Compliance is the single biggest reason financial advisers put off refreshing their website. There’s a quiet fear that adding new content, a bolder headline, a client story, a stronger call to action, will somehow cross a regulatory line. The good news is that FCA rules on financial promotions are clear once you understand the underlying principles, and a well-built website can be both compliant and genuinely persuasive. The two are not in tension; most non-compliant sites are non-compliant because nobody thought about it carefully, not because compliant content is inherently weak.
Everything on an FCA-regulated firm’s website falls under the financial promotions rules in COBS, and the foundational test is whether content is fair, clear, and not misleading. This sounds simple but has specific implications for web copy: you can’t imply guaranteed returns, you can’t cherry-pick performance data without context, and you can’t make claims about outcomes that depend on individual client circumstances without the appropriate caveats.
Every regulated page should clearly state your firm’s FCA registration details, ideally in the footer site-wide so it’s never missing by accident. Risk warnings need to sit near the content they relate to, not buried in a single terms page three clicks away; if you’re discussing investment-linked products, the warning belongs on that page. Testimonials and case studies are usable, and they’re genuinely effective for conversion, but they need to avoid implying typical outcomes unless you can substantiate that they are typical, and should generally be accompanied by appropriate disclaimers.
Many advisers wrongly believe testimonials are banned outright. They’re not. The FCA permits client testimonials provided they’re balanced, not selectively edited to misrepresent outcomes, and don’t constitute an inducement that breaches other rules. Third-party review platforms like VouchedFor and Unbiased operate within frameworks designed for this exact purpose, and embedding verified reviews from these platforms is widely considered lower-risk than hosting unverified quotes directly, because the review platform itself applies a layer of verification.
The advisers who struggle most with website compliance are the ones treating it as a final check before launch, when a design or copywriting decision made weeks earlier turns out to need a complete rewrite. The smarter approach, and the one a good agency will build into the project plan, is involving your compliance function (or your own compliance literacy, if you’re a sole trader) from the wireframe stage, so risk warnings and disclosures are designed into the page layout rather than awkwardly retrofitted at the end.
A compliant website isn’t a constrained one. Some of the highest-converting IFA sites in the market are built entirely within these rules; they just use design, structure, and genuinely useful content to do the persuasive work that bold claims used to do.
