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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 accountant, 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. You no longer need to be a website developer or 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 able to focus on your unique selling points — or USPs — and how you will translate these to clients through your site. Tools like Square Online have easy-to-use website templates to help you build your brand image, connect with customers, and sell your services remotely with ease.
Benefits of setting up a website
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 optimization (SEO), you become discoverable to the entire world.
SEO is the process of optimizing 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 or keyword relevant to your website.
There are a few simple things you can do to make your accounting website SEO-friendly, including targeting relevant keywords set for each page that represents a service you offer. Many website platforms offer free tools and plugins like Yoast, which will help you optimize your site.
Expand your company brand
Having an online presence for your accounting business will help you 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 make a conversion on your site. This could mean they book a virtual appointment with you, purchase an accounting package, or fill out a submission form with their contact details – depending on what your business and website offer.
Once you have a website, you can create 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 accounting business will also help to build trust and credibility. By posting testimonials, case studies, and reviews, prospective clients will gain a feel for what kind of business you are and whether other clients or customers have had a good experience with you . They can then create a picture of your business in their heads and make an informed decision on whether you’re the right business for them.
Improve customer experience
Having a website for your accounting business means you can easily allow clients to make appointments and take payments online. With Square, you can easily add payment links to your site with no startup costs and a processing rate as low as just 1.9%.
There are 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.
Create thought leadership opportunities
Having an online presence means you can publish your thought leadership content that will attract more people to your brand. Thought leadership content 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 accounting advice blog, adding further credibility to your business while improving traffic to your site.
Overall, creating a website for your accounting 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.
