How to avoid these 9 common credit union website pitfalls

Your credit union website is the hub of your marketing ecosystem. It might be the first point of contact for many prospective members, and it’s the first place most people will go if they’re facing a financial challenge or milestone that they’re hoping your credit union can assist with.

Unfortunately, credit union websites often fall short. They might be difficult to navigate, cluttered with promos, hard to read on mobile, generic looking, inaccurate, visually outdated, or some combination thereof.

Credit unions pride themselves on their excellent service, but if your website isn’t positioning your credit union as trustworthy and credible, you may be losing potential members before you have a chance to dazzle them with your helpfulness, warmth, and expertise.

Even if your website is clean, user-friendly, beautiful, and on-brand, we’re willing to bet that there’s some room for improvement. Whether you’re actively redesigning your site or simply updating and maintaining your site, here are nine common pitfalls all credit union marketers should take note of:

Too many credit unions have adopted a “just as good as a bank” approach, trying to establish trust by communicating that consumers can do the same things at a credit union they can do at Chase. But credit unions aren’t just as good as banks—they’re better!

That doesn’t mean you have to throw shade at banks on your website, but it does mean leading with your purpose and emphasizing the credit union difference. Credit union websites often feel a bit safe, bland, and highly interchangeable. Don’t settle for a “generic financial institution” approach—see your website as an opportunity to capture and convey your unique story.

Research from Google shows that a whopping 82% of consumersprefer values alignment when it comes to the brands and companies they engage with. Don’t waste valuable above-the-fold homepage real estate on auto loan special or great CD rate. Tell your unique story and connect visitors to your why. For some great examples, see how EastRise Credit Union, Point West Credit Union, and Clean Energy Credit Union lead with impact on their homepages.

We often get requests from clients to be creative when it comes to navigation labels. We understand the impulse, but catchy names like “Save & Spend” actually require more cognitive effort to understand and therefore detract from a seamless user experience.

You also want to pay careful attention to the cognitive effort your drop-down menus require. According to Miller’s Law, retention depends on grouping information into meaningful chunks. That means if a single drop-down menu is getting overwhelmingly long, you may need to consider a “mega menu” that organizes the same pages into clear categories.

The more thoughtful and straightforward you are in your menu labels and organization, the more you increase the ease by which users can get to the information they need, rather than forcing them to invest extra energy in figuring out how to get there. By helping users feel competent and in control, you can help strengthen their trust in your credit union. See this guide to credit union website UX for more tips and best practices.

It’s trendy these days to talk about a “mobile-first” approach, but we don’t actually recommend this. Mobile-first websites often offer poor or inferior desktop experiences, and the majority of credit union website visits are still from desktop.

For example, the so-called “hamburger menu” (three stacked lines) is a key component of an optimized mobile experience, as it takes up limited space and allows users full access to the navigation menu. However, on desktop, it makes more sense to take advantage of the horizontal space to display the navigation labels, without requiring visitors to click into the menu.

Your website should be optimized for all common screen sizes, which means taking into account the real estate you have to work with, the effort you’re requiring of your visitor to navigate the site, and page load times across devices. This guide to responsive credit union website design offers other key considerations to ensure that your site looks great across devices.

If the term “ADA compliance” makes you anxious, you’re probably not alone. Many credit unions approach accessibility with a checklist mentality, but we recommend an opportunity mindset instead.

Yes, website accessibility is a legal imperative, and we know you don’t want to get sued. But fear of lawsuits shouldn’t be the driving factor behind creating a truly accessible digital experience. It’s the right thing to do, and it can help more people across a wide spectrum of abilities access your products and services.

You can always take steps to make your current website more accessible; website accessibility should be an ongoing project since websites are constantly evolving. That said, a website redesign is a golden opportunity to bring an opportunity mindset to the accessibility of your digital branch.

Designing for users with specific needs can challenge designers to think creatively, leading to innovative solutions that ultimately improve usability for everyone. For example, clear labels and simplified navigation, which are essential for screen readers, reduce cognitive load and make for a better user experience regardless of your abilities. To learn more about the principles of inclusive design, and why it matters, see our CUInsight article about creating a truly inclusive digital experience.

Think you can’t compete with the big banks when it comes to SEO? While it’s true that large financial institutions will generally rank higher than your credit union, the confined geographic reach of most credit unions can work to your advantage. Local SEO is low-hanging fruit that will yield the most impactful results.

Don’t waste your time with uber-competitive keywords like “home loan” or “credit score.” You’ll have the best chance of ranking for longer local keywords like “credit unions in portland” or “options for first-time homebuyers portland.” Integrate these keywords naturally into your website content, including headings, meta descriptions, and alt text.

Other ways to focus your SEO strategy include adding individual pages for each branch on your website, finding and claiming your branch listings across the Internet, updating and posting regularly to your Google My Business account, and improving your online reviews. For guidance on implementing such tactics, see these SEO best practices for credit union websites.

While we understand the appeal in a proprietary CMS designed specifically for financial service companies, you may find that the technology is slow to evolve, security measures aren’t always up to par, and support options are limited. We’ve even heard horror stories about credit unions being forced into a redesign before they were ready, or before they had budgeted for it, because their current provider was sunsetting their proprietary CMS.

Bigger doesn’t always mean better, but a more widely-used, open-source CMS system offers credit unions multiple benefits. WordPress, for instance, is backed by the largest community of developers and users in the world. That ubiquity translates to a constantly improving platform, shared security insights, documentation for every feature imaginable, and faster innovation than most proprietary vendors can match. It’s almost like having the world’s largest team of developers working on your CMS—for free.

Much like a proprietary CMS, an agency that offers an in-house hosting solution may seem like an appealing option, but it can come with many downsides. Would you rather trust your hosting to a company with a small support team that offers hosting as a side service—or a company whose entire mission is optimizing your website performance? Plus, if you transition to another agency down the road, you want to be able to take both your CMS and your hosting provider with you.

Of course, when it comes to selecting a CMS or a hosting provider, it’s important to do your due diligence. See these key questions to consider as you explore your options.

Your CMS platform and hosting provider can empower your marketing team, give you peace of mind, and help you better serve and protect your members. But you should never be forced to keep using a solution that isn’t working for you.

We have a saying here at PixelSpoke: “You create loyalty by making it easy for people to leave.” It might sound a bit counter-intuitive, but we’ve always found it to be true. Some vendors lock their clients into multiyear contracts, and their clients can end up feeling frustrated and trapped, as though their marketing or web development agency is holding the keys to their digital house. Clients have even told us about buried clauses pertaining to autorenewals of five-year contracts!

If a vendor needs to be sneaky to keep your business, that’s a major red flag. Plus if their designs and technological capacities don’t evolve with the times, your website can start to look and feel out of date, with the potential to severely compromise trust for those who might be looking to open an account or apply for a loan online.

An emerging concept that’s gaining traction in the UX community is the idea of content-first design, whereby content plays the most active role in shaping the entire page. Traditionally, the approach has been to design the product (in this case, websites) first and then add copy at the very end, forcing it to fit into the design.

The content-first design approach essentially treats content as the north star. The words and messages that the users need to navigate are put in place first.

According to the UX Design Institute, this approach improves the user experience because it gives users the information they need to carry out the actions they’re looking to take.

So if you have the flexibility to rearrange your product pages, consider collecting the content to include on a page first before considering design elements, layouts, and images. If you’re redesigning an entire website, don’t wait until just before launch to load in your copy. Determine your copy early on so it can inform the design and functionality of the new site.

Authentic, high-quality images are essential and an often overlooked priority on credit union websites. Research from MDG Advertisingfound that more than two-thirds (67%) of online shoppers prioritized images—and even valued them over product specific information, long descriptions, and reviews and ratings. While credit unions don’t offer products and services that require a vivid photo for the sale (like, say, a fuzzy sweater or mouth-watering dessert), the reality is, we live in a visual culture and images shouldn’t be an afterthought.

Don’t settle for generic stock photos that fail to accurately capture your community and the members you serve. For accessible ideas on how to level up your imagery, including examples from other credit unions, see our prior CUInsight article, Most credit union rebrands overlook this one crucial thing.

We believe credit union websites are one of the most powerful and underutilized tools in your digital marketing toolbox. By leading with purpose, using clear navigation labels and well-organized menus, optimizing across devices, and prioritizing accessibility and authentic imagery, you can build trust and credibility amongst prospects and members alike. Strategic SEO, thoughtful CMS and hosting choices, and flexible contracts can also help ensure your credit union’s ongoing relevance, stability, and growth.

Your credit union website is more than just a digital brochure; it’s a dynamic representation of your values, purpose, and commitment to impact. Let’s make the most of it.