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5 tips for accountants on having a digital presence

Everyone knows that to build a successful business you need a good website, but as an accountant it can be difficult to know where to start.

You know that your site needs to be easy to find from a search engine and provide the information that clients and prospects are looking for. We create websites for accountancy firms, so here are our top five tips for creating a digital presence that performs…

1. State what you do

We've all seen them – beautiful websites with lots of nice imagery and even whizzy animations… that leave you utterly clueless about what the company does.

When someone is looking for an accountant, they'll use a search engine to find the right sort of company. Google look for the user's search terms against all the websites in the right location.

If you don't state clearly that you're an accountant and give an idea of the services that you provide, you'll never even get your site in front of a potential customer. Just as important is to focus content around your geographical region, which helps make you more visible to customers nearby.

2. Mobile first

Big companies worldwide are adopting a 'mobile first' approach to their web presence. This basically means that they're preparing for the prediction that people will soon use mobile devices to go online than via desktop or laptop. The split today is already around 50-50.

Google have also embraced mobile first as part of how they rank sites. So if your current website doesn't look great on a phone or tablet, now's the time to make the change.

3. Seek help

Unless you already have all the clients you need, or you rely completely on word-of-mouth to attract new business, it pays to seek support to build a great site.

It doesn't have to be expensive. While there are online tools that will help you create a nice-looking website yourself, you'll have no guidance on how many pages to have, what content to put on them, or how to perform well on search engines.

Meanwhile it's easy to find a reputable web agency that can match your budget requirements and deliver on your marketing objectives.

4. Update, update, update

Search engines consider websites that have the most recent content as the most relevant to web users. To gain your rightful place on a search listing you need to keep posting new content on your site.

Most companies achieve this through a news or blog section – but you'll need to think of things to talk about and highlight in order to keep the blog articles coming.

5. Extend beyond your site

A digital presence is not just about having a website. Raising your company's profile also means engaging with other online channels, and particularly social media.

Not only will a profile and regular posts on LinkedIn and Twitter help drive your site up the Google rankings, but people of all walks of life are increasingly turning to Facebook to find companies and suppliers. If you're targeting small businesses with your services, a Facebook presence could be a great source of leads.


Seek support

We recognise that busy accountancy firms rarely have the time to create and maintain the kind of digital presence they'd like. That's why we created accWEBSITE – where we build specialist accountancy websites and maintain them with monthly news updates and blog posts. At just £99 per month, our customers trust us to deliver the best possible web presence so they can focus on what they're best at.

For more information see our accWEBSITE page or email us at enquiries@accsys.org.

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