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Finding the Best CPA Website Design for Your Practice

Guest post by: Brian O'Connell

Article Overview: A website designer shows us how to buy the best site for your accounting firm and exposes the traps that site design firms use to entice customers into paying higher rates or buying inferior sites.

Finding the Best CPA Website Design for Your Practice

Numerous organizations provide CPA websites. This guide helps you determine what's most important in a web designer - and what to watch out for. Look for These 7 Attributes in a Website Designer:

1. A variety of modern designs

Make sure your website designer provides a number of design choices - at least 100, and not just the same 5 or 6 styles with different colors. You should be able to personalize your site or build it from the ground up, or, if you'd rather, choose from stock styles. Make sure your website designer allows you to see all their designs before you sign up.

2. Lots of content

The designer you choose should be able to load your website with tons of content, at least 1,000 pages. And be sure a good portion of these are customizable, and that you can add your own pages if desired.

3. Web tools

• A high-quality website design firm will offer web tools at no additional cost. There are lots of tools out there, but these are the most important:
• Emailed CPA newsletter for your clients (make sure the designer emails the newsletter and doesn't just put it online)
• Email accounts and shared calendars for your firm
• Client portal, which allows you to store and transfer files that you need to share with your clients
• Financial calculators - a wide variety of them
• Tax organizers - and they should be customizable
• Integrated blog

4. Flexibility in who can make changes

You want a provider that will be happy to make changes for you, or will allow you to make changes to the content of the site yourself. You also want to make sure there's no extra charge for making changes - so that if a member of your firm makes partner, for example, you can up this information without a penalty.

5. SEO, SEM, and other marketing efforts that go beyond just the website

Although professional CPA websites are important for marketing accounting firms, in today's high-tech world, just having a website doesn't cut it. SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is a series of steps that gets your website listed near the top of the search engine results. SEM, or Search Engine Marketing, is the pay-per-click ads on the search engines.

Be sure your web designer offers SEO and SEM, and that they are knowledgeable about marketing in general.

6. Free trials and guarantees

Several companies offer free trial periods of 30 or 60 days. Some also offer guarantees: if your website is not profitable, you get your money back. (Just be sure to read the fine print on the guarantee. For some, you need to supply so much documentation that it's not worth the trouble.)

7. Testimonials

Any website designer worth their salt will have testimonials from satisfied clients - preferably clearly displayed on their site. If you don't see any, that's a warning sign.

Avoid These 3 Pitfalls

1. Hidden fees

Some website design companies look like a great value - until you look closely and see they're charging for features you assumed were included in the package. Watch out for these hidden fees:

-Setup or design fees

-Extra charges for web tools, like calculators and newsletters

-Extra charges to make changes to the site

-Extra charges for more than one email account for your firm

-A fee for enough space in the client portal to make it usable (the client portal should have at least 250 MB of storage space as part of the base package)

2. Need to sign up before you can see designs

Several website providers only allow you to see their styles once you sign up for their service. If you end up not liking the designs, you're out of luck. You should go with a company that clearly displays all their site styles before asking for a commitment from you.

3. Contracts that lock you in / annual commitments

Choose a website designer that doesn't require you to sign a contract. It's also preferable to go with a company that bills monthly, rather than yearly. Look for a firm that allows you to cancel your account at any time and with no penalties.

With a little research, you can find a website designer for your accounting firm that's affordable and transparent, and that provides you with a dynamic website that will attract new clients and retain existing ones.

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Article Tags: Accounting, Accounting Websites, CPA, CPA Website, CPA Websites, Marketing



Related Forum Posts
Re: what position to request? - Hi Michael, Great suggestion from David, or you could try something around a design consultancy, How about Website Design Consultant, Design and Development Manager, Website Support and Development Manager or maybe Internet Business Development Consultant. Ultimately whatever you are comfortable with and good luck for the future, Mal.
Re: Reduce Bounce Rate - Website bounce rate matters most today. You can decrease by providing 1. Good Web Layout And Design 2. Relevant and unique content 3. Content clear and proper navigation 4. Improve website loading speed 5. Add relevant images 6. Analysis of keywords 7. Minimize pages 8. optimize your target keywords 9. Good quality of links 10. Take People Where They Want to Go
Managing Your Website - Hi Beat I know what you are talking about when you say it could be a frustrating experience. I would recommend to every business owner to find a website partner who can handle the Website Design/SEO/Hosting by themselves while still at a reasonable cost to your business. This is the most economical way to operate the online side of your business if you are unsure about it. I actually do this for a few clients myself and all I do is send them a bill every year for hosting/seo but if there are any problems its up to me to call the hosting company to find out what's wrong as well as keep them high ranking for particular keywords. If anyone else has found it difficult with their website, hosting or the management of any online services please post your feedback here and I'll try to advise your best option.
Re: Top Banner Help - [quote:35xjo6uq]Good job on the banners BennyBoy![/quote:35xjo6uq] No probs:) I agree Online Marketing and Publicity Search Engine Optimization - Web Design and Programming Blogging also may be... Web Design Tutorials Looking to Hire - jobs section Interesting Articles / websites
Learn SEO and web design? or Outsource? or Partner? - [quote="TheAnonymousMan":fiwtvhid]I would recommend to every business owner to find a website partner who can handle the Website Design/SEO/Hosting by themselves while still at a reasonable cost to your business. This is the most economical way to operate the online side of your business if you are unsure about it[/quote:fiwtvhid] Hi TheAnonymousMan, Do you recommend this course of action because you feel that it's too much work for an entrepreneur to be the "jack of all trades"? What if the business a startup is trying to launch is completely an online venture? Wouldn't it be more practical (and cost efficient, especially in the long run) for that entrepreneur to learn how to create or at least update his/her own website? In fact, a lot of times, I hear how startups tend to give too many shares of the company to their partnering web designer, only to regret it later. How much should one give?


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