What is the downright minimum you require to make your accounting website? I've had a lot of Do-It-Yourself types ask me this question since I got into the design business, and it makes me recoil every time. I don't recommend doing a DIY job on a business site, but if you do it correctly it's better than no website at all. You can at least make it easy for people who are trying to find you so integrate the following pages:

• Contact Us: With your details, a map, and perhaps an email contact form.

• Service Pages: I'd recommend a separate page for each service, but if you want to summarize it onto a single page you can do that too. Describe your core services, and also talk about other services you offer that can add value for your clients. If possible throw a contact form at the bottom of the page.

• Staff Pages: The purpose of this page is to help your visitors feel like they've gotten to know you a little bit. Tell them a little about the firm and the people in it.

Firm Profile: The tone of this page should be highly professional and include a formal overview of your practice including some compelling reasons that a prospective client should want to work with you.

You should have no trouble creating this content yourself. Don't expect too much from this site. It isn't going to anything more than an online brochure. You should be able to put a site like this up yourself without any trouble. Just go to www.godaddy.com and set up a site with them.

What's A Brochure Site?

A brochure site won't land you new clients, help you retain your existing clients, or decrease your operating costs. It will keep you from looking looking like an out-of-date technophobe, and it will make it easy for people who are looking for you to find you.

If you're looking for more than that; if you want a site that will really help you with your network and online marketing efforts, you'll need more than a brochure site. You're going to need to add content to the site that your visitors will want to come back and revisit frequently. More advanced accounting websites are designed to bring customers back to your website again and again by offering content that sets you up as a financial reference source. Content like downloadable tax forms, tax due dates, business and financial planning articles, and blogs make your website a logical place to turn when people need tax and financial help. The downside, of course, is that this type of information requires design skills to post and time to update.

What's in a Content Package?

Once you're ready to step up to a more advanced site it's time to look into a content package. Most content packages include hosting and email, but you can also use them to augment your DIY website. A content package will include tons of content. These features have evolved over the years to maximize the marketing potential of your website.

News stories and free reports are a great way to draw visitors to the site. It's important to have your content change from time to time. In geek-speak we call this "dynamic" content. Search engines and clients alike love to see sites that get updated regularly. If you try to DIY a news page be warned: if you have news, you need to keep it up-to date. A "news" page that hasn't been updated for six months or more makes you look lazy and unreliable.

Financial calculators, downloadable forms, and useful links are pretty much standard elements of a modern accounting website. These interactive elements offer visitors lots of great reasons to keep coming back to your site and really boost the marketing value of your site.

Finally you'll get a client portal that allows your patrons to send and receive large files securely over the web.

Sooner or later you're going to want a big-kid's site. When that time comes you're going to need to find a real CPA site designer. If you try to develop this much content yourself it will cost thousands of dollars and swallow up scores of work hours. Luckily there are several companies that specialize in building content for CPA websites. These companies can provide the content you need as well as provide hosting and support services.