Situation
Three years ago, Sefton launched Kingsbury Financial Advisors and, like many in the industry, turned to Broadridge for his website. While Broadridge offered a standard solution for financial advisors, it quickly became a bottleneck.
Updates took days – whether fixing broken HTML from a simple change or adding a new team member to his About page. The site was sluggish, inflexible, and lacked personality – packed with fuzzy images, untouched pages, and generic text.
As his business grew, Sefton needed more control and a site that reflected his brand. Frustrated after a botched update that left his site practically broken, he started exploring alternatives.
Challenge
Sefton faced a few key hurdles:
Compliance: Regulatory standards were non-negotiable. He worried about building a custom site that would pass compliance muster, though he noticed other advisors pulling it off.
Inbound Marketing: Sefton wanted to turn his site into a client magnet with a conversational form – not just a basic and hard to find “contact us” – and automated workflows to streamline responses.
SEO Continuity: With existing Google rankings (e.g., “Financial Advisors Tampa, FL”), he couldn’t afford to lose visibility during the switch.
Functional, Not Fancy: Like most FA’s, Sefton wanted a straightforward, no-frills website facelift. However, finding web developers who could keep things simple and clean – without overcomplicating the setup or overcharging – proved challenging.
Solution
Thunderclap delivered a custom website in (no exaggeration) under a week, leveraging beehiiv’s new website builder – one of the first fully custom sites built on the platform.
Here’s how we tackled it:
Compliance Made Easy: We built a draft site on a separate domain for compliance review, securing approval quickly with minimal back-and-forth.
Tailored Design: Ditching plug-in’s and rigid templates (unlike Wix, Squarespace, or, what we formally used, WordPress), we crafted a unique site that reflected Sefton’s brand, goals, and color schemes – something truly custom.
Engagement Boost: A custom questionnaire replaced the generic contact form, asking smart questions with responses auto-routed to KFA's internal systems.
Site Cleanup: We axed redundant pages, tightened up copy, and added clear calls-to-actions on each and every page. We also redirected any 404s or broken links to the homepage.
Analytics & Scalability: Last but not least, we set up analytics for page tracking and goal conversions. These came with the buildout, ensuring Sefton has a clear path to scale in case he ever wants to buy traffic.
Homepage
Onboarding flow
Results
Instant Win: On day one, an inbound client reached out via the new form – proof it worked.
Total Control: Stoked about the new site, Sefton got new professional headshots for him and his team the following week. He sent us the image files, and we added them
daysless an hour later.Smooth Transition: Zero downtime during the domain switch kept the business humming as usual.
Happy Client: Sefton called it a “streamlined, budget-friendly solution with a quick turnaround.”
“I went from a big, clunky, and expensive corporate agency to leaning on Thunderclap for my site, which included a fresh redesign and custom automation for my clients. I highly suggest Thunderclap to anyone looking for a streamlined, budget-friendly solution with a quick turnaround.”
This overhaul gave Sefton a site that’s compliant, client-friendly, and fully his own – proving Thunderclap can deliver fast, affordable results for not only financial advisors, but other local businesses dealing with similar bottlenecks.