An AI tool that understands what a prospective client needs also needs to understand an advisory practice. That’s where the work comes in for advisors.BestForBest/iStockPhoto / Getty Images
For more than a quarter-century, being found online meant one thing for financial advisors: ranking high on Google’s search engine. Searching on generative artificial intelligence platforms is upending this status quo.
AI search changes how people consume information. When a prospective client asks ChatGPT, Claude or Google’s Gemini about a specific financial issue, the machine no longer returns 10 blue links for potential clients to pick from. Instead, it surfaces specific names as part of a more in-depth conversation with the user.
To show up first in Google search results, companies used to focus on search engine optimization (SEO). To show up in conversations with AI, that has evolved into answer engine optimization (AEO).
AEO is an evolution of SEO, says Yvette Elliott, founder of Toronto-based digital marketing agency EM Digital & AI.
“SEO got you found, but AEO gets you chosen,” she says.
With Google even offering AI overviews to passive users as part of its search results, AEO should be on every advisor’s agenda.
One advisor tackling AEO head-on is Barry Glassman, president of Glassman Wealth Services LLC in Vienna, Va.
“AI search is going to be so much better for both prospective clients and advisors than traditional search,” says Mr. Glassman, whose firm manages about US$2.7-billion.
A client using a traditional search engine might ask for “wealth manager for small business owner in Toronto,” but an AI assistant might chat for half an hour to understand the prospective client in ways the search engine couldn’t.
“AI can ask follow-up questions such as, ‘How important is it that they’re near to you? How important is it that they have a female advisor? How important is it that they have international tax expertise?’” Mr. Glassman says. “AI might even know those things already about you.”
An AI tool that understands what a prospective client needs also needs to understand an advisory practice. That’s where the work comes in for advisors. Experts highlighted three areas to focus on.
1. Get your online identity right
The first move in upping your AI visibility is establishing a consistent identity. AI systems must tell one financial planner from thousands, cross-referencing name, credentials, firm, location and specialty across every website an advisor appears on.
Any inconsistency chips away at the machine’s confidence. That means a website to control your own brand identity is critical.
However, that identity must be reflected everywhere else online, says Steve Toth, founder of the Notebook agency in Toronto, who’s working with Mr. Glassman on AI discoverability.
You have to design your website in a format that an AI (also known as a large-language model, or LLM) will understand.
“Make sure that an LLM can visit and read all of the content on your web page, or else every other strategy you employ is all for naught,” Mr. Toth says.
That means structuring your website in a way that will enable AI to pick up vital information easily. Notebook even includes a page specifically designed for AI to read.
In advisory firms, the people are the product, Mr. Toth says, so pages that introduce each advisor are essential.
“They answer two simple questions AI tools care about: Who are these advisors, and where are they?”
To fully round things out, these pages should connect as well as link out to each advisor’s LinkedIn profile, he says, to “round out the picture of a real, credible professional.”
Consistency is also key.
“An advisor’s bio should read the same everywhere it appears, which matters most when partners and firm leaders publish articles and speak,” he says. “This is good practice for any business, but in financial advice it’s especially important.”
2. Adjust your content
What’s on the website is at least as important as how it’s structured. A solid content strategy was always important with SEO, but with AEO, the focus shifts from high-volume generic content to answering nuanced questions.
“The advisors who get cited by AI aren’t the ones publishing the most content; they’re the ones publishing the most specific content,” says Hamzah Khadim, co-founder of Toronto-based AEO agency Logik Digital. “Generic financial tips are invisible. A clearly defined niche and a real point of view are what get surfaced.”
Ardmore, Penn.-based communications agency Gregory analyzed more than 200,000 AI citations to find out what got financial advisors into AI conversations. Advisor websites describing their work with specific types of clients (for example, professional athletes) outperformed those that didn’t.
Another technique is to publish articles structured with answers to specific questions. That’s what AI’s conversations with customers tend to be like.
“Traditional search engines would read your whole article. AI just finds the stuff it wants, and so smaller chunks with definite headlines are really helpful,” says Brent Carnduff, chief executive of Boise, Idaho-based Advisor Rankings, which offers SEO and AEO services for wealth managers.
“It really likes frequently asked questions,” he adds, so he puts tailored FAQ sections on every service page for his clients.
3. Gather social credit
Alongside content, social credibility is a big driver for AI engines.
“The things that work for SEO work for AEO,” says Jason Pereira, partner and senior financial planner at Woodgate Financial Inc. in Toronto. “Taking control of your Google profile and collecting positive reviews establishes more online clout and credibility, which makes you more visible.”
Brian Thorp, chief executive of Austin, Tex.-based advisor comparison and review website Wealthtender, says authentic client reviews “serve as the trust signal [that] tools like ChatGPT and Gemini look to find. They describe what you actually do in the natural language your future clients likely use to describe their needs.”