How to Display Testimonials on Financial Advisor Websites & FAQs

The SEC Marketing Rule allows financial advisors to promote client testimonials on their websites (and elsewhere), but doing so compliantly requires careful attention to disclosure requirements and best practices.

In this guide, learn how to add widgets from Wealthtender to display testimonials on advisor websites compliantly. Whether you’re creating a dedicated testimonials page or adding reviews to your homepage and bio pages, you’ll find step-by-step instructions, links to live examples, and answers to frequently asked questions to help you leverage the power of social proof while staying within regulatory guidelines.

Four Ways Testimonials Published Online Help Advisors Get Found

Getting found online and earning prospect trust are two distinct challenges for financial advisors. Client testimonials published online address both by improving your search visibility and providing social proof at the moments that matter most.

1. Building Your Online Presence

When you collect reviews through Wealthtender, your testimonials appear on your Wealthtender profile page, helping you stand out with ~50,000 prospective clients who visit wealthtender.com each month (on average). These consumers can read your reviews, feel increased confidence in contacting you, and schedule their first call with you, all in one place.

2. Improving Your Search Visibility

Search engines like Google and Bing regularly index Wealthtender profiles. Once you’ve received your first reviews, search engines begin displaying gold stars and ratings next to your name in search results. AI platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other answer engines also reference these reviews when answering questions asked by consumers researching financial advisors.

This visibility boost comes from how both traditional search algorithms and AI tools interpret online reviews. The combination of star ratings and detailed client testimonials sends trust signals that can improve your ranking in search results and increase the likelihood of being recommended by AI platforms, benefits that span both SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and AEO (Answer Engine Optimization).

3. Standing Out When It Matters Most

Consider this scenario: A technology professional searches Google for financial advisors knowledgeable in working with employees of their firm and finds three qualified candidates. Only one displays star ratings in the search results. That visual differentiation often determines who gets the call.

The same principle applies when prospects ask AI answer engines for advisor recommendations. Tools like ChatGPT prioritize advisors with authentic reviews and detailed testimonials when generating responses. By displaying testimonials directly on your own website, you control the presentation and ensure every visitor, whether they found you through traditional search, AI recommendations, or referrals, encounters social proof at critical decision-making moments.

4. Leveling the Playing Field

This advantage is particularly valuable for independent advisors and wealth management firms competing against wirehouses with established brands and substantial marketing budgets. As long as wirehouse advisors remain restricted by their compliance departments from collecting and publishing reviews, independent advisors can build a compelling online reputation that resonates with both traditional search engines and AI tools.

Use Wealthtender Widgets to Add Testimonials to Advisor Websites

Whether you work with a website developer, industry vendor, or maintain your website on your own, Wealthtender widgets (also referred to as ‘Embed Codes’) make it easy to create a testimonials page or add a reviews widget to your home page, bio pages, and beyond. If you’re an advisor in the Wealthtender community, simply follow the steps just below to get started.

Follow These Steps To View Embed Code Options:

1. Sign in to your Wealthtender account and visit My Dashboard. (Firms with multiple profiles on Wealthtender can visit the Enterprise Dashboard.)
2. In the left sidebar menu, click on Embed Codes
3. Click the Widgets tab to view available options

Choose the embed code(s) you would like to use to display reviews on your website. Each widget includes settings you can update and preview. Once you decide on your preferred embed code(s) and settings, your personalized code(s) can easily be copied and pasted into your website’s content management system or shared with your website developer or support team.

Examples of Advisors Displaying Testimonials on Websites

As you prepare to get started promoting testimonials on your own website, you may find it useful to see how other advisors and wealth management firms display testimonials on their websites. Just below, you’ll find multiple ways you can use Wealthtender widgets to display testimonials on your website, with links to view websites with widgets in action.

1. Display Advisor Testimonials on Website Homepage, Bio Pages, and Blog Posts

An effective way to capture the attention of website visitors is to prominently display useful information on popular pages on an advisor’s website, including your homepage, bio pages, and even blog posts. Wealthtender offers a widget for this purpose that advisors can use to display client testimonials in multiple places on their websites.

Beyond a dedicated testimonials page on an advisor’s website (discussed further below), this widget amplifies the reach of advisor testimonials by seamlessly inserting them into the pages and articles most visited by prospective clients.

Below, you’ll find examples demonstrating how advisors display their reviews within articles on their websites (like the article you’re reading on our website right now).

For added flexibility, the height settings of this widget can be adjusted for optimal formatting preferences.

Each testimonial displayed within this widget includes the accompanying disclosures required by the SEC to indicate if:

1. A client or non-client wrote the review,
2. The person who wrote the review was compensated in any form and,
3. There are any material conflicts of interest.

In circumstances requiring additional disclosures for an individual review, these details will also be displayed. Advisors can also add disclosures above or below this widget if their compliance officer requests it.

To view actual examples of this widget, visit the following pages for these advisors and advisory firms:

• Cordant Wealth Partners
• Rather & Kittrell (homepage) | Jay Slagle, CFP®, AIF® (advisor bio)
• Quotient Wealth Partners
• Beacon Wealth
• Level Wealth Management
• Thayer Financial
• Focus Planning Group
• Water Street Wealth Management
• Insight Financial Strategists

Example: Cordant Wealth Partners

2. Create an Advisor Testimonials Page (Collect and Display)

In other professions where regulatory prohibitions haven’t constrained client testimonials, it’s generally considered best practice for websites to include a testimonials page that helps prospective clients learn about the experiences of current and former clients. Wealthtender offers multiple widgets for advisors to create a dedicated testimonials page, including the widget discussed in the section above.

This next widget is designed with functionality that allows website visitors to write and submit testimonials in addition to reading an advisor’s existing reviews. The top section of the widget includes the new review submission form, and the bottom section displays the advisor’s approved testimonials.

When clients write and submit reviews within this widget, the testimonials are not immediately displayed publicly. Rather, because Wealthtender hosts this widget, details of the incoming review follow the same compliance-friendly workflow as reviews submitted on the advisor’s profile page on Wealthtender. Advisors receive a notification by email of the pending review with a link to a secure form where disclosures can be added. Once this certification process is completed, the testimonial will be displayed in each of the advisor’s widgets.

To view actual examples of this widget, visit the testimonials pages for these firms:

Examples:

• Passport Wealth Management
• Arch Financial Planning – Cecil Staton

3. Create an Advisor Testimonials Page (Display Only)

Another popular approach to building a testimonials page is to only display reviews already received. Unlike the advisor website featured just above, a testimonials page using this widget doesn’t include an area for new reviews to be submitted. In this use case, new reviews are written and submitted on the advisor’s Wealthtender profile page, then displayed on Wealthtender, indexed by search engines like Google and Bing, and also displayed on the advisor’s testimonials page.

Similar to the widget above, testimonials are displayed in a single column, with the most recent reviews displayed first. Displaying testimonials in this reverse chronological order helps advisors satisfy SEC compliance requirements that frown upon reviews being filtered only to show 5-star reviews or to display the highest reviews first.

To view an actual example of this widget, visit the testimonials pages for this advisor:

Example: Quotient Wealth Partners – Testimonials

Instead of using an embed widget to display testimonials, other advisors have chosen to create a testimonial page using designs they created within Wealthtender Testimonial Marketing Studio.

4. Create a Gallery of Advisor Testimonials

Financial advisors can also display testimonials in a gallery format. Using this Wealthtender widget, an advisor can showcase up to three reviews side-by-side in a single row depending on the device and screen width used by the visitor to their website (e.g., laptop, iPad, mobile phone). Additional rows display the rest of an advisor’s reviews in reverse chronological order to satisfy compliance requirements.

To view examples of this widget, visit the following advisory firm websites:

• Pinnacle Wealth Advisory
• The Wealth Plan

FAQs: Review Widgets, Troubleshooting & More

Choosing Wealthtender as Your Testimonial Marketing Partner

We hope you found this article helpful, and we encourage you to read each of the articles in our SEC Marketing Rule Education Series for more ideas to compliantly attract new clients and grow your business with online reviews and testimonials. Financial advisors who embrace online reviews in their marketing efforts will lead the industry in attracting new clients during the historic transfer of wealth from Baby Boomers to Millennials over the next decade.

Online reviews establish a human connection with prospects, demonstrating your trustworthiness and increasing their confidence in contacting and hiring you. But online reviews are just one important part of an effective marketing plan to strengthen your online reputation and attract new clients in today’s world.

At Wealthtender, we’re dedicated to helping you grow your business compliantly with Certified Advisor Reviews™ and our Modern Advisor Marketing platform, providing you with the tools to ensure prospects can find you online and feel confident about their hiring decision.

If you have questions, feedback, or would like to discuss the SEC Marketing Rule with us, please email yourfriends@wealthtender.com or call Wealthtender Founder and CEO Brian Thorp directly at (512) 856-5406.

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