Your guide to creating a great website

Transcription

1 Your guide to creating a great website Make it easy for prospects to understand your promise and buy it

2 Your guide to creating a great website Make it easy for prospects to understand your promise and buy it Why this guide? After working for several years with hundreds of accountants all over the world, we thought it would be good to share our experiences and digital insights with you. Use this guide to help plan and implement your digital marketing strategy and most importantly prevent you from creating a bad website. The ONE thing you need to remember If you take just one thing from this guide, it s this: Your website is a reflection of YOU Whether you like it or not, your website reflects your personality, credibility and capability 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. No matter how good an accountant you are, an outdated, poorly written or badly designed site will fail to position your practice correctly in the marketplace. It won t engage visitors in ways that convince them to engage your practice. It won t drive your campaigning for new leads. Worst of all, it could even put off word-of-mouth prospects who visit your site for hygiene reasons. * Websites play a huge hygiene role in making a decision. For example: Jane is looking for a new accountant. Her friend John recommends his excellent accountant, Bill. Before calling Bill for a chat, Jane visits the practice s website. She s horrified by its clunkiness. Bill s practice seems stuck in the dark ages. No matter how good an accountant Bill is, there s no profile of him on his website. Not even a picture. His practice doesn t seem to be up with the times. Or the tech. Jane decides to look elsewhere.

3 People will make a split-second decision about whether it s worth reading more, getting in touch or walking away Keeping this thought at the top of your mind will help you: 1 Choose a website design that supports your brand, visual identity and content, and which positions you correctly against your competitors. 2 Choose technology that makes your website more useful. 3 Create useful and engaging content that connects with your target audience. Time is not on your side! When you meet a person face-to-face for the first time, you very quickly form an opinion of them based on how they look and what they say. You ll either stay to learn more or find a way to gracefully exit the conversation. It s the same with your website... except you ve got less time. Just seconds after arriving on your website, people will form an impression and make a splitsecond decision about whether it s worth reading more, getting in touch or walking away. If you knew that you had just a few seconds to get someone s attention and convince them to buy your services, wouldn t you choose your words (and your attire) very carefully? How you look and what you say matters. So why do so many accounting firms settle for badly written content and sub-par design? In most cases, it creates a grossly inaccurate impression of you and your practice and makes it virtually impossible to compete against those who have got their websites right. The new selection criteria for accountants The Cloud is changing the way accountants practice, operate and market themselves. It s also changing the way clients perceive accountants and what they expect from them. Prospects hear and learn about new stuff quicker than you might ever imagine. They want you to move with the times and meet them with your offer. In short, their selection criteria have changed dramatically:

4 The old criteria You re in my town or city You offer accounting & tax services You can help me minimise my tax The new criteria Looks modern, friendly, approachable Proactive & understands my business Uses modern software Can take my business forward Can work with me from anywhere Can be easily reached for questions Transparent (or fixed) fees & pricing Offers additional business software Offers regular proactive advice Understands technology Can educate me Is price competitive People no longer choose accountants based purely on a list of services. They choose them based on multiple new criteria that determine whether you are the best fit for them. Takeaway It s no longer enough to just list your services. In the face of increasing competition, your website must show your clients and prospects WHY they should choose you over your competitors. A well-written and well-designed website will do this for you (in 3 or 4 pages). How to create a bad website 1. Use pre-written / generic content Traditionally, providers of accountant websites have sold their solutions based on dozens of pages of pre-written content, ready-to-go, right out of the box. However, this approach comes with lots of downsides and very few upsides. Upsides Saves you time Downsides 1. It s bad for Search Engines. When your website uses exactly the same words as another website, both will be penalised by Google, resulting in lower rankings in search results. Google refers to this as Duplicate Content 2. Generic content doesn t fit your firm. It doesn t use the words you use or talk about your passions & strengths. It lacks credibility and authenticity 3. The content is the same as everyone else s. So it doesn t differentiate you from your competitors, telling them why they should choose you over them 4. It s often not written to sell. Copy is usually way too long & portrays you as being staid & boring

5 If you re not getting regular feedback that your website s working, then it s no wonder it gets forgotten and becomes out-of-date 2. Bad use of stock photos Stock photos can be great when used well, but most often they re used badly. Using photos of smiling people in suits that look like you, but are not you, creates the wrong impression. They come across as false and untrustworthy. That s not the impression you want to create as a professional services firm. TAKEAWAY Be authentic and be yourself. If you use stock photos, only choose those that support your story. Don t use photos of smiling models pretending to be you. 3. Never update it Many accountants we talk to say that their website is out-of-date and hasn t changed much over the past 2 years. This means, at the very least, that they haven t changed their offer to meet the new selection criteria prospects use. It s also proof that they re not capable of keeping up with the technology opportunities that matter... let alone communicating them! Here s why: 1 It s too hard or expensive to change 2 It s not a priority because the practice is so busy TAKEAWAY Static, out-of-date websites harm your reputation and lose you potential clients. 4. Don t measure it You can t improve what you can t measure. If you re not getting regular feedback that your website s working, then it s no wonder it gets forgotten and becomes out-of-date. Tracking website visits and usage behaviour is vital to its ongoing success. Watching performance is a great motivation to keeping it up-to-date. TAKEAWAY Use Google Analytics to set up reports and dashboards to deliver key metrics to your inbox each month. These will show the contribution your website is making to your business.

6 Common mistakes and misconceptions 1. I can write my content myself WRONG. This should be obvious. You re an accountant. You work wonders with numbers, not words. You wouldn t advise your clients to get their accounts done by a mechanic who moonlights as an accountant. Instead, you d advise them to get it done properly, by a professional. Copywriting is a profession, just as Accounting is a profession. Enough said. 2. My nephew or someone in our office can build it WRONG. This is usually a recipe for a DIY disaster because the process of design, copywriting and planning happens in an unstructured and ad hoc fashion, most often with the goal of getting it done fast, rather than right. Creating a website should follow a defined procedure of: 1 Defining who you are, where you re going and who you will serve, along with defining any technical requirements the website must meet 2 Writing the words and deciding on a website structure that articulates the above clearly 3 Creating a design that supports your brand identity, is in line with your visual identity, brings the words to life and connects you with your target audience 4 Building your website on a platform that is easy to update and able to be integrated with your other systems 3. A new website is the answer to winning new clients WRONG. While a badly written and badly designed website will stop you from winning new clients, even the best website can perform poorly if you haven t answered the following really important question: Where will your website visitors come from? With over 600 million websites on the planet, how will people find yours? When you build your website, you need to be clear about how you will drive visitors to it and put plans in place to make it happen. For most accountants, their website visitors will come from the following sources: 1 Word of mouth referrals 2 Events and seminars you run 3 Events and seminars you attend 4 Search engines 5 Social Media 6 Marketing 7 Other websites 8 Offline advertising

7 Traffic channel checklist Complete the following checklist to see if your traffic channels are up to scratch: Channel Checklist Tick Word of mouth Events & seminars Search engines Social Media Marketing Other websites Offline advertising Your website comes up number 1 in Google if people search your company name Your domain name is not too long, is easy to spell & remember Your website URL is included on all your marketing materials that you hand out at the event You mention your website at your events as a source of more information or special offers Your website is search engine friendly You have set up and optimised your Google Places page You have a search engine marketing campaign in place that targets searches for accountants in your local area & your main service offerings Your Twitter & Facebook pages are branded with your company logo & colours Your LinkedIn profile is up-to-date & follows best practice guidelines You have made a commitment & a plan for monitoring & keeping your social media channels up-to-date You have a subscribe to newsletter or free ebook download on your website Your marketing lists are up-to-date Your marketing lists are organised by demographics such as location, industry or needs You re adding valuable comments on other blogs & articles that are related to your services You write guest blog posts on other websites Your website URL is included on all your marketing materials eg business cards, factsheets, etc...

8 Website health check Getting visitors to your website is one thing. Engaging them and inspiring them to take action is a whole other challenge. Here s a checklist of important considerations: Checklist Your web pages have scannable text rather than large blocks of text with little or no spacing between paragraphs Tick You have a clear font-hierarchy so your page headings & section headings are clear Your selected font is large enough to read on a 1366x768 or larger screen. Ref: W3Schools You are not using stock images of people pretending to be you or stock images that have been overused Your content is unique. It does not appear on any other websites. Try using to find duplicate content You have a website analytics system such as Google Analytics installed to monitor how people are using your website You offer clear & compelling reasons to choose your practice, rather than just listing your services You know how many leads you gained from your website last month / this year Your website looks good on small mobile devices such as an iphone Your web pages load at an acceptable speed. Use this tool to find out: You have clear & logical navigation ie menu Your menu item names match your page titles Each page has a clear & obvious page title You have a logo or tagline in your website header that makes it clear what kind of services you offer eg chartered accountants Your website is free from broken links. Register your website with Google Webmaster Tools to find out Your blog includes social media sharing buttons You ve written at least one blog post in the last 30 days Your website s META data is optimised for search engines

9 How much should I spend on a website? To build a great website, your project must include the following phases: 1 Strategy A process of defining your objectives, the positioning of your brand in the marketplace and how your website will work to support your overall marketing strategy. 2 Copywriting The words on your website need to be aligned with your objectives so you can attract and convert the kinds of clients you want to work with. They also need to use the right tone of voice to express the attitude and values of your brand. 3 Design The purpose of design is to support your brand identity (personality and values), your visual identity (logo, type and colour systems) and content. Great design will communicate these and help you establish a distinct position in the market. 4 Construction The construction phase implements the content and design of the website on a content management system (CMS). Interactive elements may also be introduced in this phase to make the website easier to use or more engaging for visitors, further leveraging the work done in the copywriting and design stages. 5 Integration This phase is often overlooked but it can be critical to the success of your website long-term. This phase considers how your website database can be synchronised with your other software and systems. This is particularly important for tracking leads from website enquiries and also for keeping your marketing lists up-to-date. Each of the 5 phases build on each other and deserve due consideration. We ve outlined the process above so you don t underestimate the time and effort required to create a great website. Assigning this task to a Digital Agency is the best and most thorough approach. It will likely incur costs of between $20,000 and $50,000 (depending on the agency). Of course, there s more than one way to approach a website project and different opportunities to achieve significant savings in each phase if you don t have a large budget at your disposal. We re always available to talk and have helped accountants find solutions, whatever their budget. PP Get started... To get started on your website project or simply for some free advice, contact us.

10 practicepl.us