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Use the web to win new clients

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30th Nov 2011
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Leveraging online tools, social media and creative design can turn a droll website into a profit-making centre for your accounting practice, says Hugh Duffy.

What most accountants really want to know, first and foremost, is how their investment in a website can be used to recruit new clients. Ultimately, every expenditure needs to have some payback to justify itself. 

During the last decade, most accounting firms residing in a competitive market location created websites that were little more than online brochures. Calling cards, if you will. These types of websites would be nothing more than text on a page with no photography and poorly written content, not pleasing on the eye. 

Higher connection speeds and increased familiarity with the internet gradually introduced us to websites rich in content, photography and graphic designs and pleasing to the eye. Today, maximising your online potential can help attract new clients. Whether you decide to design (or redesign) a website yourself or use an external resource to create one for you, you’ll want to concentrate on several key components.

Don’t ignore Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): You may be tired of hearing about it but you cannot avoid implementing SEO on your website if you really want to reach prospects. Of course, some accounting firms have done quite well building their business the old fashioned way with networking, but nowadays, that kind of activity isn’t going to be enough to find prospects and convert them to clients.

Technology is useful when it works – and in the case of SEO, it works very well. The simplest way to think of SEO is to think about a spider web with your firm smack dab in the centre of the internet. Like a spider that spins a web in the right location, SEO ensures your site shows up at the top or very near the top of the search engine results page, consistently. 

Here’s a simple exercise. If you haven’t ever searched in Google, Bing or Yahoo! for your accounting firm try it – but try it in three ways:

  • Search by the words, “accounting firm” and your local city or area. Now you can see that there are many more results
  • Search by the words, “best accounting firm in” your local city or area. 
  • Search by the words, “accounting firm for small businesses” in your local city or area. 

Does your firm show up on the first two or three pages?

If you were a prospect who wanted to find an accounting firm in your local area, which firms are you more likely to contact – the ones that show up near the top of the page or your firm that shows up on page 9?

When done properly, SEO works to deliver quality traffic to your website, which, in turn, gets the phone ringing. The process of SEO generally takes 6-12 months to work effectively and, like fine wine, gets better over time.  

Pay up for pay-per-click campaigns: Conducting pay-per-click advertising campaigns provide another great way to find clients. If you think advertising is only for the big dogs, think again. With pay-per-click campaigns, you decide how much you want to spend per month. When you reach that amount, the campaign is no longer available until the beginning of the next cycle.

It’s a fact that people are more likely to click on a listing shown in two places on the results search page, so creating a combination of SEO and pay-per-click campaigns doubles your chances of having a prospect ask for more information.

Get your firm and website listed in Google Places, Yelp, Yahoo Local and other directories. To generate more awareness of your accounting firm, you should get your practice listed on one of these free services. While it takes some time to get validated and fully complete each site’s listing requirements, this exercise is more than worth the effort.

Leverage complementary tools such as newsletters and social media. Again, thanks to advanced technologies, there are many tools that can complement your website; the key is to use these tools to drive traffic to your site. Here are a few ideas:

Distribute an e-mail newsletter: If you think a newsletter is just about content, think again. The real value to an e-mail newsletter is the referral base it generates through existing relationships. The best way to do this is encourage clients and friends to pass your newsletters along to their friends, colleagues and even family – anyone who may qualify as a referral source.

Integrate social media into your website: Your website should integrate with social media applications such as LinkedIn. Something as simple as incorporating an icon button for LinkedIn on your home page increases the likelihood that a prospect will find you.

Start a blog: All of us have something to say, so why not say it on your website? Sure, blogs are plentiful, but they are also especially helpful in helping impart important accounting-related information. Don’t be shy; even if you think you can’t write something on a regular basis, try it and see what kinds of results you get.

Interesting, well-executed websites are no longer unattainable. In today’s always-on environment, prospects expect their professional service advisors to be savvy and smart. As a result, a website is a great place to demonstrate your abilities.

This article first appeared on our US sister site AccountingWEB.com. Hugh Duffy is co-founder and chief marketing officer of Build Your Firm.

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By Bob Harper
30th Nov 2011 15:59

Trash the Template

For those practice owners who have chosen (or are thinking of buying) the easy option of a template Website and have broad shoulders, and willing to hard look in the mirror, I have written a report called Trash the Template

As always, it is free and there is no sales pitch - if you want to be challenged email me at [email protected].

Bob Harper

Portfolio Marketing

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