How Heritage Wealth Solutions Went From a Generic Template to a Trust-Building Machine
When people are looking for help with estate planning, trusts, or wills, they’re not casually browsing. They’re dealing with one of the most important financial decisions of their lives. The last thing they need is a website that looks like it was built from a free template in 2015.
That’s exactly where Heritage Wealth Solutions was when they came to us, and it was costing them clients.
01 The Problem: A Website That Didn’t Match the Expertise
Heritage Wealth Solutions, led by founder Michelle Gonzalez-Tyler, offers serious estate planning services backed by 16+ years of legal experience. Trusts, wills, legacy planning, generational wealth protection: these are high-stakes, high-trust services.
But their old website told a completely different story.
The original site had the classic problems we see with professional service firms:
- Generic, dated design that looked identical to thousands of other template-based sites
- No clear conversion path: visitors landed on the page and had nowhere obvious to go
- Zero personality: nothing communicated who Michelle was, what made her approach different, or why a potential client should trust her with their family’s financial future
- Weak mobile experience: the layout broke down on phones, which is where most people are searching for local services
- No social proof: no stats, no credentials front and center, no video, nothing to build confidence
In the estate planning space, trust isn’t optional. It’s the entire sale. And the old site wasn’t building any of it.
02 What We Built: A Conversion-Focused Trust Engine
We rebuilt the Heritage Wealth Solutions site from scratch with one goal: make every element on the page earn trust and move visitors toward booking a consultation.
Hero Section With Embedded Consultation Form
The first thing visitors see is a bold, clear headline (“Preserving Your Legacy, Securing Your Future”), paired with a consultation booking form right there in the hero. No hunting for a contact page. No “click here to learn more” runaround. The form is immediately visible, reducing friction to near zero.
Video Introduction From the Founder
We added an embedded video section featuring Michelle herself. In professional services, people hire people, not logos. Seeing and hearing the founder explain her approach to estate planning does more to build trust in 60 seconds than five pages of copy ever could.
Stats That Build Credibility Instantly
We positioned key trust indicators prominently: 16+ Years of Legal Experience, 100% Personalized Planning, and Peace of Mind for Generations. These aren’t buried in an “About” page. They’re front and center where they do the most work.
A Design That Signals Premium Service
The color palette (deep navy with gold accents) was chosen deliberately. Estate planning clients expect sophistication. The serif headings (Cormorant Garamond) paired with clean body text (Inter) strike the right balance between authoritative and approachable. Every design decision reinforces the message: this is a serious firm that handles serious matters.
Blog and Education Section
We built in a blog section with the tagline “Informed clients make confident decisions.” This serves double duty: it positions Michelle as a thought leader while feeding Google fresh, relevant content for local search rankings.
03 The Approach: Why Hand-Coded Beats Templates Every Time
Heritage Wealth’s old site was a template. And templates have a fundamental problem: they’re built to be generic. They work for everyone, which means they work great for no one.
We hand-coded every page. That means:
- Zero bloat: no unused CSS, no JavaScript libraries loaded for features the site doesn’t use, no page builder overhead dragging down load times
- Perfect mobile responsiveness: every element was designed and tested across devices, not just “responsive” in the way templates claim to be
- Custom scroll animations: elements reveal as you scroll, keeping visitors engaged without the performance hit of heavy animation libraries
- SEO-optimized structure: clean HTML, proper heading hierarchy, schema markup, fast load times, all the things Google rewards that templates routinely get wrong
04 The Results: From Invisible to Authoritative
The difference between the before and after isn’t just visual. It’s functional.
The old site was a brochure that sat there. The new site is a conversion tool that actively works to turn visitors into booked consultations. Every section has a purpose. Every design choice supports the business goal.
For professional service firms in estate planning, financial advising, or legal services, your website isn’t just a marketing asset. It’s often the first impression that determines whether someone picks up the phone or clicks back to Google and calls your competitor.
Heritage Wealth Solutions now has a site that matches the caliber of their services. And that’s exactly how it should be.
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