How to Get More Customers as a Financial Advisor in Australia

Introduction

Most financial advisors in Australia still rely on word of mouth and referrals from accountants or mortgage brokers. And fair enough — that approach worked well for a long time.

But here's the problem: the advisory landscape has shifted dramatically. Since the Royal Commission, adviser numbers have dropped from over 28,000 to roughly 16,000. You'd think fewer advisors means more clients per advisor. But that's not what's happening. Consumers are pickier. They're doing research. They're comparing options before they ever pick up the phone.

In 2026, 97% of customers search online before choosing a local service provider. That includes people looking for financial advice. They're Googling "financial advisor near me," reading reviews, scanning websites, and — increasingly — asking ChatGPT or Perplexity for recommendations.

If you're not showing up in those places, you're invisible to a growing segment of potential clients. And those clients are going to the advisor down the road who figured this out six months before you did.

This guide walks you through exactly how to get more customers as a financial advisor in Australia, step by step. No fluff. No jargon. Just the practical playbook we use with our advisory clients every day at MoneyNearMe.

The average lifetime value of a financial advisory client ranges from $2,000 to $10,000+ in ongoing fees. Getting even two or three extra clients per month changes the entire trajectory of your practice.

Let's get into it.

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TL;DR

• This is a step-by-step guide to getting more customers as a financial advisor in Australia
• We cover Google Business Profile, local SEO, reviews, content marketing, AI search optimisation, and tracking
• The average financial advisory client is worth $2,000–$10,000+ in ongoing revenue
• You can DIY these steps or bring in a specialist — we'll tell you when each makes sense
• Getting found online is no longer optional; it's where your next clients are already looking

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Step 1: Claim and Optimise Your Google Business Profile

Your Google Business Profile (GBP) is the single most powerful free marketing tool available to financial advisors. When someone searches "financial advisor [your suburb]" or "financial planner near me," the Google Maps pack — that block of three local businesses with the map — appears at the top of the results. Above paid ads, in many cases. Definitely above regular website results.

If you're not in that map pack, you're missing the highest-intent local traffic available.

Here's how to set yours up properly:

Claim your profile. Go to business.google.com and either claim your existing listing or create a new one. You'll need to verify your business, usually by receiving a postcard at your office address or through a phone call.

Choose the right primary category. Select "Financial Planner" or "Financial Consultant" as your primary category. You can add secondary categories like "Investment Service," "Retirement Planning Service," or "Insurance Agency" if they apply. These categories directly influence which searches you appear for.

Complete every single field. Google rewards completeness. Fill out your business description (750 characters — use them all), your service areas, your services list, your business hours, and your attributes. Upload at least 10 high-quality photos: your office exterior, interior, team headshots, and any branded imagery.

Write a keyword-rich description. Don't stuff keywords awkwardly, but do include your key services and locations naturally. Something like: "We're a licensed financial advisory practice in [suburb], helping Australians with retirement planning, superannuation advice, investment strategy, and insurance."

Post weekly updates. Google Business Profile has a "posts" feature. Use it. Share a quick tip, announce a blog post, or highlight a client win (with permission). This signals to Google that your profile is active and maintained.

Add your services with descriptions. List each service you offer — SMSF advice, retirement planning, estate planning, debt management — with a brief description and, if applicable, a price range or "free initial consultation" note.

We've seen financial advisors go from zero map pack visibility to consistent top-three placement within 60–90 days just by fully optimising their GBP. It's the foundation everything else builds on. For a deeper dive into this, check out our full guide on local SEO for financial advisors.

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Step 2: Get Your Website Ranking for Local Keywords

Your Google Business Profile gets you into the map pack. Your website gets you into the organic results below it. Ideally, you want to own both.

The core strategy here is straightforward: create pages on your website that target the exact terms potential clients are searching for.

Your homepage should target your broadest term — "financial advisor [city]" or "financial planner [city]." Make sure that phrase appears in your page title, your H1 heading, your meta description, and naturally throughout the copy.

Create service pages for each major offering. A dedicated page for "retirement planning advice in [city]," another for "SMSF financial advice [city]," another for "investment advice [city]." Each page should be at least 500 words, explain what the service involves, who it's for, and include a clear call to action.

Build suburb pages if you serve multiple areas. A page targeting "financial advisor Parramatta" and another targeting "financial advisor Chatswood" will capture searches from people in those specific areas. Each page needs unique, useful content — not just the suburb name swapped in with identical copy. Write about the local demographics, common financial concerns in that area, or how you serve clients there specifically.

Technical fundamentals matter too. Your site needs to load fast (under 3 seconds), work perfectly on mobile, use HTTPS, and have clean URL structures. If your site is built on a decade-old template and takes 8 seconds to load, none of your content efforts will pay off.

Internal linking ties it all together. Link your service pages to each other, link your suburb pages to relevant service pages, and make sure every page links back to your contact page. This helps Google understand your site structure and passes authority between pages.

For a complete technical and strategic breakdown, read our guide on SEO for financial advisors.

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Step 3: Build a Review Generation System

Here's a stat that should grab your attention: 87% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses. For financial services — where trust is literally the product — reviews aren't a nice-to-have. They're make-or-break.

A financial advisor with 45 five-star reviews will get chosen over an equally qualified advisor with 3 reviews almost every time. Google also uses review quantity, quality, and recency as ranking factors for the map pack.

When to ask: The best time to ask for a review is immediately after a positive interaction. Just completed a successful strategy session? Client expressed gratitude for your help navigating a complex super situation? That's your window. Don't wait a week — the emotional momentum fades fast.

How to ask: Keep it simple and direct. Here's a template that works:

"Hi [Name], it was great working through your retirement strategy today. If you found the session valuable, I'd really appreciate a quick Google review — it helps other Australians in a similar position find trusted advice. Here's the direct link: [your Google review link]."

Send this via email or SMS within 24 hours. Make it effortless by including the direct review link (you can generate this from your Google Business Profile dashboard).

Systematise it. Don't rely on memory. Build review requests into your workflow. After every annual review meeting, after onboarding is complete, after resolving a claim — trigger a review request. Some CRM systems can automate this entirely.

Respond to every review. Thank positive reviewers specifically. For negative reviews — and they happen — respond professionally, acknowledge the concern, and offer to resolve it offline. Prospective clients read your responses as closely as they read the reviews themselves.

Aim for at least 2–3 new reviews per month. Consistency matters more than volume spikes.

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Step 4: Create Content That Attracts Customers

Content marketing for financial advisors isn't about writing thought leadership pieces that impress your peers. It's about answering the exact questions your prospective clients are typing into Google.

Start with questions your clients actually ask you. "How much super do I need to retire?" "Should I consolidate my super funds?" "What does a financial advisor actually do?" "How much does financial advice cost in Australia?" Every one of those is a blog post waiting to be written.

Target long-tail keywords. These are longer, more specific search phrases with less competition. "Best investment strategy for retirees in Australia 2026" is easier to rank for than "investment strategy," and the person searching it is closer to needing your help.

Structure content for both humans and search engines. Use clear headings (H2, H3), short paragraphs, bullet points, and direct answers. Google increasingly pulls content into featured snippets — those answer boxes at the top of search results — when it's formatted clearly.

Build topical authority. Don't write one article about super and call it done. Write a cluster: "How much super do I need at 40," "How much super do I need at 50," "Super contribution caps explained," "Salary sacrifice into super — is it worth it?" When Google sees you've covered a topic comprehensively, it starts trusting your site as an authority in that space.

Include calls to action naturally. Every piece of content should guide the reader toward a next step — booking a free consultation, downloading a guide, or calling your office. Don't be pushy, but don't be shy either. They came looking for help. Offer it.

Publishing two well-researched articles per month is enough to build meaningful organic traffic within 6–12 months.

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Step 5: Optimise for AI Search (GEO)

This is the frontier that most financial advisors — and frankly, most marketers — haven't caught up to yet.

A growing number of Australians are skipping Google entirely and asking AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews for recommendations. "Who's the best financial advisor in Melbourne for retirement planning?" is exactly the kind of query these tools are handling right now.

The question is: when someone asks, does the AI recommend you?

Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) is how you influence that. The principles overlap with traditional SEO but have important differences:

Get mentioned on authoritative third-party sites. AI models pull from diverse sources. Being featured in directories, industry publications, local news, and comparison sites increases your chances of being cited.

Structured, factual content wins. AI tools prefer content that provides clear, specific, citable answers. Write content that reads like a trusted reference — not a sales pitch.

Entity building matters. Consistently represent your business name, credentials, specialisations, and location across the web. The more consistently you appear as a clearly defined entity, the more likely AI models are to surface you.

We've written a comprehensive guide on GEO for financial advisors that breaks this down in detail. If you want to get ahead of 95% of your competitors, this is where to focus.

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Step 6: Track Your Results

You can't improve what you don't measure. And too many advisors spend money on marketing without tracking whether it's actually producing clients.

Track these metrics monthly:

• Google Business Profile insights: How many people viewed your profile? How many clicked to call, visit your website, or request directions? These numbers tell you whether your local SEO efforts are gaining traction.
• Website traffic from organic search: Use Google Analytics (it's free) to monitor how many visitors arrive through search engines, which pages they land on, and whether traffic is trending up month over month.
• Keyword rankings: Track your positions for your target keywords. Are you moving up for "financial advisor [city]"? Tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, or even free tools like Google Search Console give you this data.
• Calls and form submissions: This is the bottom line. How many enquiries are coming through your website and GBP each month? Use call tracking if needed to separate online leads from referral leads.
• Cost per acquisition: If you're spending $1,500/month on marketing and getting 5 new client enquiries that convert into 2 paying clients worth $5,000/year each, your cost per acquisition is $750 for $10,000 in annual revenue. That's a number worth knowing.

Review these metrics monthly. Look for trends, not single data points. SEO and content marketing compound over time — month one rarely looks impressive, but month six often does.

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When to Hire a Professional

Everything in this guide can be done yourself. But should it be?

Here's our honest take: if you're a solo advisor with more time than money, start with Steps 1 and 3 yourself. Claim your Google Business Profile and start asking for reviews this week. Those two actions alone will move the needle.

But if your time is better spent advising clients — which, at $300+/hour in billable value, it almost certainly is — outsourcing your digital marketing to a specialist makes financial sense.

The key is hiring someone who understands financial services. Generic digital marketing agencies will burn your budget on tactics that work for plumbers but fall flat for advisors. Financial services have compliance requirements (hello, ASIC), longer sales cycles, and higher client lifetime values that demand a specific approach.

At MoneyNearMe, we work exclusively with Australian financial service businesses. Our packages range from $500 to $2,000/month depending on your growth goals, and everything we do is built around the exact strategy outlined in this guide — GBP optimisation, local SEO, content, reviews, and GEO.

Want to see how your practice stacks up? Get a free visibility audit from MoneyNearMe and we'll show you exactly where you're losing potential clients online. No obligation, no sales pitch — just data.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How can financial advisors get more customers online?

Optimise your Google Business Profile, build local SEO through your website, generate consistent reviews, and create content targeting the questions your ideal clients search for.

What's the fastest way to get more calls as a financial advisor?

Fully optimise your Google Business Profile and ask your last 20 happy clients for Google reviews. Most advisors see increased calls within 30–60 days.

How much should I spend on marketing as a financial advisor?

Most successful advisory practices invest 5–10% of revenue in marketing. For a practice earning $300K, that's $1,250–$2,500/month.

Is Google Ads or SEO better for financial advisors?

SEO delivers better long-term ROI and compounds over time. Google Ads delivers faster results but stops the moment you stop paying. The best strategy uses both.

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Ready to stop relying on referrals alone? Talk to MoneyNearMe today about a marketing strategy built specifically for Australian financial advisors. We'll show you exactly where your next clients are searching — and how to make sure they find you.