your traffic, your SEO needs work.
Direct is visitors who typed your URL directly or used a bookmark. This typically means existing clients, referrals who were given your website address, or people who saw your brand somewhere and came looking. High direct traffic is a good sign of brand awareness.
Referral is visitors who clicked a link from another website, a directory listing, a guest article, or a partner's site. These links also boost your SEO, so referral traffic has compound benefits.
Social is traffic from LinkedIn, Facebook, or other platforms. For most IFAs, this is a small percentage but can be valuable if you are active on LinkedIn.
Paid is Google Ads or other advertising. Useful for immediate traffic but expensive long term. Most IFAs are better served investing in organic search.
3. What is your bounce rate?
Bounce rate measures the percentage of visitors who arrive on a page and leave without doing anything else. No clicks, no scrolling to another page, no interaction at all.
Where to find it: Google Analytics > Reports > Engagement > Pages and screens. Add "Bounce rate" as a column.
Benchmarks:
% of IFA websites in this range
A bounce rate between 40% and 60% is normal for a financial services website. Above 70% on key pages means visitors are not finding what they expected.
The important thing is to look at bounce rate per page, not as a site average. A high bounce rate on your blog is normal because people often read one article and leave. A high bounce rate on your services page or homepage is a problem, because it means visitors are arriving and immediately deciding you are not relevant.
Common causes of high bounce rate:
- Page content does not match what the visitor searched for
- Page loads too slowly (over 3 seconds)
- No clear next step on the page
- Content is too generic to feel relevant
4. What is your conversion rate?
This is the number that matters most. Your conversion rate tells you what percentage of visitors take a meaningful action: filling in a form, starting a chat, booking a call, or making a phone call.
Where to find it: You need to set up conversion tracking in Google Analytics. If you have not done this, it should be your first priority. Without it, you are guessing.
Conversion rate %
The chart above shows a realistic before-and-after trajectory. The red line shows a typical IFA website sitting at 1.5-2% with no changes. The green line shows what happens when you start optimising: clearer value propositions, better CTAs, and a chat widget for instant engagement. The improvements compound over time as you learn what works.
5. Which pages actually perform?
Not all pages are equal. Some pages attract visitors and convert them. Others attract visitors and lose them. Knowing the difference tells you where to invest your time.
Where to find it: Google Analytics > Reports > Engagement > Pages and screens. Sort by users, then compare engagement metrics.
Look for two things:
High traffic, high bounce rate pages. These are pages that attract visitors but fail to engage them. They probably rank well on Google but the content does not deliver on the promise of the search result. Rewrite them.
Low traffic, high conversion pages. These are hidden gems. They convert well but nobody finds them. Promote them: link to them from your homepage, share them on social media, use them as the basis for blog content that drives more traffic to them.
Step 1
Set up your monthly review
Block 30 minutes on the first Monday of each month. Open Google Analytics and check these five numbers. Write them down or put them in a spreadsheet.
Step 2
Compare month on month
The absolute numbers matter less than the trend. Is traffic growing? Is bounce rate falling? Is conversion rate improving? Direction matters more than position.
Step 3
Pick one thing to fix
Each month, identify the weakest metric and focus on improving it. Do not try to fix everything at once. One improvement per month compounds into a significantly better website within six months.
Step 4
Track the impact of changes
When you make a change to your site, note the date. After 30 days, check whether the relevant metric improved. This feedback loop is how you learn what works for your specific audience.
The metric most IFAs miss entirely
All five metrics above measure visitors you already have. The metric most advisers never track is the one that matters most for growth: how many visitors could you have captured but did not?
Your analytics shows you the visitors who arrived and left. It does not show you the visitors who arrived, had a question, found no way to ask it, and left without a trace. That invisible number is almost certainly larger than your visible conversion number.
As we covered in Why Most IFA Websites Don't Convert Visitors Into Clients, only about 11% of visitors are ready to fill in a contact form. The other 89% need a different engagement path. A chat widget captures interactions from visitors who would otherwise leave silently, turning your invisible losses into measurable data.
Even if those visitors do not convert immediately, you learn what they are asking about. That data tells you what content to create, what pages to improve, and where your website is failing. It turns guesswork into evidence.
Want to see what that data looks like? Try the demo at chatifa.co.uk. Enter your website and test it yourself. Free trial, 25 messages, no payment details.