Boring Websites for Accountants
Steve Haworth
Enabling business owners to escape the grind, reclaim their time and build a business that thrives without them | AI Workflows for Growth | clockworkformula.com
This far into the 21st century and decades after the birth of the commercial internet, there’s plenty of discussion about #websites and whether they’re even needed these days.
The question arises because of the multiplicity of channels now available through which to promote your business and for prospects to get information.
But it’s also a function of a general perception that most websites don’t generate new business. Mainly because most of them aren't set up properly to generate leads - even if that was the intention.
Gone are the days of the online brochure, your website is now your most powerful marketing tool, at the hub of your online, marketing and promotional activity.
Pulling together all the separate strands of your digital presence.
At least it should be.
Generally, if someone wants to know more about you and your business, they’ll probably do the following:
If they’re motivated enough, they might then check out your social profiles, to see if you have a life.
Alternatively, their route to find out more about you could be the reverse.
Inspired by your Instagram reels, they check out your bio link and get to your website from there.
The point is, their view of you and your business is formed the moment they come into contact with you, virtually.
And like Rome, all channels (should) lead to your website.
If you don’t have a website, treat your LinkedIn profile as your website until you can get something live (the cheapest and quickest route is to use carrd.co for a one-page site).
When eventually you do have a website up and running, don’t expect it to generate any business, unless it’s got a decent amount of traffic and has been set up properly.
You can set up your website to capture new business.
You just need to know how it should be structured and what content it should contain in order to generate those enquiries.
Where do you start?
Like most things, you start with the purpose.
Unsurprisingly I’m going to assume that you want your website to generate enquiries, and that being the case, the next step is to identify who your website should be directed at.
Again unsurprisingly, the answer of course is your target audience - the one (or more) ideal client profiles that you’ve already identified and researched.
(You have identified your target audience, haven’t you? If not, read this)
Skipping over the obvious requirement of a fast-loading, well-structured and professionally designed and copywritten homepage, you also need a well-structured and copywritten About page.
The ‘about’ page on a website is the second most trafficked page after the homepage, so if your homepage has already convinced your site visitor to dig deeper, this is where they’ll tend to go next.
If you’re a sole practitioner, you can relate your life story, but keep it brief.?
Similarly, don’t bore the visitor to death with the complete written history of your firm, just cover the salient points.
Keep it light and add in photos and video where possible.
In all cases, refer to your or your firm’s ethos, values, mission. The ‘why’ of why you’re in business, who you best serve, the way you think and what’s important to you.
Read that last sentence again, because it’s important.
This is the point where your ideal prospect can identify with you as a person or team.?
At this point they’re considering whether it’s worth investing more of their time on you and your firm.
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Are you the right fit for them.
Which is why you should show people who you are.
Embrace video, add behind-the-scenes photos and be real ??
If you’ve got your About page right, they’re more likely to take next steps. Otherwise, they’re gone.
So if they’ve read this far, they’re interested enough to consider taking things further.?
Tell them what they need to do.
And no, asking them to contact you, linking to your contact form isn’t it.
They may be ready to switch from an existing provider to you, or this may be the first time they’ve considered using your services, so anticipate the questions they’ll be asking themselves as they read this section.
Spell your processes out in simple terms.
How will you help them switch providers??
What do they need to do if they’re a complete newbie?
Provide them with a checklist of stuff they need to do.
You can prequalify your potential lead here with the minimum requirements they’ll need to fulfil and quote your minimum pricing.
Then finish off this page (as with all other pages) with a call to action.
Ask them to contact you, linking to your contact form (??).
And make your phone number prominent. Old tech, but it works.
Your services??
Most clients will rightly assume you do the same as other accountants, so nothing special required here UNLESS you actually DO provide services which your competitors don’t.
In which case, go to town pointing that out.
Other factors which will influence your site visitor include:
? the look and feel of the website pages. Site visitors take a fraction of a second to form an impression of your business upon viewing your webpage. And 94% of impressions are made from the page design; Add to that the increasing sophistication of your visitors and an expectation of quality, so good responsive design does matter.
? an FAQ section - linked to in-depth articles. You should ideally marry this with a blog; This builds trust in your visitor that you know what you’re doing and enhances your authority;
? a blog - to generate traffic. Yes, it needs to be written for SEO too and yes you’ll need to create unique content to get real SEO benefit, rather than pre-written content which has already been sold to any number of other businesses;
If you don’t want to write a blog, then run a vlog on YouTube, or go heavy on stories and reels, making sure that you refer to your web address when possible.
Generating traffic with content is a slow burn, with traffic appearing after a number of months, but the effect is cumulative, so don’t discount its importance.
? client case studies - how you solved their problems or got them results. Making sure of course that these are from your target audience. Again, this builds trust in your visitor that you know what you’re doing and enhances your authority.
And that in broad terms covers what you need to know about getting more enquiries from your website.
Obviously there’s a shedload more to it, but to get your site up to scratch, DM me to book a strategy session and we’ll take it from there.
?? Find out where your marketing blind spots are and get instant, actionable steps on how to give your marketing more impact and attract the clients you want.?Go here.