At a rough guess, I would say 90% of accountancy firms have a website. The quality and usefulness of these websites varies hugely, from a static one page website which simply gives contact details, to multi-page, interactive sites.

There’s usually a massive push to create a website or relaunch an old one, but afterwards very little is done unless you’re buying in news feeds and resources from one of the many accountancy website providers.

Websites should be reviewed and updated at least once and preferably twice a year. Website companies will argue that it should be reviewed more often, but I’m basing my suggestions on what is actually practical alongside your client delivery and running the practice.

So, here’s my top 5 things to check on your website:

• Make it personal – at the very least make sure you have partner/director profiles and photos on your website. Talk about your expertise, how you can help businesses or individuals, but also get across your personality – your hobbies and interests outside of work. Ideally, have profiles of everyone in the firm (with staff permission), so your clients and business contacts can get to know you better. If you don’t like the idea of having photos taken, how about having some caricatures done instead? Check and update your profiles regularly, it’s surprising how quickly these can go out of date.

• Review your ‘about us’ and ‘services’ content – do you need to add information on any new services, or delete things you no longer offer. Is your ‘about us’ page current and interesting? Even if you’re buying in web content from template sites which pre-populate these pages for you, it’s always good to personalise this copy to your firm and where possible highlight what makes you different.

• Use images to break up text on the page – some accountancy website pages can be very text heavy which makes it less inviting for people to read. Break up the text with sub-headings and where possible relevant images to help ‘tell your story’.

• Contact us page – always show your address, phone and email address. Include a Google map or written directions on how to find your office(s) and where appropriate, a photo of the outside of your office can show visitors what building they’re looking for. If you have on-site parking let people know, or at least provide some indication as to where they can park. If parking is an issue, why not mention that you’re happy to visit them instead?

• Social media – if you’re frequently using social media as part of your practice’s marketing strategy, make sure there are reciprocal links between your website and social media pages. It helps visitors to find out more information, but also helps to improve your search engine rankings.

If you’d like us to carry out a free content review of your website with suggestions on how to improve it, contact us today on 01822 833300 or email vicki@momentumforprofessionals.co.uk.