Financial planners are missing out on the opportunity to connect with clients via best-practice websites and social media, according to one expert.

Colin Williams, managing director of The Humble Investor, points to over 74,000 Australian searches for the term 'financial planner' and over 40,000 on the term 'financial adviser' each month as evidence of the opportunities to be had for advisers with websites geared to capture search engine queries.

"The problem is that many planners do not know how to optimise their websites or use social media so that they rank well in consumer internet searches," Williams said. "It's pretty safe to say that most financial planners probably aren't getting even the tip of the iceberg of internet search inquiries."