Mistake 7 of 16 – Misunderstanding what is expected of accountancy firms online

This week we continue our series of blog articles ’16 mistakes made by accountants – and how to avoid them’. There is significant confusion over what clients and prospects expect of their accountants online, so it’s little wonder that the result is a mess! Small amounts of activity are undertaken with little or no joined up plan in place.

Few accountancy firms would accept anything but the very highest standards offline. Yet so many still accept very
poor standards online. Thousands of firms don’t even have a goal for their website. Perhaps your site is simply there because you have to have one – and that’s it! And that’s a big mistake, because you could be missing out on a host of opportunities.

Everyone goes there!

Every potential new client will ‘check you out’ using your website – even before they contact you. Firms that have
won customers directly as a result of launching their App report that their web traffic has also increased significantly.
Even your existing clients will use your website if they are looking for online solutions to the accountancy challenges
they face.

The right website will help you generate high quality visitors and new enquiries at a controllable rate. It will also help
form a big part of your inbound marketing plan (more on that to follow). It helps you position your firm as advanced
and reach out to savvy business owners.

Is your website making these mistakes?

You can ask us to review your current website to get our thoughts, but here are some common errors made online:

• Over 80% of your visitors won’t be ready to buy or enquire, so do you have a number of ‘soft’ offers to encourage
  them to at least leave their contact details?
• The vast majority of your visitors will view your ‘meet the team page’. Is it compelling?
• Is your site a thoughtless template, stuffed full of jokes, games and generic content?
• No measurement of the site or review of performance in terms of simple metrics – visitors, what they looked at;
  did they enquire?
• Little or no SEO, which means the site ranks poorly with search engines
• Generic, lengthy, or boring copy all about your firm and very little about your readers
• No compelling reason to enquire
• No integrated blog
• Poor, complex or difficult to use navigation
• No goal for the site

What can you do?

Fortunately, there are lots of options. Our advice is to register for one of our free marketing clinics and review where
your site fits into your entire strategy. Then once that’s agreed, you can decide what the goal of the website really is,
and how to create a site that achieves that goal.

Get the full report or register you for a free 1:1 with our team

If you have enjoyed reading this article, why not download the full 56 page report here or to discuss the elements above and how we can help your firm register for a free 1:1 here.

 

Categories: Biggest Mistakes, Blog