The Disclosures Your RIA Website Needs, and Where to Put Them
A polished advisor website can still fail a compliance review if the required disclosures are missing or buried. The good news is that the core list is short and predictable. Get these in place and you have covered most of what an examiner looks for on a public site.
Your Form ADV brochure, easy to find.
Registered advisers deliver a written brochure, Form ADV Part 2A, that describes services, fees, conflicts, and more. Prospects and clients should be able to reach it or request it without friction. A footer link is a common, sensible home for it.
Form CRS, if you serve retail investors.
Firms that work with retail clients prepare a short client relationship summary. If that is you, it belongs somewhere reachable on the site, again often the footer, alongside the brochure.
Accurate registration language.
How you describe your registration matters. You are registered with the SEC or a state, and you cannot imply that registration is an endorsement, an approval, or a mark of skill. Skip phrases that suggest the regulator vouches for you. A plain, correct statement of your registration status is what you want.
Disclosures next to testimonials and ratings.
If your site features client testimonials, endorsements, or third-party ratings, the disclosures those require need to sit with them, visibly. This is one of the most common gaps examiners cite, so treat the disclosure as part of the design, not an afterthought.
A privacy policy.
Advisors handle sensitive personal and financial information, and a clear privacy notice explaining how you collect and use it is both expected and good practice. If your site has a contact form, this matters even more.
A note on where things live.
Most of these belong in a consistent, reachable place, and the footer is the conventional home for brochure, Form CRS, privacy policy, and general disclosures. Testimonial and rating disclosures are the exception. Those go right where the testimonial or rating appears, because the point is that a reader sees them at the same moment.
Build these in once and they quietly do their job on every page. Leave them out and even a beautiful site carries avoidable risk.
This article is general information, not legal or compliance advice. Confirm any specific requirement with your firm's CCO or compliance counsel before you publish.
