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Please note that this article is intended for educational purposes only and should not be deemed to be or used as legal, employment, or health & safety advice. For guidance or advice specific to your business, consult with a qualified professional.
Setting up any small business takes a lot of hard work and determination, as well as the requirement to wear multiple business hats. As an accountancy professional, you’ll be familiar with the financial requirements of running your business, however it’s just as important to nurture the marketing needs of your business to get it off the ground.
In this article, we’ll explain how to set up a website for your accountancy business and talk you through some of the benefits a website can bring.
Benefits of your own website
You no longer need to be a website developer or to learn to code in order to create your own website.
Today, there are a number of website hosting platforms that take the hard work out of the creation process, leaving you to be able to focus on your unique selling points ‘USPs’ and how you will translate these to clients through your site.
Tools like Square Online, with their easy-to-use website templates ,are there to help you build your brand image, connect with customers and sell your services remotely with ease. There’s no need to invest in hiring a website developer. Just start one step at a time and grow your presence by getting yourself online and enjoying the benefits.
Grow your customer base
When you only have a physical location for your business, you’re limited as to how far and wide your customer reach is. However, when you create a website and apply search engine optimisation (SEO), you become discoverable to the entire world.
SEO is the process of optimising the content and technical setup of your website in order for it to be found on a search engine like Google or Bing when someone searches for a term of keyword relevant to your website.
There are a few simple things you can do to make your accountancy website SEO friendly, including targeting relevant keywords set for each commercial page that represents a service you offer. Many website platforms offer free tools and plugins like Yoast, which will help you to optimise your site.
Expand your company brand
Having an online presence for your accountancy business will help you to create a sleek virtual experience for your clients, no matter where they are based. It usually takes multiple touchpoints in a prospective client’s journey before they will make a conversion on your site. This could mean they book a virtual appointment with you, purchase an accountancy package or fill out a submission form with their contact details – depending on what your business and website offers.
Once you have a website, you are able to begin creating these digital touchpoints that will convert more people into clients. Such touchpoints could include seeing a post on LinkedIn and clicking on a link to your website, watching a video on your homepage, taking a custom survey, following you on Twitter and clicking through to read more, before finally making a conversion, e.g., filling out a contact form.
Build Trust
Having an online presence for your accountancy business will also help to build trust and credibility. By posting testimonials, case studies and reviews, prospective clients are able to gain a feel for what kind of business you are and whether other clients or customers have had a good experience with you previously. Prospective clients can then create a picture of your business in their head and make an informed decision on whether you’re the right business for them.
Improve customer experience
Having a website for your accountancy business means you can easily allow clients to make appointments and take payments online. With Square Up software, you can easily add payments links to your site, with no startup costs and a processing rate that’s as low as just 1.9%.
There’s also a number of integrations, meaning you can connect the online payment platform with a number of ecommerce sites, making it even easier to provide your services on a global scale while operating remotely.
Content marketing space
Having an online presence means you can be in charge of publishing your own thought leadership content that will attract more people to your brand. Thought leadership content is that which offers a new perspective, information and guidance on a particular topic from a subject expert.
As a qualified accountant, you could be in a prime position to start up an accountancy advice blog, adding further credibility to your business while improving traffic to your site.
Overall, creating a website for your accountancy business is invaluable to your business growth. By putting yourself on the digital stage, there’s no telling just how big your company’s brand and business success could grow.
