Got a website already? How long has it been since you took an honest, demanding look at it? Accounting Firms know this: The era of the novelty website is over. There was a day when any website was looked at as the new thing and a pretty page with a phone number would lure in local business owners. Those days are gone forever. In this day and age visitors have much more mature expectations. If you genuinely want folks to check out your website in the current business environment you need to present them a strong REASON.

The best way to do this is by using a marketing gimmick called a tag line.

The golden rule of website marketing is simple: From From now on when you mention your website include a "tagline" that demonstrates a material profit to folks willing to check out your site.

It's not hard to use a tagline. It's just like a newspaper headline. A newspaper headline is intended to get someone to actually read an article. A "tag line" performs practically the exact same role and therefore is composed using the exact same basic rules:

1. Provoke the interest of your reader on an emotional level, not an intellectual one. Most buyers make essential choices emotionally, so solicit to things they are actually interested in or afraid of. Your marketing will be much more successful if you promise benefits that appeal to a prospect's , primary motivators (pride, greed and fear) than it'll be appealing to the reader's good sense.

2. Learn the words that people like to read. Of course, the word "free" is now and always will be the king of the hill, but words like YOU, YOUR, HOW, NEW, WHO, MONEY, NOW, PEOPLE, WANT, and WHY catch peoples eye and appeal to them on a very personal level. Use these words.

3. Know what benefit to offer. Mom's are wrong. We're not really special or different. We all want basically the same things from life, and that list is very short. Once you know what these things are it becomes easy to write to them.

Different people value these things to different degrees. Some people are naturally more fearful than prideful and vice versa, but more often than not the prospects attitude is more influenced by their situation than their personality. For example, if your reader is a home builder in the current environment he's likely to be fearful, but if the reader is a home buyer pride is a much more likely motivator.

Here's a no-nonsense listing of the five key motivators that marketers advertise to:

• Safety: People want to feel secure.

• Acceptance: People like to feel like they belong.

• Empowerment: People like to feel like they have control over their own destiny.

• Status: People like to be perceived as powerful and important.

• Fun: This one's pretty self-explanatory. People just plain like to have fun.

I know what you're thinking. "What about money?". Everything else, even money, is a secondary motivater. Money is really just a means to an end. With money you are more able to achieve these five primary motivators.

4. Focus your tagline to your likely traffic. Just as an example: if you are selling your services to new residents you might want to use a tagline like, "Special offer to New Homeowners! Free initial consultation and 15% off your first tax preparation". If you're targeting a larger more generic group use something more universal like "Free to New Tax Preparation Customers".

5. Mention your offer right away in your tagline. Remember the tagline is the ad for your web site. In numerous ways the tag line is more pertinent than the web address itself. After all… a a superior tagline is much more likely to get the visitor to act than a neat web address is!

Here's a few examples of good taglines for marketing your accounting website:

• Learn 7 tax Secrets You Need to Know. Visit www.pro-tax.com

• The IRS is targeting Your Business. Visit www.pro-tax.com

• 10 things the IRS doesn't want you to know about your taxes. Visit www.pro-tax.com

TIP

Add taglines to your email by using a signature. I love email. It's much superior to using printed stationary. One of the most unbelievable things about it is you can immediately and without problems modify your taglines. I'd like to see somebody try that with old-fashioned stationary! Email signatures are great for side-selling services. Every few weeks you will want to change the tagline. Be aggressive about it, and direct your taglines and offers to your readers. It's powerful, it's easy, and it's free!