Accounting website design is a well-developed skill. We've learned how to take advantage of your CPA website to benefit your practice in many ways. A contemporary accounting website has hundreds of pages of special content, but if you actually read one attentively you'll see the content on a well designed accounting website is directed to a particular purpose. Your website will attract clients. It will help you increase client satisfaction. It will even help you handle your accounting business more efficiently. but these functions all have the same purpose: Making money. If a feature does not make or save your company money it doesn't belong on your website.

The earning and/or saving benefits for most of your content is usually somewhat obvious. Just having a website shows your prospects that you're keeping up with the times, and suggests that you can be trusted to adapt to their needs. Perhaps more importantly it gives people a chance to get to know you a little before calling you. A good web design can go a long way to helping people overcome their natural fear of strangers. Your file transfer system and on line tax documents helps improve your client retention while at the same time increasing your office's operational efficiency.

You save a fortune in postage and printing each year by posting your tax organizer and newsletter on line.

There are some features to your website, though, that aren't as obvious. At first blush it may look like your website is giving a lot, some even seem to believe too much, away. Features like interactive financial calculators and free reports may seem frivolous, but they are actually powerful marketing tools, and prospecting for new clients is arguably the most important function of your website.

I can't count the number of times I've had to beg or cajole clients not to password protect or even remove these features. It's easy to set up content in a password protected directory, and I've done it on more than a few occasions when my persuasiveness failed. Often I'll set up the directory then call call back to show it to the client and plead one last time for them not to use it. We add this content by design, and we do so with the singular intent of making the website more profitable.

Free reports, I'm often told, give away what the accountant is selling but nothing could be further from the truth. Free reports and financial guides are carefully written to cross-sell your services. The idea is to showcase ways you can help your client save money, and position you as the expert that can help you do it. It's a dreadful mistake to remove them, or even make them harder to access. There is, however, an even more important reason to keep these features public. This seemingly frivolous content is also central to bringing new clients into the practice.

Most of your visitors won't necessarily be looking for a new accountant. At least not right away. It happens, but no very often. Perhaps the visitor already has an accountant she likes. Maybe she's still able to use the short tax forms. The thing to keep in mind is that her circumstances will likly change. Research shows, for example, that the average duration of a client's relationship with an accountant is about six years. Assuming you're actually planning to stay in business for any length of time this means it would be wise to treat just about everyone who visits your site as a long term prospect. In a few years her accountant may retire. Or get married. Or take a job with a large firm. Any number of things could happen. Even if the visitor is dirt poor there's no telling what the future may hold. They could get a couple of raises or a better job. People get married. Next thing you know they're buying a house or starting a business. A 1040 long form is a scary thing to see for the first time.

If you remove this content you're pretty much surrendering your website's long term marketing potential. Even if all you do is require a login you will reduce participation profoundly. People don't like to give their email address away, and even if they give it to you they won't really use it. People rarely bother to log in during a visit, and even if they try they often forget their login information. The long term value of regular visitors dwarfs the value of trapping a few email addresses.

Play the Long Game

Don't confine your marketing efforts to immediate conversions. Design your accounting website accordingly. The trick is putting your brand in front of the prospect. If you can keep your brand in front of the prospect until they need you it's a pretty safe bet that you'll be getting a nice, hot message from a number of them in time!