Retirement and Investing Web Sites 2011

Benchmarks and Best Practices

The financial crisis and the advent of social media have done a great deal to change how financial firms present themselves to consumers online. What has changed is the sensitivity of the BS detector of the average investor. The best firms recognize this, and use their public web sites to present themselves as humble partners with realistic approaches in an uncertain world. This 66 page report is about current best and worst practices for financial firm home pages, product pages, and the use of social media and video. We document more than 23 best practices, and 17 examples of how things go wrong.

• Sites Evaluated: 13
• The Top Three Sites Overall: Total Merrill, Ameriprise, Vanguard