The short version: Gwen Canonico relaunched her website in January 2025 and got her first lead from it that November. Ten months of publishing before anything happened, followed by steady inquiries ever since. On our webinar this week, she walked through exactly what she publishes and why it works. The questions attendees asked were the good kind. Here are the ones worth passing along.
Most advisor websites are built to be found. Gwen built hers to bring in business.
She started her practice in February 2024 and put up a site in a rush. It was enough to exist if someone looked her up, but not enough to do much else. After LPL Focus Conference that fall, she rebuilt it with FMG and signed up for the Do It For Me program to keep the content fresh. By January 2025, it was live. That November, a prospect found her organically.
“I remember saying to this woman, how did you find me? And she said she found me on the internet. I was like, really? It’s working.” Gwen Canonico
How long before a website actually produces leads?
Plan on about a year.
That is not a hedge. Content has to be published, crawled, categorized, and accumulated before it compounds. The first month may produce nothing. Every month layers on the one before it, and eventually the results start to build.
Gwen relaunched in January 2025 and got her first website lead in November. That was ten months of writing with no obvious evidence that it was working. Most advisors quit much sooner.
Through Do It For Me, advisors have a consistent calendar of social posts, emails, and blogs to work from. What Gwen did on top of that was build content around the specific audiences she wanted to reach.
How do you decide what to write about?
Look at your calendar and make room for your niches.
That is essentially Gwen’s method.
“I’d look at the calendar and see the empty days, and I’d go, those are the days I’m going to fill.”
She picked four core niches and tracks coverage on a color coded spreadsheet so none of them gets neglected. Public service employees, including teachers, police officers, and firefighters, became one of those niches.
Then she wrote an article about 403(b) fees in the New Jersey teacher market.
That post is now one of her strongest examples of why niche content matters. A few hundred clicks may not sound significant until you consider who those clicks are coming from. The right 200 people can matter a lot more than thousands of visitors who will never become clients.
Does the tone of a blog actually matter?
Gwen says it was a turning point.
“The change started with the way I wrote the blogs. My tone changed. It’s more conversational and question based.”
Look at the difference between a generic financial planning headline and a question a specific person might actually ask.
Will your pension really be enough to retire as a New Jersey teacher?
What New Jersey teachers are really paying in their 403(b).
The more consistently you write about a specific topic, the clearer your expertise becomes. That helps people understand what you know and who you help.
One more thing: revisit what is already working.
If an article is consistently performing well, update it with new information and make sure it remains useful and relevant.
If everyone uses the same pre-written content, does that hurt you with AI?
This was one of the best questions of the session.
Using pre-written content does not automatically hurt your visibility. But there is a difference between publishing content and building expertise around it.
The content FMG provides can give advisors a strong foundation. From there, you can add your own perspective, write additional articles about your niche, and make the content more specific to the people you serve.
“Take the pieces we’re giving you and adjust them just a little bit to be specific to your audience. It’s a very low lift for a much higher impact.” Samantha Russell
You do not need to rewrite everything from scratch. Often, the most effective approach is to build on what you already have.
Should you list every state you’re licensed in?
Not necessarily.
One of the more interesting discussions from the webinar was about geographic focus. If your goal is to become known in a specific market, your website and content should make that clear.
Gwen chose to focus heavily on New Jersey. Her website and blog consistently communicate the market she serves and the audiences she works with.
“Don’t get greedy. You have to keep it simple, because you can get very distracted. I decided early on, let’s just focus on New Jersey.”
If you genuinely serve clients across multiple locations, you should communicate that accurately. But a long list of every state where you are licensed is not necessarily the best way to explain who your business is for.
Be clear about where you want to build visibility and who you want to reach.
Should you promote different niches on different social platforms?
Not necessarily.
Gwen uses LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. She is not measuring success based on likes alone.
“Even though no one’s liking it, they’re getting out there. Somebody messaged me this morning asking how to set up an ABLE account for their child, and gave me their whole life story. That woman found me through the internet. She’s not hanging out with me on LinkedIn.”
Social engagement is only one part of the picture.
Someone may read your content without liking it. They may visit your website months later. They may see your LinkedIn profile after finding you somewhere else.
The goal is not simply to collect likes. The goal is to create a digital presence that helps the right people learn who you are and what you know.
How do you get all of this through LPL compliance?
For many advisors, the answer is having the right infrastructure in place.
Website content, emails, and social posts need to move through the appropriate compliance process before they are published. That process can become a major obstacle when you are trying to consistently create content on your own.
Gwen described the compliance infrastructure as one of the biggest reasons she has been able to maintain her marketing efforts.
“It is about the infrastructure, and I cannot emphasize it enough. The compliance component is a real problem if you try to do it on your own.” Gwen Canonico
The ability to create content consistently matters. Having a process that supports that consistency matters just as much.
What happens after someone fills out a form?
Your marketing should not stop when someone fills out a form.
Connecting your website to your CRM can help make sure new contacts are captured and organized. From there, segmentation can help you follow up with people based on their interests or the type of content that brought them to you.
For example, someone interested in retirement planning may need different follow up than someone researching 403(b) fees.
The more relevant your follow up can be, the easier it is to continue the conversation.
My website traffic is down. Should I be worried?
Not necessarily.
Website traffic can be useful, but it should not be the only number you pay attention to.
The more important question is who is visiting your website and what they do once they get there.
“I’d much rather have twenty qualified visitors who are a good fit than two thousand coming from places where we can’t serve them.” Samantha Russell
A smaller number of highly relevant visitors can be far more valuable than a large amount of traffic that never turns into a conversation.
Traffic is a metric. It is not the goal.
How do you know when to pivot?
Stay consistent, but leave room to react.
A content calendar gives you structure. It does not mean you have to ignore everything happening around you.
Review your marketing regularly. Consider whether a topic still feels relevant. Pay attention to what your clients are asking. Look at what content is resonating.
Gwen also uses her marketing concierge as a sounding board.
“I ask her to be honest with me. If you see something, you’ve got to tell me.”
That is an important part of a good marketing process. You need consistency, but you also need perspective.
What would you tell an advisor starting from scratch?
Gwen’s answer came back to persistence.
“I spoke to a lot of people. Some were negative, some were positive, but nobody was really putting in the time. I just kept sticking with it.”
Her first website lead did not happen overnight.
It took ten months.
It took consistent publishing. It took building content around specific audiences. It took continuing to show up before there was clear evidence that the work was paying off.
The infrastructure made that consistency possible. The content calendar, the support, and the compliance process all helped.
But the results came from continuing to build.
The Questions Are Changing
One of the most interesting things about this conversation was not just what advisors were asking. It was what those questions said about where marketing is headed.
Advisors are thinking about AI search. They are thinking about niche audiences. They are thinking about website traffic, lead quality, content, and how to stand out online.
Those are important questions.
The tools will continue to change. The way people search will continue to change. But the fundamentals remain the same.
Know who you want to reach. Create useful content. Share what you know. Make it easy for the right people to understand how you can help.
That is where a strong digital presence starts.
Want to see how FMG can help you build a consistent marketing strategy and put it into action? Learn more about FMG’s Do It For Me program.
