Make Your Firm's CPA Site Even Better

Congratulations on making the effort to get your CPA marketing website in working order. At this point you have to figure out how to use it to attract new clients. You've sunk money into creating it. For the investment to be worthwhile, your CPA website should accrue new prospects from time to time. A website will really only cost your practice between $600 and $1200 per year so it will just have to bring in two or three client to pay for itself. Even a substandard website can do that for you, but if you take the time to actually make it stand out it can perform substantially better than that.

That may not seem very hard at first blush but if you spy on the competition, you'll notice plenty of nice-looking accounting websites in cyberspace. Although it's nice to be among accounting firms with appealing websites, you do need to figure out how to stand apart.

Having a professional CPA website is sort of like meeting the minimum requirements: without it, a lot of potential clients won't even consider you; but just having it is not necessarily enough to get you the job.

So, what does make the difference? Showing your prospects that you're a real person with real clients.

And the best way to show them this is with a one-minute video.

Why Online Video Is So Beneficial

If you want to attract clients with your accounting website - and of course you do - video is just the very best way to do it. This is because clients want a personal connection to their service provider before making that initial call.

Don't misunderstand me. This doesn't mean you need to tell your prospects private information or even be more chummy than you feel. It simply means the prospect needs a sense of who you are as a person - how you dress, what you look like, how much you smile, even how you decorate your office.

It may seem that a short video doesn't give your clients enough time to get a sense of your personality. But humans have the ability to make snap judgments. A few seconds is really all it takes (this is the premise of the best-selling book by Malcolm Gladwell, Blink).

Video is so successful that a recent study showed it raises response rates by 4 to 7 times over landing pages with text and images alone (SearchEngineWatch, February 2010).

Share the Inside Details

Another reason video is successful in engaging your leads is that it shows them what your office is like "behind the scenes."

It makes people feel more connected to you if they know more about how your office runs and works. It actually makes them feel closer to their service professional. It gives them an immediate "buy-in" to see the staff working at their desks, dealing with clients, and talking to each other in the break room.

Although folks want to know you're professional, they also respond on an emotional level to seeing you doing real things at the office.

The best way to strike the right balance between professional and down-to-earth is to just talk on camera as you would to an acquaintance you really like. Assume you've already made a connection to the person watching the video, and act engaged and friendly. You could even place a picture of a friendly face somewhere off camera that you could look at to remind yourself to relax and be yourself.

Incidentally, this tendency in people is one reason why social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are so successful. There's so much advertising and branding in the world today that it stands out to hear real words and see real pictures from real people. Take advantage of this human need. If you're not ready to get started with social media, you can still get results by posting a video.

Video Develops Trust from the Get-Go

If you're trying to get new clients every month to "pay for" your website, video is the best way to do this. It gets the job done quickly and with minimal effort.

Even better, folks who do call you already have a measure of loyalty. They already know what you look like, how much you smile, that you really do have an office - in short, that you're a real, regular person. Your video has done the hard work (and arguably the hardest job) of convincing folks to trust you.

Forcing Your Website to Perform for You

If you've made the attempt to create an effective CPA site, be sure not to waste your investment. Think about posting a short video on your home page. A video provides that connection your prospects need to take the leap and contact you - making it the smart way to rise above your competitors.

Brian O'Connell is the owner and founder of CPA Site Solutions, one of North America's leading edge website businesses dedicated entirely to effective CPA Website Promotion.