They say that you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover, but the harsh reality is that people will make up their opinions of your accountant website design within milliseconds of landing on your website.
Why? It's human nature to make snap judgments. We're simply hard-wired for fast decision-making, which is why we can't help but make quick decisions on whether something is going to be worth our time or a waste of our precious energy.
When it comes to websites, 50 milliseconds (0.05 seconds) is all it takes for users to form an opinion about your website!
- 2.6 seconds - the time it takes for a user’s eyes to find the area that most influences their first impression
- 5.59 seconds - the average time spent looking at written content on a website
- 5.94 seconds - the average time spent looking at a website’s main image
Wait, professional websites for accountants? Yes, in this era where most people search for anything online, having a website is pivotal to any branding and marketing efforts. As an accountant, having a website helps you build branding and credibility, and for potential clients to discover you more easily.
The importance of presentation cannot be stressed enough. Having a professional website can show people you are a credible CPA professional and you’ll look after their business needs. And as accounting professionals, people especially need to feel like they can trust you with their deepest, darkest secrets (i.e. their money habits and spending) before they hire you.
If you’re looking to dress up your professional website like how you would dress up to meet a client, we're here to share some best accounting website designs with you!
Here are six accountant website design tips to help you do just that! (Don’t worry, no actual design experience is required)
1. Keep it simple & user-friendly
Your website is an extension of the professional service you provide. Is it organized, or is it really hard to find important information? Is it clear and straightforward, or are there unnecessary sections you need to wade through before finding what you’re looking for?
The best accountants website designs combine style with ease. Finance and accounting is already a complex topic for a lot of your potential clients, so keep their user experience on your website as easygoing as possible.
Cover all your bases like keeping your contact information up to date and prominently displaying the links to your social profiles (so that they can stalk you and deem you credible to handle their finances, of course!).
If you have little to no website design experience and don’t have the funds to hire a professional, a tool like GoDaddy’s Websites Builder is your best bet. It lets you choose a design from a number of website templates and customize pages easily, regardless of your technical skill level. With the large number of website designs available at your disposal, you can build a website very quickly, with little to no technical skills involved!
Editor’s note: With GoDaddy’s Websites + Marketing you can create the website of your dreams in minutes and use the built-in social media and email marketing tools to seamlessly grow and engage your client base.
2. Make it SEO-friendly
Just like people, it's not enough to be beautiful or informative; above all, your website design needs to be SEO-friendly. Having a good SEO strategy for optimizing your site is like being at the prime location of a mall - you’ll be in the right place at the right time when people search online to hire accounting services.
When it comes to building SEO-friendly accounting website designs, here are three things to keep in mind:
- Fast site speed - ideally you want your website to load under three seconds
- Easy navigation - don’t confuse people on the user journey!
- Mobile-responsive design - since 68.1% of all website visits come from mobile devices, this is an absolute must!
SEO techniques are an integral part of good website design in order to rank in the top results of search engines. The rules of SEO best practices are constantly evolving and require frequent monitoring.
If you don’t want to invest too much time out of your day job, it’s worth it to get an SEO expert on board to help you. You can also make use of available online tools like GoDaddy’s SEO Tools that gets your site Google-ready, even if you have zero SEO knowledge.
Related: SEM vs SEO services: which is right for your business?
3. Tell them a clear promise (aka Value Proposition)
It’s a shame when companies don't really put effort into their website. They neglect design, copywriting and other important essentials for the sake of sales.
The result? A subpar website that will leave potential clients confused about why they should do business with you.
They’ll then quickly head back to Google to have another crack at the search bar - never to return to your site again.
This is why you need to form a value proposition loud and clear at the top of your home page. Make a clean, concise statement about why your accounting firm is the best choice for your target audience, instead of drowning them in too much information.
A value proposition is a unique promise to solve problems and helps to relieve deep-rooted fears in your niche. Get this right and it will offer your website visitor a compelling reason to act!
A good example comes from the Baldwin & Associates financial and accounting services website below:
From their homepage, you can tell a number of things:
- Their accountants pay as close attention to detail as dogs do with smells.
- The play on words show that they aren’t the stereotypical accountants with no personalities.
- The simple design and consistent message makes everything easy to read and digest.
A value proposition IS NOT a bunch of fluffy words about how much you care about your customers or how awesome your company is. Here’s a what-NOT-to-do example below:
The only thing that’s clear about this homepage is that it’s confusing. Sidenote: can you really trust a website that directly says “YOU CAN TRUST US”? It’s probably best to leave that to the reviews and testimonials.
4. Useful content: Show them you can help them (by actually helping them)
While accountant website design and SEO are important, those come second to providing useful information and content to your website visitors. After all, the content is what brought them there!
This is where you get to show off your expert knowledge, which is essential for financial professionals to do. Instead of just listing down your services and telling visitors how you can help them, publish useful blogs and articles that actually truly help them.
You can explore popular topics on finance. Or perhaps keep them informed on any new developments in the tax regulations for businesses. You could also write about successful case studies and get a happy client to insert a sparkling review about your service.
What you write about is up to you - think about your clients’ frequently asked questions and write topics on the advice and solutions to their problems.
While writing and publishing your content, have these tips in mind:
- Content over creativity - It can be tempting to ‘prettify’ your articles, but keep all images and design elements relevant. It shouldn’t take away from the valuable information you’re providing.
- Short and sweet - Keep it concise, clear and free of jargon. Sure, finance is a complex topic… which is why you should include a clear CTA to get in touch if they want to learn more.
- Keep up with the times - Once in a while, review the blogs you’ve published and update the content where necessary. Up-to-date information is necessary for SEO while showing that you’re a professional who is sharp and on-the-ball with current affairs.
5. Call-to-action: tell them what to do next!
By now you’ve got a clear value proposition that resonates with your visitor as soon as they land on your page. Your website is intuitively easy to navigate. You have content that educates your audience and builds credibility for you as a professional.
Congratulations, your new visitor now trusts you enough to have a conversation with you! Or better yet, to hand over their hard earned cash for your services.
Don’t just leave them hanging.
Use CTAs! They play a very important part in turning visitors into actual leads and clients.
CTAs are often ‘buttons’ with eye-catching colors that draw attention and encourage people to click on them and take the next step (e.g. call, schedule an appointment, buy, learn more).
Sprinkle these CTA’s strategically throughout your website and it becomes simple for your visitors to take a desired action along each stage of their buying journey.
Related: How to start a website from A-Z: a 5-step guide
Time to number-crunch those leads with a nicely designed accountant website
Don't ever feel that quality websites are complicated to build. With all the available digital tools, the best websites can be created easily. Anyone can start designing a quality accountant website - even accountants themselves!
Just remember to follow these five tips:
- Keep it simple and user-friendly
- Make it SEO-friendly
- Tell them a clear promise
- Show them you can help them via useful content
- Tell them what to do next with CTAs
You are now ready to kickstart your journey as a number-cruncher-cum-designer capable of bringing in more clients than ever before! Yay, go you. If you are keen to get started on designing your accountant website, GoDaddy's website builder is the perfect spot to get started!
