Episode summary
Leveraging SEO To Build A Pipeline Of Prospects - Helen Stephens | Financial Advisor Success Ep480
Financial Advisor Success (Kitces)
· · 1 hr 27 min · Hosts: Michael Kitces, Adam Van Deusen · Guests: Helen Stephens
Summary
Helen Stephens describes how Aspen Wealth Management built a long-running prospect pipeline by investing early in SEO and then adapting as search changed. The firm started with back-end location and topic pages that were stuffed with keywords like Fort Worth, Arlington, South Lake, estate planning, and tax planning. Over time, Google rewarded more original and more useful planning content, and Helen says that persistence eventually produced a steady stream of inbound inquiries and roughly 30% annual growth since 2020.
The strategy evolved again as clients and prospects began asking questions instead of typing simple search terms. Helen says content around topics like insurance, taxes, Roth conversions, and other technical planning questions now ranks best, and that the firm has also started seeing leads from ChatGPT and Gemini. Those AI-driven prospects often begin with broad financial-planning questions, then eventually get nudged by the tool to contact an adviser, which she says has become especially effective for more complex households.
To keep up, Aspen moved from a patchwork of internal writing and outside help to an all-in-one marketing partner, Beyond AUM, which now handles content, social, PR, and related marketing work. The firm filters leads carefully through an intake process led by Michelle, with strong prospects routed to advisers and poor fits referred elsewhere. That funnel supports a business that now has 342 households, $670 million in AUM, 10 team members, and an internal succession plan that Helen says will keep the firm independent.
Key takeaways
- Helen says early keyword-stuffed local pages worked because Google rewarded volume and originality, even if the writing was crude.
- She says the firm now gets many inquiries from ChatGPT and Gemini, and those leads often convert because they are already deep into planning questions.
- Aspen’s intake process screens prospects by life stage and investable assets so advisers spend time only on likely fits.
- Helen says the firm has grown to 342 households and $670 million in AUM, with annual growth just shy of 30% since 2020.
- She says content creation moved to Beyond AUM because a single person could not match the breadth of SEO, social, PR, and writing support needed.
- Helen is planning an internal succession, with equity already transferred through gifts and sales and a larger ownership transition planned for 2027.
Notable quotes
“how Helen's SEO strategy has evolved over time as Google has changed how it evaluates sites, moving from creating back-end pages that mentioned her location and services to highquality content”
“I was writing content. Um people in the firm were writing content. Go hire marketing was doing their thing for the backend pages”
“it has contributed to her approximately 30% annual growth rate over the past 5 years”
“We get a good many inquiries now from chat GPT and the people that land on our page from chat GPT, they effectively always reach out to contact us”
“Our our target prospect is between two and seven million and is a pre-retiree”
How the episode opens
Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with financial planner, speaker, and consultant Michael Kitsus to hear stories of how leading financial adviserss navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success and get insight from leading industry consultants about how to break through to the next level in your advisory business. And now, here's your host, Michael Kitsus.
Welcome everyone. Welcome to the 480th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast. My guest on today's podcast is Helen Stevens.
Helen is the founder of Aspen Wealth Management, an RAIA based in Fort Worth, Texas, that oversees $670 million in assets under management for 342 client households. What's unique about Helen though is how she has grown her firm thanks in large part to early investments in search engine optimization which have paid off over time. Not only through prospects finding her through Google searches but also now by getting leads from chat GPT and other artificial intelligence tools.
In this episode, we talk in depth about how Helen's SEO strategy has evolved over time as Google has changed how it evaluates sites, moving from creating back-end pages that mentioned her location and services to highquality content that demonstrated her expertise in serving her ideal fit clients. How creating highquality content and serving a local geographic area has now paid off through referrals from Chat GPT, which often occur when a consumer goes deep enough into planning questions that Chat GPT suggests that they seek out an adviser. and how that while Helen's commitment to SEO and content creation took time to pay off in terms of a steady pipeline of prospects, it has contributed to her approximately 30% annual growth rate over the past 5 years.
We also talk about how Helen made the decision to move away from internal content creation to work with an all-in-one marketing service that handles the full scope of her marketing needs.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- seo strategy
- ai findability
- prospect pipeline
- google search changes
- succession planning
Companies and tickers mentioned
- GOOGL
- GOOG
- Aspen Wealth Management
- OpenAI
Watch the episode
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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Financial Advisor Success (Kitces), this episode and its artwork belong to Michael Kitces. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
