THE BRAND INDEX ■
Seven advisor websites, scored the way your next client scores yours. The average grade was 43 percent.
Your next client runs this exact audit (thinking) in the first thirty seconds on your site. They just never create a scorecard. The Brand Index does: five axes, scored one to five, from the live site alone. No calls, no context, no benefit of the doubt. These are the numbers so far.
Scored by a former advisor. Firms never named. Updated as the Index grows.
THE SCORES ■
How did seven advisor websites score?
Can a stranger tell who you serve in seconds
Could a competitor paste your headline onto their site
Do you show trust or just claim it
Do you sound like your clients or like your industry
Is there one obvious next step
Seven firms scored to date. Average total: 10.9 of 25. Six of seven scored below 60 percent. Updated as the Index grows.
WHAT THE NUMBERS SAY ■
What do the numbers say?
The thing that makes you different is the thing your site says last.
Differentiation scored lowest of the five axes, and four of the seven firms scored the minimum. Not because the firms are the same. Because the sites are. On site after site the real edge, a tax-first model, a trademarked process, two decades of one specialty, sits one scroll down or in a footnote while the hero says what every firm says. Advisors describe the problem in almost the same words every time: the vision is clear, it is putting it into words that never happens.
Six of seven sites never say who they serve above the fold.
Your next client decides in seconds whether this is for them. On six of these seven sites, the answer never appears where they look. Mood lines, mottos, portraits, and buildings above the fold. The audience, one scroll later. The prospect is gone before the site gets to the point.
Credentials everywhere. Clients nowhere.
Not one firm scored above 3 of 5 on Proof. The raw material is real: decades in practice, national press, offices, professional marks. What is missing is the client. Four of seven sites contain no client voice at all. Not one testimonial, not one outcome, not one sentence from the people the firm serves. A prospect is not asking whether you are credentialed. They are asking who already trusts you with real money.
The one exception proves the rule.
One firm scored 19 of 25, six points clear of the next firm and eight above the field average. Not better designed. Better positioned: a filed-down niche, an explicit anti-persona, language no competitor could borrow. When a firm knows exactly who it serves, every other score rises with it. Positioning is the multiplier.
Try it on your own site.
Open your homepage and cover the logo. If what is left could belong to any firm in your category, you already know your Differentiation score. The audit tells you the other four.
THE TECHNICAL LAYER ■
The SEO boxes are checked. The message is missing.
The same seven homepages, through the checks a machine runs.
META DESCRIPTIONS
7 / 7
All seven have meta descriptions. The plugins did their job.
FAQ SCHEMA
0 / 7
Zero of seven have FAQ schema. Not one site answers a question in a form Google or an AI assistant can lift, and getting found in search and AI runs through exactly that.
SINGLE H1
2 / 7
Only two of seven have a single H1. One site has no H1 or H2 at all. Another has twelve fighting on one page.
IMAGE ALT TEXT
33%
33 percent of homepage images carry no alt text.
THE EXCEPTION
19 / 25
The firm that scored 19 of 25 on positioning is the only one with alt text on every image. Firms that know who they serve finish the details.
One advisor said the fear out loud: the website does not get us clients, it simply gets us clicks. This is how that happens. The tools grade the checklist. Your next client grades the message. These seven sites pass the robot test and fail the human one.
THE METHOD ■
How were the sites scored?
Five axes, one to five each, scored from the live website alone, by a former advisor who has sat on your side of the table. The test at the center is Cover Your Logo: if the page could belong to any firm in the category, it fails. Firms are never named. The Index grows as more firms are scored, and these numbers update with it.
Seven firms scored so far. Last updated August 18, 2026.
Where does your site land?
Seven firms found out. The same audit, free, for independent advisory firms: send your URL and get your five scores plus the fixes that move them, inside a week. No call required.
