The Ultimate Guide to Website Design for Accountants

The Ultimate Guide to Website Design for Accountants

These days, most people when they are looking to hire an accountant, they go on the internet and search for “accountants near me.” The firms that are going to get their business are the ones that have websites that appear in the top few on the search engine. Competing with large firms for these spots on the search engine can be daunting for a local law firm. The large global firms have lots of money and staff to work on their website and make it as optimized as possible. Here at MarketKeep, we help small business websites compete with the large corporations or firms by using the best SEO practices and designing user friendly websites. Web pages that appear at the top of search engine results pages have a few common aspects: SEO strategies that are tailored to the goals of the company and thoughtful website design that is easily navigated by the user. We would like to help your business get more leads and create an outstanding website that ranks high on the search engine results; to do this we have created The Ultimate Guide to Website Design for Accountants. 

In this article, we are going to dissect the key components of the highest performing websites on the internet today. This includes everything from the structure of the header navigation menu, to helping you create a website that supplements your brand and produces leads to increase your earnings , including: 

• Principles of a Top-performing Website Design for Accountants
• An Example Menu Layout for Accountant Website Designs That Convert
• Content to Make Your Accounting Firm Website Stand Out
• Questions to Ask When Meeting With Web Designers 

Prior to Starting: What To Do Before Creating a Website Design For Your Accounting Firm 

Establish Your Goals 

The first thing for you to do before beginning your website design is to have a clear-cut view of your goals and how you are going to execute them. To help figure out your goals, ask yourself the following questions:

• What do you want your website to accomplish?
• What are your practice areas?
• What services do you offer?
• Are you looking to generate leads, showcase your services, or provide customers with useful information? 

It’s important to have a specific and measurable goal for your website, such as increasing the traffic amount by a certain percentage or producing a specific number of leads per month. When you define your goals clearly, you can ensure that your website design aligns with the objectives of your business and delivers results.

Create a Budget 

When creating and maintaining a website it’s important to have a clear understanding of the costs involved. The budget for a website can vary greatly depending on the involvement of the design, the number of pages, and the properties and components required. It’s important to set a realistic budget that includes all of the costs involved in creating a website, including web hosting, domain registration, content creation, and ongoing maintenance. Investing in a top of the line website may require a significant upfront cost, but it can provide a significant return on investment over time by attracting more customers and generating leads. 

The main thing to remember is that you have to be realistic. You can’t create a high-performing website for $60. However, you also shouldn’t be paying $5,000 or more for a website design either. A realistic budget for small businesses is between $750 to $2,500 depending on how extensive you want the website. 

Focus on the User

The user experience of your website should be intuitive and easy to navigate, from the moment visitors go to your homepage to when they complete an action, such as filling out a contact form. The layout and organization of your website content should be planned to confirm it’s intuitive and easy to understand for a wide range of individuals. Also, make sure that your website is designed for mobile devices, since more and more users are viewing websites from their phones and tablets. If you prioritize the user in your website design, you can create a seamless engagement, as well as increase conversions and create a positive reputation for your business.

Throughout The Design Process:

Tips To Find More Potential Leads With An Outstanding Accounting Firm Website

Make Sure Your Website Loads Fast

With the invention of smartphones, people these days have access to all of the information in the world in their pockets, with this comes the rise of instant gratification. People no longer like to wait around, users expect websites to load quickly, and if your website is too slow, potential clients will get frustrated and move on. Slow page load time can also negatively impact your website’s search engine rankings. If you want to improve your website’s page speed performance, consider reducing the file sizes of your images and videos. Also, make sure that your website is being hosted by a reliable source and can handle the traffic your website receives. Improving your website’s page speed, you provide a better user experience and improve the chances of visitors staying on your website and becoming clients.

Pro Tip: A way to get even better results is to be sure you have complete control of your website by hosting it yourself. To do this, you must first choose a reputable hosting company. You can check your website’s speed using Pingdom or GTmetrix. They’ll give you some valuable tips on how to make your site even faster and load like lightning.

Make Sure Your Accounting Firm Website Is Responsive on All Devices

It’s pretty obvious, but you have to have a website that looks awesome on phones and tablets as well as computers. If your site isn’t responsive, chances are slim that anyone will actually do anything on it from their mobile device. It’s super important these days because most people visit websites on their phones, and the trend keeps growing every year, with more folks ditching desktop for mobile searching.

Remember to “KISS” Your Website

This popular term, coined by Kelly Johnson, stands for “keep it short and simple”. Your accounting firm website design should be simple enough for a large range of people to easily navigate through. A way to do this is the five second rule. When someone goes to your website, you should make three things very clear within 5 seconds. Firstly, you need to specifically tell them what you do. This may seem obvious, but a lot of companies try to be all fancy and clever instead of getting straight to the point. Their headlines are written for themselves, not for their potential clients. So, if you are super clear about what you do and make it stand out on your website users will respond better to this since they do not have to guess.

Exhibit Trust & Credibility

For any business establishing trust and credibility to potential clients is crucial, this also applies to website design. Visitors to your website are more likely to become clients if they trust and believe in your law firm. One way to build trust on your website is by displaying proof of successful cases, such as customer testimonials and reviews. Potential clients want proof that they can trust you before hiring you. This can be achieved by displaying badges or awards given to your firm on your website. Finally, including elements such as a physical address and contact information on your website can also help establish credibility. 

By demonstrating trust and credibility through your website design, you can improve your business’s reputation and increase customer loyalty.

Make Your Website Stand Out

Today’s online marketplace is overcrowded with lots of websites, because of this it’s essential to find creative ways to stand out from the competition. A way to differentiate your website is by creating unique and memorable content and web design that matches your brand. This can be done by using particular colors, typography, and graphics that are consistent across your website and all other marketing materials. Another way to stand out among the pack is by creating high-quality, informative content that addresses your customers’ needs and lets them know how you can make their lives easier. By finding ways to stand out through your website design, you can capture visitors’ attention and convert them into loyal customers.

SEO Can Go a Long Way in Website Design

Search engine optimization (SEO) is an essential part of the website design process. When you optimize your website for search engine results, you can increase your visibility and attract more visitors to your site. Main SEO factors to consider when you are designing your website include choosing the best SEO keywords for accountants for your goals and optimizing your content to include them naturally. Also, be sure that your website’s metadata, such as the title tags and meta descriptions, reflect the content on each page. Ensure that your website is structured in such a way that it can be crawled by search engines and include links to other pages on the website to make it easy for visitors to navigate the site. If you include the best SEO practices into your design, you will improve how well your site ranks on search engines and drive targeted traffic to your website. 

Develop Optimized Landing Pages

Creating optimized landing pages is an essential part of the website design process. A landing page is a special page on your website that is designed to attract specific visitors, whether it’s locations or services. To optimize your landing pages, be sure that the page has a clear and compelling headline, a call-to-action that stands out, and provide visitors with information about your services. Visually appealing graphics and easily navigable pages will make your website’s landing pages more likely to be attractive to visitors. If you optimize your landing pages for conversion, you can increase your website’s effectiveness in generating leads and growing your business.

Use Data to Guide You

Analytics tools, such as Google Analytics, show valuable insights into the performance of your website, including metrics such as traffic sources, user behavior, and conversion rates. Reviewing this data, you can find the areas of your website that need improvement and make informed decisions about changes to your website design and content. For example, if you notice that visitors to the website are spending little time on a particular page, you might want to re-evaluate the content or layout of that page to figure out why it is not engaging the users. Using analytics to inform your website design can improve the user experience, increase conversions, and ultimately grow your business over time.

Keep Up With the Joneses

Website design is an ongoing process, and it’s important to always be listening, learning, and optimizing your site over time. The world of technology is ever changing, now more than ever, so staying up to date with current web design or SEO trends and best practices is essential to ensure that your website stands out against the competition. Lastly, testing different design features and tracking the results can help you make informed decisions about the design and content of your website. 

The Ideal Accounting Firm Design Structure:

Manufacture The Best Website Design for Accountants

Home Page

The homepage of your website is the first thing that your potential customers see and your design can make or break whether or not someone will want to hire you. This page should be a one stop shop for the rest of your website and include small sections for about us, services, service areas, portfolio and contact information. These sections should include a compact version of the information on their individual pages which will convince potential customers to want to learn more.  

About Us

Learning about the history of your accounting firm can help build trust with potential customers and distinguish your business from competitors, ultimately leading to increased leads and conversions.

Practice Areas

Including practice areas for an accounting firm website is important because it provides visitors with a clear understanding of what your firm offers. This information helps potential customers determine whether your business can meet their specific needs and encourages them to take the next step in contacting you for more information.

Awards and Recognition

Including awards and recognition for your business website is important because it can help build credibility and establish your business as a leader in the industry. 

Reviews

Positive reviews can help build trust and credibility with potential customers and encourage them to select your firm for their business. 

Call to Action/Contact

A clear and compelling call to action can help encourage visitors to take the next step in becoming a customer.

Content that Will Make Your Accounting Firm Website Rank Well

Images

Images can improve your website and make it stand out by adding visual interest and breaking up text on pages. It’s important to remember to use images sparingly to avoid slowing down your website’s load time, and to ensure that images are optimized to prevent issues with resolution or file size. If images are overused they can take away from the overall experience of the site if they are distracting or irrelevant to the content.

Videos

Videos provide dynamic content that can help your website stand out by engaging visitors and can help explain your services or showcase your work. However, it’s important to be sure that they are optimized for web use to prevent potential issues with page load times and compatibility with different devices and browsers.

Blog Posts

Blog posts are important because they provide valuable and informative content that can establish your business as an authority in the industry. If you regularly post high-quality blog content, you can improve your website’s search engine rankings and increase your organic visitors over time.

Social Media

Including your firm’s social media provides opportunities to engage with potential clients and drive more traffic to your website. Integrating social media buttons and links can also increase the visibility and credibility of your business across various platforms, helping to expand your reach and build your brand.

Questions to Ask When Meeting With Web Designers

Designing and developing a website can be an overwhelming process for many small business owners, especially those who may not have a lot of experience in the digital realm. Here are a few examples of questions that you can ask your web design company to be sure the end result is tailored to your goals and objectives. 

• Do you develop designs for specific industries?
• What types of services do you offer?
• Do you design in house or outsource the projects to contractors?
• What is your process for completing a website design?
• Should the existing website be salvaged or do I need a new one altogether?
• What tools will be used to create the website?
• What are the web standards and practices that you follow?
• Do I need to provide anything before starting the website design process?
• How long is the time frame until the website will be ready to launch?
• How much do you charge for website design services?