Investopedia to build on plans to enhance its investor networking site

Investopedia plans to expand Advisor Insights, the networking site which emerged from beta a month ago. The platform, which currently provides a free service provided by financial adviseors who answer questions posed by investors, derives ing its revenue from advertising. Planned upgrades include enabling users to follow specific financial advisers, and allowing advisers to ﻿share best practices and other relevant content.

Investopedia plans to build out its networking services this year for its new Advisor Insights website, where advisers answer investor questions, to include more marketing tools for advisers, said David Siegel, chief executive of Investopedia.

In the next three to six months, the website will allow users to follow specific financial advisers, like they would on any other social media site, let advisers share relevant content from outside of Investopedia and create a portal for professionals to share best practices with one another. Mr. Siegel said the upgrade is an effort for the website to be a central marketing hub for financial professionals.

“Our business plan and goals are all about creating value for financial advisers,” Mr. Siegel said. The website does not and will not charge advisers for these tools, he added. Instead, the company makes money through advertising.

Advisor Insights first rolled out of beta a month ago, providing advisers a platform similar to NerdWallet to answer general questions on topics such as retirement, college savings and portfolio construction. Michael Kitces, partner and director of research for Pinnacle Advisory Group, a firm in Columbia, Md., and a well-known figure in the wealth management industry, posted on his blog about a week after that it was a bad idea for advisers to spend their time on a site such as this one.

“The reason, simply put, is that content sites are in the content business, which means selling advertising or other lead generation activities,” Mr. Kitces wrote in his post. “Which means at best, advisers who are successful on third-party sites will find the companies serving up ads to their competition right next to their own answers.”

“Assuming that information-seekers who ask questions online are even likely to hire an adviser in the first place, which they’re probably not,” he added.

He suggests advisers answer client questions on their own sites, through a blog or FAQ section, rather than drive traffic to websites like Investopedia.

“But when you create content, create it for yourself, so you can build your own business in the long run, not someone else’s,” he wrote.

Mr. Siegel said in a conversation with InvestmentNews that advisers’ first priority should be in building an online presence and a solid website, but that having a website and using Advisor Insights do not have to be mutually exclusive.

“If someone publishes an article on their site, they have a couple hundred people” viewing it, he said, as opposed to publishing something on Advisor Insights, where a few thousand people may see it. “I would rather a few thousand than a couple hundred.”

Arden Rodgers, founder and president of Arbus Capital in New York, said he didn’t sign on to Advisor Insights expecting to generate leads. He approached it as pro bono work. Since using the service, though, he said he has received one inquiry from someone who did not post a question on the website but found his listing and wanted to email him directly.

Investopedia, which has spoken with 20 to 30 advisers while building out the website, has responded to Mr. Kitces’ constructive criticism by making advisers’ names, logos and links to personal sites larger. Other recent updates include letting advisers publish thought leadership posts like they would on LinkedIn.

In the next six to 12 months, Investopedia will host webinars for advisers and will likely work with advisers to build newsletters, better websites and videos.

Tina Powell, chief executive of SheCapital, a women-focused robo-adviser, said it is imperative that advisers constantly add to their own websites, and blogs are usually a good way to do so. It helps keep their site at the top of search engines. Ms. Powell, who uses Advisor Insights, did add though that signing up for Investopedia has helped her company rise up the ranks of Google, and she has received direct leads from the platform.

“I never thought that the platform was part of a content marketing program,” Ms. Powell said. “It was always meant to complement what we are already doing.”

Advisers do often need to balance the pros and cons of using sites like these or social media channels among the numerous other responsibilities they have for clients, she said.

“All of these channels compete for time attention and resources, so we have to be mindful and look at content strategy similarly to the way we manage clients’ money,” she said. “You can’t do everything. You have to be methodical and intentional.”