Having an in-demand service can provide several exciting opportunities both personally and professionally. Yet in order to grow that business, you need guaranteed ways to reach new clients and communicate with existing ones.
A business website for your tax or accounting firm is one of the best options for brand representation. Not only does it help you establish credibility and a web presence for your target market, but it also helps you excel at lead generation.
While the benefits are clear, the design, maintenance, and long-term strategy of a new business website takes work. That’s why it’s helpful to incorporate a high-converting website into your future business strategy.
In this post, we’ll break down why having a website for professional accountants and accounting firms is so crucial for success. You’ll also learn the top three “do’s” and “don’ts” for website design that makes your site stand out.
Why are Accounting Firm Websites So Important?
Let’s face it—in a digital world, most people (including prospective clients) are doing most of their initial research online. When someone needs a new tax or accounting firm, it’s highly likely that they’ll turn to online resources, testimonials, and digital recommendations to find the right match.
When CPA firms or accounting and tax firms are clearly represented online, there’s a higher chance of being discovered by new clients who need the practical information (and accounting skills) that you provide. This is a critical long-term investment for successful small businesses.
Additionally, about 71% of small businesses have a sustained digital presence. To remain competitive, you need to position your tax or accounting brand in the right way online. An excellent website is like a billboard for your business, calling new clients to take action when they find a suitable service.
Using Your Website to Convert New Clients
Websites exist for a variety of reasons, and not every site’s goal is to convert clients or buyers. But as a service provider, customer or client conversion should be at the top of your priority list when it comes to website design and functionality.
Converting through a website can happen in a number of unique ways. You can test or experiment with some of the options below to see what resonates most with your ideal or target audience.
- Adding a simple contact or “Request for Information” form to your homepage
- Providing a newsletter or email sign-up form to learn more about services
- Using a landing page to direct new clients to specific services
- Offering free educational resources or content in exchange for contact information
- Hosting online or virtual events (especially during tax season) with an email address sign-up
Realistically, not all of your clients will come through a website, but it’s substantial enough that you should take note. Establish benchmarks and metrics, and evaluate performance and conversion numbers regularly.
Top 3 Do’s for Accounting Websites
Whether you work with an outside web consultant or design a simplified site on your own, there are a few things you should keep top of mind. While this is not an exhaustive list, we’ve rounded up some of the top “do’s” you must remember when launching a successful tax or accounting site.
Incorporate Website Design that is User-Friendly
The user-friendliness of your tax or accounting firm website can draw people in, or it can push them away. As a business owner, your goal should be to have a site that functions simply and easily. This allows your site visitors to browse and find the answers they need relatively quickly.
When accountant websites are poorly designed—or simply not designed with the end user in mind—up to 38% of traffic leaves, or abandons the site. This is bad news for conversion, since the overall goal is to keep people on the website for as long as possible.
User-friendliness incorporates best practices for the layout, visual aesthetic, navigation, and even website speed. Key terms and phrases should be easy to find, and the major action items should be visible “above the fold.” In other words, use the valuable space at the top of your company site to convey the information that’s absolutely critical, before you lose visitors’ attention when they begin to scroll down.
Use Clear Calls to Action
What steps or actions do you want your website visitors to take when they land on certain pages? How do you want them to interact with your tax or accounting business? Can you create new ways for them to engage with your accounting firm?
These questions are important for your business model in general, but they’re also critical for designing accounting websites that meet user expectations. When visitors don’t know what to do next, or where to find the answers they need, they might abandon their search prematurely. This results in lost conversions and opportunities for your business, even when and if you’re banking on them.
It’s also wise to include calls to actions (CTAs) in multiple places throughout your website. Although they should be prominent on the homepage, it’s permissible to incorporate them at the bottom of new content, on your service pages, and even within your navigation, menu bars, and headers.
Invest in Learning Basic SEO
SEO, or search engine optimization, is one of the primary drivers for organic website traffic. Conversion rates are high with SEO because users are searching for something specific and getting those results directly. When you can deliver the right answers in your web content, you’re better positioned to reach high conversions.
In fact, SEO traffic has the opportunity to convert at a rate of about 14.6%, which is substantially higher than the 1.6% for outbound advertising traffic. This should be enough of an argument for investing in at least a basic level of SEO.
As your tax or accounting business scales and becomes more competitive, it could be beneficial to invest in outside SEO expertise. Until that time, solid implementation of things like keywords (highly searched terms), site layout, and site speed are important.
Top 3 Don'ts for Your Accounting or Tax Website
Your tax or accounting website might go through several iterations until it lands in the state or shape that you want. It’s perfectly okay, and normal, if the final version looks a bit different than it did in the beginning. Regardless of how many tries it takes, there are a few things to avoid when designing a website for conversion.
Focusing Too Much on Jargon or Insider Knowledge
The tax and accounting realm can include complicated and complex principles. When creating your site, speak directly to the future client whose interest you want to capture. Although they might not need to know your behind-the-scenes process for solving complex financial issues, they probably want to know what the client relationship looks like at your firm.
Going Overboard with Visuals
Matching your website to your brand aesthetic is important, but it shouldn’t be overwhelming or distracting. Beautiful websites use visuals effectively which implies that site visitors are able to browse at their leisure, find a great resource or answers to important questions, and navigate without extra hassle.
You can accomplish these major goals by adding plenty of white space to your site. White space is essentially a blank or white background around text and images. For example, instead of using a loud background image, opt for a clean and calming color.
This incorporation gives the eyes a break and helps users quickly scan for the information they came to find.
Forgetting About Mobile Compatibility
Today’s website users are on-the-go, which means that plenty of new web searches take place using mobile technology. If your website isn’t designed or optimized to handle website traffic, you could be losing out on valuable conversions that take place on mobile.
Unfortunately, not every webpage automatically looks great on a mobile web browser. Perfecting the appearance requires optimizations and small changes to code, especially lead capture forms. You want to invest in making sure that these are free of glitches and perform how they should, regardless of where a user adds their information.
CountingWorks PRO and Your Web Presence
CountingWorks PRO is a platform that allows you to customize and perfect your firm’s web presence without extra stress. Even if you’re not a designer or engineer, you can take advantage of easy-to-use digital marketing features, including a streamlined website builder, to reach your potential clients while expanding your professional finance potential.
CountingWorks even takes things one step further to help you achieve website optimization from every angle, including things like accessibility compliance and security, which often happen behind the scenes. Once your tax or accounting website is running, you can collect more leads and convert new clients easily.
Perfected Accounting Websites with CountingWorks PRO
CountingWorks PRO is trusted by over 8,000 corporate accounting, tax, and financial professionals who need to simplify the important digital marketing tasks associated with running small and medium sized businesses.
With CountingWorks, you can take advantage of high-converting website design that helps you operate, grow, and scale your business.
Get a demo of CountingWorks PRO.
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