You won't believe #3! (Actually, you will.)

Five shocking things you didn’t know about credit union websites

We’ve built and managed a lot of credit union websites over the years, and we’ve found that there are a quite a few things that make credit union websites very different – sometimes in unexpected ways.

1)  People are Googling your credit union, not your products.

The Google Search Console stats are very clear and consistent; across dozens of credit union websites, at least 48 out of the top 50 search phrases that land people on your site (well over 99.9% of clicks) are simply variations on the credit union’s name. 

Many people wish or imagine that potential members are out there Googling phrases like “car loan” or “checking”, but the truth is that it’s extremely rare. You have to build awareness and engagement of the credit union’s existence and products in other ways. For example, you could double down on community engagement to build awareness and make connections. Or maybe the right move would be to beef up your content game with information and advice people need to solve real-life problems like divorce, layoffs, or illness.

2) Your online banking page is a second home page

On almost every credit union website, the page discussing online banking gets more visits than any other besides the home page, sometimes 25% of the total or more, even when the login is on every page. 

These folks Googled or searched for “ABC FCU login” or “XyZCU online banking” a while back and ended up bookmarking the online banking page. In other words, they’re highly involved members, but they might never see your home page again. Smart CU marketers will make sure there’s a up-to-date message or two on this page for them. 

3) Navigation is the last resort, especially on mobile

We build our sites with a robust natural-language search engine built in, and we’ve noticed that CU site visitors on mobile devices have an especially strong preference for searching rather than hunting through the navigation. So we make sure the site search works well and is super-prominent on mobile devices. In addition, data from internal site search is an absolute gold mine of information about what people are really looking for. 

4) Less is even more than ever

We’ve known for a long, long time that simpler is always better when it comes to CU websites. And it’s only getting more and more true as time goes on; members and potential members are in a hurry, and the faster you connect them to what they need, the better. Every aspect of your site, from navigation to language to structure, should be as simple as possible. That doesn’t mean your site has to be boring or basic, but it does need to be very focused and curated around the specific member experience you want to create.

5) Sorry, no one sees or clicks your second, third, fourth, fifth, etc. slides.

Whether you call it a “slider”, “banner”, or a “carousel”, the good old rotating banner is popular because it’s seen as a way to stuff more content onto a home page without taking up more space. But the cold, hard truth we’ve learned is that hardly anyone ever hangs around a CU home page long enough to see or click anything but the first slide.

A nice high-impact promotion on the home page is great, but more than one is a bit of a waste (see point #4 above). Still, sometimes you have more than one priority, so it’s better to find other ways to manage these. You could have just one “slide”, but simply change it on a regular basis to keep things fresh. Or you could randomize the slides, to ensure that each one at least gets a fair share of views (our CMS makes this easy). Or you could invest in personalization, and/or integration with your digital marketing platform, to display the best slide based on the visitor’s behavior or characteristics.

What are the unexpected discoveries you’ve made on your credit union’s website? Whether your credit union is large, medium, or small, it’s important to understand what the differences are, and work with CU website specialists to create the online experience your members deserve. 

Brian Wringer
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