What You'll Need to Build a Minimalist CPA Website

I've been asked by several Do-it-Yourselfers over the years what they need to add to their CPA websites. I don't suggest doing a DIY job on a business site, but if you do it properly it's better than not having a website at all. You can at minimum make it easy for prospects who are looking for you so incorporate these pages:

* Contact Page: This page will display your basic contact information; name, address, telephone number, email address, a map, and office hours. If possible add a contact form to this page.

* Service Pages: I'd recommend a separate page for each service, but if you want to summarize it onto a single page you can do that too. Describe your core services, and also talk about other services you offer that can add value for your clients. If possible throw a contact form at the bottom of the page.

* About Us: Perhaps with a short history of the firm and details of the principal staff, this page should have a freindly and welcoming tone.
Firm Page: The firm profile is more formal and professional than the "About Us" page. The purpose of this page is to show off your professional accomplishments and experience so don't hesitate to claim your bragging rights.

* Firm Profile: The tone of this page should be highly professional and include a formal overview of your practice including some compelling reasons that a prospective client should want to work with you.

This type of content doesn't require any real programming skill and doesn't need to be updated very often. You won't have any trouble writing this copy yourself or adding it to your site. This is what we call a "brochure site". You should be able to put a site like this up yourself without any trouble. All you need is a domain, a site host, and a CMS (a content manager that can help you add content to your site without making you learn to code). A service like GoDaddy can provide everything you need.

The Brochure Site

This bare-bones type of site has very little real marketing value. It won't help you with your networking, lure a lot of new clients into the firm, help you cut your operating costs, or help with client retention. It will keep you from looking looking like an out-of-date technophobe, and it will make it easy for people who are looking for you to find you.

If you are looking for a website that can actually help you increase your community exposure and bring new clients into your business you'll need to add some real content to the site. Content like tax due dates and information, financial and business planning articles and blogs give your site depth, extra value for clients and a reason for visitors to return to the site. Unfortunately features like this also require frequent updates and, to varying degrees, real design skills.

The most basic of these features is the online newsletter. It's not hard to set up an online newsletter. By the time you've set up a brochure site you will have acquired all the skills you need to set up and maintain it, but doing it cost effectively is another matter entirely. After all, your time is valuable. The time you spend writing and compiling articles, posting them, and managing your mailings is time you're not spending making money. Add that time together and I can pretty much guarantee that you should have just used a vendor. You can get a complete content package, including a newsletter and a bulk mail system, for less than $50 a month.

Content Packages

Once you're ready to step up to a more advanced site it's time to look into a content package. Most content packages include hosting and email, but you can also use them to augment your DIY website. These packages include a broad range of features designed to turn your website into a marketing powerhouse.

Your content package will include a financial news page that will update automatically, and a broad selection of tax and financial articles designed not only to draw visitors to the site but to cross-sell your off-season services. It's important to have your content change from time to time. In geek-speak we call this "dynamic" content. Search engines and clients alike love to see sites that get updated regularly. Websites that try to DIY their news page almost always fall behind. It's vital to keep your news page current. You're better off deleting your news section than you are letting it slide into obsolescence. Your firm looks lazy and unreliable if the most recent news update is weeks, months, or years ago.

Interactive features such as calculators, links, downloadable forms and PDFs will take your site to the next level and provide a genuinely impressive online resource that can be used to great effect as marketing tools by providing real, tangible reasons to visit your site not just once, but repeatedly.

Another standard feature that will really help with client satisfaction and retention is a "client portal" or "secure file transfer" system. These systems allow a client to send large files securly over the web and will have a profound impact on your efficiency and expenses when the tax crunch hits.

Sooner or later you're going to want a big-kid's site. When that time comes you're going to need to find a real CPA site designer. If you try to construct this many features yourself it's going to cost thousands of dollars and eat up scores of work hours. Luckily there are a selection of designers that specialize in reselling content for accounting websites. These companies can provide the content you need as well as provide hosting and support services.

Brian O'Connell is the owner and founder of CPA Site Solutions, one of the United States' leading edge web companies dedicated solely to websites for accountants.