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The Tweet is Your Accountancy's Secret Weapon
02/22/2012 22:09The web represents a frugal and powerful means to market to customers. An outstanding online appearance is absolutely essential for CPA practices. No accounting practice can survive in today's business environment if they lack an effectual website.
But the internet's spiraling growth can also make it tough to stand out when nearly every company now advertises its services there. Professional CPA websites are a first step, but the forward-thinking accountant harnesses next-generation net methods to bring prospective clients to his accounting website.
So which tools are most powerful and economical tools to attract attention? The answer is social media. The modern social media paradigm shift has altered the internet, resulting in a big range of opportunities that allow companies to reap benefits.
Beyond simply an online contrivance assisting users to keep connected, social media has evolved to be a very valuable avenue for promoting your firm. Twitter and its brethren cast online marketing options in a totally fresh light.
By its very nature, Twitter and other social media networks can be very effectively used to get widening circles of publicity. The idea is based on the geometrical expansion of followers you can get on Twitter. Twitter's chain of links gives you a multiplier effect. Each follower you get has the ability to share your site's links with their own users. Thus the Twitter following is best used to generate traffic to your accounting website and other affiliate links.
By using specific techniques to add followers, such as inviting current customers and visitors to your website via a "Follow Me" link, you gain critical mass. Then you can promote your services to those followers, and they can share it with their friends. There's also reciprocality, so as time goes on you can "unfollow" those who don't follow you. This assures that most of your followers will be interested in your promotional messages.
Microblogging or posting short comments, updates or thoughts is another Twitter way to reach your followers. Tie your online presence together by posting special offers, sales or deals on Twitter and your accounting website.
Based on quantity of followers and ease of utilization, it's not possible to top Twitter. The publicity you foment using a few brief tweets is far more welcome than random and impersonal campaigns of traditional advertising. Twitter messaging is our times' equivalent for word-of-mouth!
Nowadays accounting websites must be designed not only to provide the well-known functions, but also adapted to utilize social media interactions. Be sure that your online consultant has social media in their mind.
How to Integrate Complimentary Accounting Resources into Your CPA Website
02/11/2012 16:42Financial calcs are useful resources that allow people to solve standard financial questions. They are among the most useful features that you can provide to people on a CPA firm website. You can interest people in your site by creating it to be interactive. Interactive content is an effortless avenue to develop an advanced and useful CPA firm website design.
There are many effective accounting calcs for websites that are offered on the market. Because many of these tools can be costly, you might have to establish an individual budget for website enhancement. However, the good news is that a great CPA website can be developed for little expense.
Financial calculators are an ideal way to make a website more compelling to users. People are attracted to websites that they find helpful. The addition of financial calculators to your website will make it a great resource for people. As an added bonus, they will keep people on your website for longer periods of time. This is helpful in boosting your search engine rankings, which in turn will help your website gain attention. This is beneficial because the more time a person spends on a page, the more likely it is that they will read about your accounting services. These tools will often draw people back to your website for repeated visits.
There are a wide number of interactive financial calculator tools available for positioning on websites. A simple web search will return numerous options. It is important to find the calculators that are both inexpensive and truly functional, thus adding value to a CPA website design.
The addition of a financial calculator will make an accounting website more interactive and provide a number of additional benefits.
This simple tool can provide your clients with the resources needed to handle some basic problems on their own. You both can save time and money by not having to meet in person for the problems these calculators can solve. Therefore it is to everyone's benefit to include one in your CPA website design.
Also, a financial calculator can be a wonderful way to market your website. Everyone loves a website with helpful resources. Visitors who make use of your calculator will share your website with friends and colleagues who need some accounting help. As a result you will attract more traffic to your website. This will provide you with a great opportunity to turn those visitors into clients.
So, now that you can see the many benefits of adding a financial calculator to your accounting website, the big question focuses on the availability of good financial calculators and the best manner to add those to your website.
One easy way to find financial calculators for your CPA website design is to search online by entering search terms such as 'free financial calculator' or 'inexpensive financial calculator.' The drawback is that you will need to thoroughly test each potential calculator to make sure that is functions optimally. My favorite source for this content is https://www.cpasitesolutions.com/content/calcs/ because they have a great selection and keep everything updated.
Next, you will either have to consult your web developer or try to add the financial calculator to your website yourself. Most frequently, the process remains quite simple so that even people lacking programming knowledge are capable of handling the situation on their own.
The easiest way to add the calculator is with a simple text link opening to a new window, but if you really want to dazzle your users and you don't want to use too many calculators on each page you can use inline framed links. Even though the process is simple, it is understandable that you may not feel comfortable with it. In this case you can ask your web developer for assistance. A website developer will be able to provide you with helpful tips on the placement of the financial calculator. This will allow you to seamlessly integrate it into your overall website design.
Finally, it is extremely important to make sure that the financial calculator is functioning correctly. Thoroughly test it to make sure it functions accurately and will provide your clients with the help they need before it goes live on your website. The quality of your CPA website design is essential. The more effective your website and its components are, the more satisfied your web viewers will be. Over time you will establish a reputation for your practical and quality website. Satisfied site viewers are necessary for establishing a strong customer base.
How Accountancies Can Create Outstanding Accounting Websites
02/05/2012 15:12Professional expertise can be vital to creating your accountant firm website. With so many marketing choices competing for your attention, the well-informed accountant hones in on the most powerful and assured routes to grow his or her business. Web sites are one imperative facet of a well-rounded plan.
Let's face it - you studied to learn to be an accountant, not the king of marketing. So is it surprising if you aren't an advertising pro? Here are some steps to ensure you wring the most impact from your marketing expenses while not cutting into your key activities:
Here's a few pointers.
Hire Professional Help
Time to make an honest assessment here. You are not a marketer and likely have no knowledge of building accounting websites. So leave it to the pros. Let them build a modern website for you that is easy-to-navigate and conveys the right image. You'll work with them to develop content and deliver it in the most valuable way. They will spread your links online, market your website, make it search engine-friendly and ensure that you get high quality traffic.
Measure Your Results
You advise your clients how to fix financial holes and plug leakages. Apply those same analytical and problem-solving skills to your marketing campaign. Develop metrics and periodically review results. Some initiatives will outpace others. Fix the underperformers. This may require detective work. If accounting websites aren't drawing well, for example, there may be a problem with the design or search engine marketing. Whatever the leakage may be, you must plug it as soon as possible.
Understand Marketing Channels
One vital marketing channel for accountants is accounting websites. Networking within the industry and word of mouth publicity are two other very important channels. Through your accounting website channel, you cannot sell anything. You can however upload very helpful information and tools that will help you generate leads. Once you get leads, you can convert them into customers by mailing them helpful hints and tips in a newsletter. It is important for you to understand how your marketing funnel works. When you understand how marketing works in the accountancy profession, you make fewer mistakes.
Provide Tools That Keep People Coming Back
When someone lands on your website, it's essential to keep them interested. Interactive tools for accounting websites like tax calculators and retirement planners provide a valuable service that your potential customers will be grateful for. Hosting tools on your website is a very powerful way of attracting visitors and generating inquiries. Make sure to offer people using the tools a free consultation.
You will have to also make sure that there is an available customer service rep to receive calls and check emails and reply to these – no question can go without response.
Hiring a reputed consultancy that has experience with accounting websites can definitely be a terrific decision. These consultants can produce professional websites, tools, content, optimize your websites' search-engine friendliness, and cut down on marketing costs besides.
Combine Style with Depth for a Lasting CPA Website
01/28/2012 23:30Accountants looking over templates for their practice's CPA websites can sometimes get misled. Certain consultants will point out what they believe will seize your eye instead of the website your accounting practice most needs. They have a lot of justifications for this.
Firstly, it is less expensive to build slap-'em-up websites. Long term marketing warrants a library of specialized techniques and features which add up to development charges.
Customers new to internet marketing also can fall prey to the illusion of prospect conversions. Realistically, conversions are only the beginning of the story. It's unlikely that a large percentage of the new visitors to your website are going to be trying to find a CPA. Most of the folks clicking on your website are searching for information. If people don't see the resources they need on your firm's web site, they will leave - regardless of how pretty your web site or compelling your copy appears.
Meanwhile, the majority of your visitors will not be immediate sales prospects. Some will already have an accountant relationship. Some can do their own accounting right now. This doesn't mean they're not a good prospect!
According to market research the average life expectancy of a client/accountant relationship is 6 years. That means statistically speaking just about everyone visiting your site is a long term prospect. Maybe their accountant is at the end of his or her practice. They get married and move, change their practices or go to work for companies. You can't know what will happen down the road.
Plus, people don't stay in the same income bracket forever. Paychecks rise and fall, as do business receipts. People get married. One day they could start their own business or even just buy property. At that first moment of dread when the 1040 long form becomes a necessity, you'll be a known entity they can turn to.
In addition to quality of information, think quantity. You want to have so much great content that the visitor finds many reasons to return. What we're offering them isn't just a service page and a contact sheet. What you offer is a caring compilation of valuable resources. Every time clients visit, they connect with your brand. Long term marketing isn't about making a sale, it's about positioning yourself as the natural solution to turn to when the prospect is ready to buy.
At some point, who doesn't need an accountant? If the person has already been counting on you for months or years, you are likely to get their business without even "selling" them on it. The prospect will call you pretty much ready to buy.
So how can you identify CPA website templates with a long term marketing strategy? It's fairly simple really. Look for content.
Financial guides and free reports are great soft sell tools and are very effective at attracting return traffic. (You can also use them to cross-sell off-season services to current clients.) Use these articles to showcase ways you can help your clients save money, and position you as the expert that can help you do it. You want your visitors to have easy access to them. Divide them up into categories (Business Owners, Home Owners, Self Employed, etc) and make them searchable to make it easy for visitors to find information of interest to them.
Encourage return visitors with other great features. How about interactive financial calculators? Tax due date pages? Downloadable tax forms and publications? Make sure to offer a newsletter.
Impatient old-school marketers may urge you to make people jump through hoops for this content. DON'T LISTEN! They'll suggest you withhold information to capture email addresses for later direct marketing. If you begin requiring contact information you'll alienate your most likely prospects. What they don't get from you, they know full well they can get from via your competition.
Be sure to consider your long-range marketing as you choose between numerous options for professional CPA websites. On top of regular features comprised of service listings, a map to your office and contact invitations, your site must tie in the long range approach explained in this article. You'll notice that as time passes, your long term approach will give greater return on investment,produce greater return on investment, not just in additional customer conversions, but in better accounts and healthier customer relationships.
Firms Improve Marketing Campaigns by Utilizing Interns to Manage CPA Websites
01/22/2012 15:00For most small firms quality CPA websites are the initial contact with possible prospects and they need to make a good impression for site leads regarding your business. Your site provides you with around the clock marketing for your practice. Still, your sites's content needs to always be new, and this requires hard work. You want your clients to come across your practice in the search engines. This means your site needs to be ranked highly enough that your firm is visible.
This takes a lot of diligence. One excellent method is to work with a student to help you with your online marketing. New webmasters and students are a strong labor pool. They generally welcome the opportunity to create web marketing programs. Some tips are below to help practices work with an intern to support marketing efforts and manage CPA websites.
Background Experience
You actually don't need an intern with a lot of accounting expertise for this position. Instead the most desirable candidates will already have some experience with online marketing. This includes both search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) experience. It isn't an impossible task to improve your search engine results. However, it takes a lot of effort and you must be patient. Acconting firms must consistently generate fresh content to maintian superior CPA websites. Examine writing samples, especially if any are written about financial management and accounting. You may need to spend some time teaching them your business, but unless you get really lucky and find a good writer that already knows about your business it's time well spent.
Your current clients see you as a dependable professional. It is equally important to project this to your prospects as well. Although your intern is not in a client-facing role, their work will be a direct reflection of you and your firm. You should carefully examine their work and make sure that it is of sufficient quality to represent you online.
Integrating your Intern
You should work with your intern as you work with your permanent office staff. This applies even though your intern may only be a temporary employee. You want to think about how compatible they will be with your permanent staff. They will all be working together. The content your intern creates is a direct reflection of your firm. It helps when your intern communicates effectively with your employees.
Job Results
Because search engine programs can take several months to produce real, visible results, it is a good idea to let the intern make suggestions on SEO and SEM programs. They can make valuable contributions for your CPA website. It is a good idea to consider their input. Considering all your options is also a good idea. Your intern can contribute greatly to your firm's revenue stream.
Once the first advertising campaigns come to completion, you may want to continue to work with your intern past the original scope of the project. College students and aspiring webmasters can continue to bring value to your business' online success, particularly in the competitive atmosphere of accounting sites.
CPA Sites- Improving Your Bottom Line and Streamlining Your Firm's Daily Operations
01/15/2012 18:46In response to today's difficult economic conditions almost all accounting practices are making use of well designed CPA websites to boost their prospecting campaigns. CPA websites offer much more benefit than just marketing. They also can trim your operating overhead, and help you decrease staff expenses as well.
There are several ways to shrink your overhead costs. One especially good method is to work with an email service and stop sending newsletters via postal mail. There are many available. They will develop and send your electronic newsletters for your firm. This brings down the costs of printing, postage, and staff costs to label and fill your envelopes. It also brings qualified leads to your website.
There are many other great uses for your website. One of them is the electronic distribution of tax documents. Using the postal service to deliver your tax forms to your client is resource intensive and expensive. Your firm has to bear the cost of the postage. It also has to bear the cost of the staff resources, for which you cannot bill. Instead, it is very easy to create a resource page on your website for downloadable tax forms.
Each year, when tax time rolls around, the traditional tax organizer mailing takes time and money. This can cost hundreds of dollars, depending upon the size of your client base. It also takes a lot of cycles for your office staff to print and collate the documents, then fill and address envelopes.
A CPA website allows you to create an electronic PDF which your clients can download and print themselves. The most sophisticated CPA websites even have their tax organizers set up as a secure form which can be submitted securely online from the site itself. This can save your client lots of time. It can also save them money.
Tax time is an expensive time of year. This is particularly true for postage expenses. Many clients save tax preparation until the last minute, as April 15 arrives. This can be frustrating for your client and for your firm. Frequently, you must resort to overnight mail so that you don't miss deadlines. A CPA website can include a secure file transfer feature, which allows your clients to submit their confidential documents quickly and safely, without the postal service expense.
Website visitors like many things about modern CPA websites. One of them is a "Where's My Refund?" feature. This feature is very easy to create. In addition to serving your customers, it also attracts prospects and website visitors as it gives details about their tax refund.
While advanced CPA websites' most fundamental purpose is advertising, it can also save you money, trim your operating expenses, gain new clients, and help you better service your clients.
Police Your Expenses- CPA Websites are Getting Much Less Costly
01/08/2012 19:42Modern firms don't need to pay a pro to build or manage their CPA websites any more. Don´t tolerate having an aged website full of washed-out features just because you´re dreading the expense of changing it!
It´s time to handle of your own site.
Significant changes have been made to the way we design and manage CPA sites. A significant amount of grooming was required to be a web designer a decade ago. Web designers had to be adept at using HTML generators like Front Page, and they had to be fluent in extraordinary programming languages like PHP.Things are actually different presently.
Folks with these skills still have immeasurable use, but as a general rule small to medium sized enterprises can get by perfectly okay without them thanks to the development of a new instrument called a "CMS", or "Content Management System". To act as your own webmaster all you must have is a passing familiarity with computers using this method. A CMS is basically just a "point and click website editor". You can append and get rid of pages with it. You can also alter pages using what is oftentimes called a "WYSIWYG editor" which is , in point of fact, just a terrifically elementary word processor. Don't be intimidated by the terminology! WYSIWYG is merely an acronym for "What You See is What You Get". It permits any user to compose tables and upload photographs and images, and otherwise arrange the pages. You can also change the complete feel of the website by altering the website's Navigation Menu and setting up pages.
A CMS allows virtually anybody to rapidly and simply manage all the duties that took a professional coder hours to do no more than a few years ago.
Just about every single serious hosting service of good accounting websites has a complimentary or low-priced content management system with hosted sites.
Obviously the outstanding difference between a CMS and a custom website designer is cost. For most small CPA firms this is a big difference. Despite making make $25 to $45 an hour, most website designers are typically not as motivated as you are to get your tasks taken care of in a prompt fashion. A month or longer is not an uncommon turn around time on professional web design jobs.
If these costs seem high to you brace yourself. These costs don't even include the cost of actually designing the site. It can regularly take 200 hours or more to design effective CPA websites from scratch. That means months of waiting and thousands of dollars invested. these costs are averted by Content Management System providers by constructing websites in advance and presenting menus of "ready-to-use" site templates.
Of course many site owners already have custom sites that they have spent heaps of cash on and are happy with and others resist using "templates", so more and more Content Management System providers are able to tweak their existing templates to best reflect your brand, if not straight-out re-create your current website, quite inexpensively. This is a young technology, but it´s spreading quite fast.
Of course the difficulty with websites built in this way is that, while inexpensive and easy to manage, they normally want for all-important content. An entire side industry has been built encompassing the demand for CPA focused content, so before scampering off to any old website provider, do a Google search for "CPA sites".
IMHO CPA Site Solutions is the best of these. They've been creating top-shelf CPA websites for accounting firms for more than 10 years.
To see what we are suggesting when we talk about "CPA specific content" take a good look at this video:
Note the tools created particularly for site owners in the accounting industry: free reports, tax due dates, links to tax forms and publications, a portal for transferring accounting files, interactive financial calculators, email... Maybe a head-hunter or business consultant could use much of the content on this site,but it would be squandered on a business like a retail store. A site like this is not designed to be valuable to a wide variety of interests. It's actually only meant for accounting and CPA firms.
For certain big national accounting firms it´s worth the time and cost of retaining master designers, but for many small and medium sized companies, especially in these troublesome economic times, it´s time to investigate new solutions.
Lure New Clients with Inbound Marketing & Persuasive Websites for CPAs
12/30/2011 18:26The experience of starting a CPA organization from the ground up is thrilling. It is also lots of fun. An important part of that process is to be sure that your new firm attracts enough clientele to support itself through the season of tax filing. Then after the season of tax filing passes, you will need to develop your business even further so that it can maintain itself through the next season as well. You need to evolve your business into a stream of revenue. This stream must be steady, and that leaves you little time for marketing. You need to ensure your success in the long term. To do this, you must learn how to successfully market your business.
Interrupt and outbound marketing techniques are expensive and they do not work. They are usually only 3% effective at best. Shifting your marketing funds to use more modern inbound marketing techniques is a much more solid strategy. This can have a large impact on your firm's growth. An important benefit of inbound marketing is that most methods are free to implement beyond your labor cost to produce them. This strategy offers you both more time to concentrate on your core competence of accounting, as well as more financial resources to dedicate to the long-term growth of your firm.
To successfully use inbound marketing, you must have a solid strategy. The best strategy is to carefully blend the following techniques:
Creating a Blog
Make yourself known as a thought leader by starting an accountant website blog. This is an excellent way to establish yourself as a subject matter expert in the field of accounting. Show off a little, but don't be too pretentious. A blog is a great place to show your prospects how much you know about the field of accounting
SEO - Search Engine Optimization
Optimize your website to increase your search engine rankings, establish domain authority, and increase your site's online visibility. Be sure that your content is optimized for the keywords under which you would like to rank on search engine results pages.
Social Networking
Use social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter to establish and engage a community around your business. In this way, people can see the faces behind the firm. It also helps you establish trust. Additionally, links from authoritative sources such as social media outlets have great search engine authority which can dramatically boost your rankings.
Facebook has a builtin set of marketing tools. This toolset has many powerful features which is of great benefit. Not only does it contain a robust advertising engine that helps you fine-tune your target audience, but you can also offer exclusive specials to your Facebook users. These types of promotions have the potential to spread virally without any effort on your part.
Video Sharing is Powerful
Producing and distributing great website videos are an excellent way to educate and in some cases, entertain your community. Use videos to show your prospects how to prep their documents for tax season, or create a client testimonial where your firm helped a client maximize their return. Videos are favored by search engines. They help boost the authority of your domain.
Creating Articles for Distribution
Blogging offers many benefits, and article distribution opens up a whole new channel via the web. This not only helps your rankings with search engines, but it brings interested leads to websites for accountants.
Not only is inbound marketing enjoyable, but you will notice that an effective inbound marketing campaign is far less work to create than a traditional outbound marketing campaign. It is also far less costly when compared with outbound and interrupt marketing campaigns. Inbound marketing techniques bring quality results. You will observe that these results are consistent over time.
Foolproof Methods For Developing Your CPA Business In the Middle of A Recessive Economy
12/18/2011 14:39Today's economic picture is not extremely bright. However, this is a great opportunity to grow your business. A recession like this is a headache for everyone, but with those fears comes opportunity. Making arrangements to meet with your business network, new sources of leads and well-connected customers so that you can offer individualised services during this troubled economic landscape can result in new business in addition to a rise in your billing rate.
One excellent way to begin with your customers is to arrange tax planning meeting sessions with them. Make sure to do this before the hectic tax season begins. This is where professionally designed CPA websites can come in very handy. Most have calendar functions that can help with appointment setting. The uncertainty of the economy creates an opportunity to explain to your clients that their lives are dependent on impact planning. It has a direct impact on their future.
Tax planning's impact is certainly measured in terms of money, but the real value is in boosting your client's confidence and giving them hope for the future. Your business will enjoy this true competitive advantage. Its importance cannot be understated. The leadership you provide to your clients gives them real hope and confidence, and in fact increases their dependence on you. It also alleviates the level of stress in their day to day lives.
Tax planning effectively isn't just about minimizing the amount of taxes a client needs to pay over a period of time. It also has to do with investing, managing cash flow, and in some cases, planning an estate. The real value of tax planning is in bringing order back to the life of a client. As a result, stress reduction and fear management will reduce negativity and helps increase the client's quality of life.
This type of planning session, when done properly, can have a great impact on your business in terms of clients referring their friends, family, and co-workers. It is a great way to set your CPA practice apart from the competition, increase your client base, gain referrals and for existing clients, expand your service engagements.
At the planning session, you should:
1. Listen to and validate the concerns about the current economy. You don't want to sound too optimistic or you will not seem realistic. Your client is not thinking optimistically.
2. Relate the client's concerns to their situation in particular. Everyone is affected differently by recession, so speaking generally will not be as effective as if you connect someone's personal concerns about the economy to their situation.
3. Be realistic that filing taxes is nothing more than a fact of life. This idea focuses the client's attention back on their life. It becomes less about the actual tax paperwork.
4. Effective tax planning can bring a sense of hope. You need to present strong guidance. One idea is to offer a CPA website reference library, that has coaching topics. This will aid you in providing a sense of direction for your clients and help to improve their lives.
Here's how to combine all of these points:
All of us are stressed, anxious, and concerned regarding the economy, Michael. The truth is, it will probably get worse before it starts to get better. This can be especially difficult for you because you have kids who are heading to college and because things have shifted with your business. To adjust, let's do more than just file a return, let's do some strategic financial planning. This way you'll know that no matter what the future brings, we'll be able to adapt effectively.
It is important to remember that recessions bring anxiety, stress, and uncertainty. In order to make informed decisions, you must provide strong leadership for your clients. It isn't just about filing a tax return.
Conducting tax and fiscal planning with influential customers is the most successful and inexpensive means of increasing your firm's visibility within your local area. Your clientele will talk about you, telling their friends and family how your practice spent extra time with them helping them manage their lives and their finances, not just filing their tax paperwork.
Accountant Websites - 7 Commonly Found Design Faux pax
12/13/2011 00:22A lot of people discover they need a skillful CPA each day. Accounting practices are an essential element of any functioning company and are vital each year near tax time for helping people to complete tax returns. Nearly all successful individuals require a competent CPA firm. How prepared are you the next time somebody searches for your business? Let us admit it, the phone directories and magazine advertisements are just accumulating dust on the stand. Word of mouth can be great and it's always reaffirming to receive a referral from a loyal customer. However, no business should depend on it to generate a consistent flow of new business. Instead, you will want to focus on the web. Accountant websites need simple navigation and frequent updates. The best websites provide users with an easy way to solve their problems. So if it's time to upgrade your website, do it right the first time by avoiding these common mistakes!
Even though many of these mistakes may seem obvious to you, they are often overlooked. Redesigning a website is a big task and sometimes the most essential details get lost when looking at the details. It is helpful to keep these pitfalls in mind as a sort of running checklist throughout the entire website upgrade. An essential take away from all of the tips is to ask yourself if this element is essential to giving your readers the information that they need.
VISUAL DISORDER
Accounting is foreign enough to some people without looking at a website that is full of numbers, spreadsheets and charts. Most people are looking to find out the services a business offers. And more specifically, they want to know how those services can be applied to their needs. Sell your services, don't write a manual about them.
AVOID TECHNICAL JARGON
Don't get bogged down in using accounting language that may confuse your readers. Keep your language simple and leave out the jargon. In other words, avoid "accountant speak!"
BE AVAILABLE FOR YOUR READERS
Provide a clear, easy way to contact you. The Internet has replaced the phone book in most households. Therefore, making contact information available on accountant websites is essential.
UNDERSTAND CURRENT WEB STANDARDS
Realistically evaluate your web design knowledge and skills. If you aren't a skilled web designer be honest with yourself. It will be well worth the money spent on a professional to do this work for you. You can look at https://blog.hubspot.com/blog for some useful information. It will allow you begin to familiarize yourself with the standards required of professional websites.
SEO
SEO or search engine optimization is a critical component of a website. Incorporate it into your website in a skilled way so that your website will get noticed. SEO helps search engines direct people who are searching for an accountant to your website. The blog https://blog.hubspot.com/blog offers a wealth of information on SEO.
MAKE A GOOD FIRST IMPRESSION
A visit to your website may be the first impression people will have of your company so it is important that everything functions properly. This includes links, menus and any other interactive features. Broken links or pop-ups that don't function can frustrate customers and detract from your professionalism. Visit https://blog.hubspot.com/blog for some tips on making your website operate effectively.
SIMPLY SELL YOURSELF
A website is just another way to sell your services as an accountant. Don't get caught up in providing a lot of unneeded information. Sell yourself as an accountant. People are on your page to find out about your accounting services. So it is essential to focus on information about you and the services you offer. Your website should be an online extension to your office. It is a 24-7 online presence for people to find you and learn about your services. A summary of your services, contact information and a small number of select testimonials are all that you need to sell yourself. Keep it simple for a user-friendly experience on your website.
Some people may deal with accountants all the time. For others, working with an accountant can be overwhelming and even intimidating if they don't know what to expect. To make matters worse, many people are in a vulnerable financial position when they search out an accountant. In these instances they are looking for understanding and guidance. Take that opportunity to show people that you understand their problems and can solve them. Remember, your website makes a first impression. The entire tone of your website should portray you just like you are in real life. As an CPA practice you should have a quality website with an inviting feeling. Whenever people encounter your online presence they should experience relief, and when they finally meet with you at your place of work (or in a telephone meeting) they will be relieved… and the deal closed.