CPA Websites: What Do Your Colors Say About You?

Once you’re ready to create a new business website, it’s important to design one that’s pleasing to look at, professional, and loaded with content. A big part of achieving this is choosing the best palette to convey the appropriate image for your website.

Grab Attention with Background Color

Many CPA websites can be easily customized to fit your specific style and preferences. Your site’s background color is one of the elements that can and should be tweaked when giving your site a personal touch. Why? Because the color of the background immediately conveys your level of expertise and trustworthiness.

All colors have particular meanings, and that needs to be taken into consideration when designing a professional website. Here are some smart colors to consider:

• Blue is a good choice for an accounting website’s background because it represents professionalism, success, seriousness, and calm.

• Green symbolizes money and health, which gives the message that you will help a business become healthy and profitable.

• White is also a good choice for a background color because it’s simple. Trying to pick the right accountant can be a complex process; a clean, simple background color can make it seem less daunting and, therefore, make your firm an attractive choice.

• Lastly, black makes another good pick for your accounting website’s background color. Like blue, black connotes seriousness – which gives the message that you will take your work seriously.

Don’t Go Too Light or Too Bright with Text Color

After picking the background color for your site, you need to decide on the color of your website’s words.

Given that your website is meant to showcase your accounting services, your text colors should be clean, crisp, and, above all, readable. Try out a few different combinations of background and text colors available on CPA websites before making a decision.

Most companies’ websites have either a black or white background. A white background with black text is the most common color scheme. This is the easiest to read (although it isn’t the most eye-catching).

If you decide on a black background, you must use brightly colored text – but not too bright, which can blur edges. A medium blue could be the best choice for this background.

The colors you choose when personalizing CPA websites must make your site ultra-readable while grabbing attention. When you select your business website’s color combination carefully, you build a professional image – which is a critical piece of your ultimate success.

Designing CPA Websites? Scary is Bad.

When is the last time you’ve taken a serious look at your accounting website? If it’s been a while, then you might be losing prospects. Expectations are becoming increasingly higher on the Internet. Therefore, the appearance and functionality of your website are more important now than ever. People come to CPA websites to get answers to their accounting questions and to find a great accountant. Sometimes the smallest thing such as a poor quality graphic can send up a red flag on a website. You don’t want to lose business over something that small.

After all, you’re a professional accountant. Professionals like yourself set up professionally designed CPA websites to draw in new clients not turn them away. Even if your website was professionally designed, it could be lacking current design standards if it was created some time ago. Statistically, people leave a website when they begin to question its authority or have difficulty with the navigation. The fact is that is it just way too easy for people to continue their search. Don’t give your website visitors any reason to leave your accounting website. Meet all of their needs, expectations and give them an easy way to solve all of their accounting problems directly through your website.

Outline your services on the main page of your website. A lot of CPA websites make it very difficult for the average person to decipher what services an accounting firm offers. Keep in mind that the majority of people seek out accountants to do their taxes. Make this service easy to find on your main page. Also, remember that every visitor that makes it to your accounting website is a potential client. Therefore you need to make its appearance as professional as your office.

A cohesive design will make a good first impression on your visitors. CPA websites are an extension of businesses. Therefore the branding should be integrated into the design of the website. Approach your website like you would a traditional marketing campaign. This means you will need a clear message and call to action. Just because you have unlimited space on the Internet doesn’t mean that you should fill it up. White space is your friend on the Internet. A clean layout with a clear message is much more powerful than a website that is full of information and images. Paragraphs should be kept short and evenly spaced. Including images is fine, but don’t get carried away. Every element on the page should serve a purpose.

There are two things that you really need to keep in mind while overhauling your website. First of all, remember that CPA websites are really just another way to sell a service. You need to make it easy for visitors to make use of your accounting services. Provide contact information in a prominent place on your website so that it’s easy for people to reach you. Second, you need to be honest about yourself. Some CPA websites misrepresent themselves. People can immediately detect this and you will quickly lose credibility both online and in real life. Therefore, make your website just like your brick and mortar business.

Promoting Your Brand With CPA websites

Every month a higher percentage of business is transacted via the world wide web. With a steadily increasing population relying on the internet to find professional services, CPAs are smart to take advantage of professional CPA websites to attract the online consumer. Putting forward a competent and trustworthy online image therefore has become a significant part in standing out from your competition. The professionalism of a website, along with the quality of the brand image it confers, is a critical piece of building your business.

A definitive brand image online begins by avoiding the cookie-cutter feel of a too-simple template. You also have to make it straightforward and useful; consumers should find your site effortless to navigate and informative, free of distracting gimmicks.

Meeting these needs involves working with three simple rules.

Prioritize Good Design

Unlike the early days of the internet, it doesn’t work anymore just to choose one of a handful of premade templates and fill in the blanks. Think carefully about the image your site should convey.

While modern website designs can offer dizzying array of images, animations and creative layouts, CPA websites need to project an air of competence and professionalism. An abundance of features can make a site look tacky, while bright colors create the impression of an informal workplace, or simply look garish if the wrong colors are used.

Stay True to What Makes You Unique

It’s not that you need to keep it drab and dull. But you must choose elements that work together to reflect your business positively and accurately. Attention-grabbing features are only useful if they highlight something useful about the service you provide, or some aspect of your company culture that you want your client to know. Features for their own sake are a sign of an unprofessional site.

It can help to view your website as an extension of your physical office into a digital environment. If your space were digitized, what would it look like? What atmosphere would it project? Think about a website design that would not look out of place displayed on your office desk.

It’s All About Function

Stay aware that your website’s fundamental purpose is to be a virtual welcome mat for your firm. You can own the prettiest home in the neighborhood, and have the most attractive landscaping, yet no one’s going to come in if they can’t find the door. That is why your site needs to keep outstanding function at the very top of its priority list. Even the newest photos or most attractive website can’t salvage a site that’s difficult to comprehend or find one’s way around.

CPA websites must live up to the big job of providing an inviting user experience and setting your business apart from your competitors, while conveying the sense of knowledge and trustworthiness that clients demand of accounting professionals. Making sure a website adequately reinforces your brand relies on a clear brand strategy, relevant design choices and a focus on providing a consistent message on the web and in your office.

Trusted Design Principles to Get Your CPA Websites to the Top

Websites are more important now than ever as people turn to the Internet for everything from posting pictures of their cat on their favorite social network to finding an accountant. Therefore, it has become essential for accountants to have a strong online presence. When you set out to design a website for your accounting firm, you’ll want to keep a few basic design principles in mind. Following these principles will help you create a site that stands out from the mass of other accounting website

Focus on presenting your information clearly. Some CPA websites are cluttered with spreadsheets, charts, graphs and all sorts of images. Keep the design clean and the information you are trying to present clear. A simple design with a focus on useful information and resources will make you stand out far more than a flashy website that is hard to navigate.

People are coming to CPA websites for information and possibly to seek out the service of an accountant. Make your website easy to navigate. Intuitive navigation is much better than nifty icons that may look cool but are hard to figure out. Chances are good that visitors will move on quickly if they can’t figure out how to navigate through your website with ease.

So now that you understand some basic design principles, you need to understand a little bit about website hosting. There are a lot of different hosting options for CPA firm websites. Take the time to look through the various hosting packages. Evaluate each one based on your needs and decide on the best fit for your accounting firm. Keep in mind that you may want to expand your website, so make sure that there are options for increasing the size of your hosting package.

After selecting a website hosting company, you will need to decide whether you’ll design your accounting site or hire a web designer. If you hire a designer, just make sure that she is open to working with you throughout the design process. Your website will be an extension of you and your accounting firm. Closely work with the designer to make certain that your design is brought to life. Remember the old saying keep it simple (you know the rest)? Well it works for web design too.

Include your contact information in a prominent place on your website. This may sound obvious, but you’d be surprised how many CPA websites are lacking an easy way to get in touch. Often some of the most obvious features on a website are the easiest to overlook. Also, remember to keep your contact info updated once your accounting website goes live.

Once you have your website up and running, you’ll need attract visitors to it. There are many ways to go about driving traffic to your accounting website. A lot of CPA websites use strategic advertising. If you choose to use some sort of advertising, be sure that you use a reputable service. Some services will try to say that they will get you ranked with hundreds of search engines. In reality, there are only 30 to 40 search engines on the net. Perhaps a better approach is to build your search engine ranking by providing users with lots of great content and helpful resources.

Carefully cultivate your online presence as you market your accounting firm’s website. Only work with reputable marketing firms and make sure that they don’t send out unsolicited emails to any of your website users or clients. Unwanted emails can reflect poorly on your professionalism. Make sure that you communicate with your website users and clients personally and in a timely manner. In the long run, you’ll be able to build strong relationships with website users, clients and prospects by maintaining a friendly, interactive and content rich accounting website.

Landing Page Design is Vital to CPA Websites

Many guidelines and techniques exist to help you improve the popularity and efficacy of your CPA website. Take, for example, the design and content of your landing page. The landing page either persuades the readers who end up to it to delve into your web site farther or points them somewhere else.

Your landing page is the page that people end up on after clicking on an internet marketing ad, a social network tie-in or a search engine result. The initial lead or search term that brought visitors to your site can therefore be a theme which is expounded upon on your landing page.

What makes up a first-rate design for your accounting firm website landing page? Effective CPA web design draws from several basic tenets.

Landing pages on CPA websites ought to be friendly and professional and make it easy for web site visitors to discover the content that they are looking for. The key is building the page around a consistent and intuitive navigational structure.

Catch the reader’s eye with a descriptive and meaningful headline. Your headline tells visitors what content the page contains. Subtitles can be a smart idea, as well. They delineate how you’ve organized the page.

What services do you offer? Compelling CPA websites will offer landing pages thatmake that obvious. Let people know what your accounting company can do for them. Keep in mind that looking for a particular service or solution may have brought them to your page. Give them a telephone number or a contact form. That will facilitate people getting in touch with you.

A accountancy site landing page should also contain a call to action. Apart from being informative, it should tell people what to do. Stimulating site visitors to become your customers is fundamentally what the landing page is all about. Good accountant web design can achieve that goal.

Have you noticed buttons on other websites? That is the easiest way to invite a reader to take action. It means the solution to their problems is just one click away. One such option is the addition of an “ask us a question” button. (Of course, this requires having staff available to answer the query.)

Slam-dunk landing pages may also come with video material. Showing accounting instruction in the form of a video clip can be simpler to review and establish a more personal connection than print. Pithy accounting videos will attest to the skills of your practice. If it’s fresh, informative and easy to understand, your video can prove a potent tool.

A well-designed landing page should distinguish your site from other CPA practices’ CPA websites, giving your on-line presence unusual power. Design it well, and your landing page promises to promote your brand and company name recognition for you. Fingers crossed they’ll remember you any occasion when when they seek an accountant.

Broadening the Function of CPA Websites Beyond Advertising

Because of today’s tight economy, almost all CPA businesses are using expertly developed CPA websites for their advertising campaigns. What many firms don’t realize yet is that CPA websites can offer much more benefit than just prospecting. They also can trim your operating costs, and help you shrink labor costs as well.

There are several ways to decrease your overhead expenses.

One especially great method is to work with an email service and stop sending newsletters via US mail. There are many that will create and deliver your eNewsletter for you. This brings down the costs of printing, postage, and staff costs to label and fill your envelopes. It also brings qualified leads to your website.

There are many other great uses for your website. One of them is the electronic distribution of tax documents. It is very labor intensive to mail tax forms to your clients. It is also very expensive. Your firm has to bear the cost of the postage. It also has to bear the cost of the staff resources, for which you cannot bill. Instead, it is very easy to create a resource page on your website for downloadable tax forms.

Every tax season, mailing your tax organizer is expensive in terms of postage. It is also a burden on your staff. Depending upon the size of your firm’s client base, it typically costs hundreds of dollars and a substantial amount of skilled employee hours printing and collating documents, then stuffing and addressing envelopes.

A CPA website allows you to create an electronic PDF which your clients can download and print themselves. Some modern CPA websites have their tax organizers posted as an online form. This can be securely sent online directly via the website. This can save your client lots of time. It can also save them money.

Tax season also creates a large postal service expense. As the April 15 deadline approaches, clients sometimes procrastinate sending their documents, which is frustrating for both you and the client. You don’t want to miss this deadline. As such, you sometimes need to use overnight mail. A CPA website can include a secure file transfer feature, which allows your clients to submit their confidential documents quickly and safely, without the postal service expense.

A CPA website does much more than just marketing. It can also contribute to business optimization initiatives. Your staff answers many client calls during the year. Generally you can’t bill for this time, and it adds up to tremendous cost to your firm. The labor cost isn’t just the phone call itself. The client call also needs documentation in the client’s file. Every time one of your staff members is interrupted, even for a moment, it takes them several minutes to adjust and return to task.

A “Track My Refund” feature on quality CPA websites is a client favorite. This feature is very simple to create. In addition to enabling your clients, it also attracts prospects and website leads as it provides data about their tax refund.

Even though contemporary CPA websites’ most crucial role is prospecting, it can also save you money, trim your operating costs, attract brand-new leads, and help you better serve your customers.

Websites for Accountants Boost Business Communications

Effective communication in the workplace is an important consideration for any accounting firm. As a result, websites for accountants need to have communication features built-in to facilitate efficient communication between co-workers, clients and prospects. Websites are an important part of growing your business and the better the communication tools are, the better your employee and client experience will be with you company.

Setting up a means of communication throughout your company may seem like it is more hassle than it’s worth. However, you’ll see a great return on your effort in terms of productivity, efficiency and client satisfaction. Keep in mind that it may take some time to implement all of the communications features. Therefore, you may want to make the changes during the off season. This will give employees and clients a chance to become familiar with you new website communications features.

As you know, the time between New Year’s day and Tax Day is extremely busy and stressful. You can manage that stress and frenzied feeling with an effective way to organize your communications. Papers stack up, emails are coming in, phone calls are lighting up the phone lines and clients are coming through the office in a steady stream. While all of this is happening, you and your employees are handling some of the most sensitive paperwork that people have in their lives. Therefore, having a website that streamlines all of your communications will allow you to manage all of this more effectively.

?There are a few ways that you can implement a more effective means of communication through your website. One great option to integrate into your website is a chat program with instant messenger. This will allow employees to work together and communicate efficiently. The beauty of chat with instant messenger is that employees can put up status messages indicating that they are available or busy. Instant communications can take place without employees having to leave their desk or pick up the phone for repeated calls. Employees can respond to instant messages at their convenience. Make sure that the chat program also facilitates email as well. Combined chat and email will make the work flow in the office much more streamlined.

Networking is central to every accountant’s success. Maintaining professional contacts throughout the industry is key to staying updated on tax law and growing as a professional. Networking is also an effective way to attract new clients. Many clients are picked up by way of networking with colleagues. Therefore, websites for accountants should be set up to facilitate a networking website that works both in the office and remotely. This will allow telecommuters the ability to access the company’s network and communicate with colleagues as if they were in the same building.

Social networking sites may seem irrelevant to an accounting professional. However, LinkedIn is a great social networking sites for accountants. All accountants within your company should be encouraged to set up an account. This will enable them to send and receive referrals from colleagues and satisfied clients. Another feature that accountants can take advantage of on LinkedIn is private groups. You can set up a private group for your accounting firm so that accountants can contact each other, share information and even have brainstorming sessions. Accountants can take advantage of this social network to advance their career and grow their client lists.

Managing your client information flow can be a challenge, especially during tax season when you are overloaded with paperwork and file folders. All of this information can be managed through websites for accountants with a customer relationship management program. This will allow your employees to track information, communications, email addresses, documents and business deals that are in progress. It is the final piece of your streamlined communications system. Once you implement all of these features your website will become a central source of information and more importantly communication. The outcome should be an efficient office that is able to satisfy your client needs and grow your business.

Tighten Your Costs- Fire Your Web Designer

Do you deal with your CPA website using a well paid professional designer?

This can be a big problem. Custom site designers are expensive, but you can’t just let your site slide. If you have a tired looking website full of three year old “news” you’re not representing your firm particularly well… unless the message you’re trying to send is “we’re pretty much slackers.”

The way accounting websites are made and managed has changed significantly. A huge amount of education was needed to be a web designer a decade ago. Web designers needed to be adept at using source generators like Front Page, and they needed to be intimate with bizarre programming languages like HTML.

This just isn’t the case any more.

Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. These capable people are still major parts of the web site design industry. There is a new instrument, however, called a “CMS”, or “Content Management System that renders them much less important in the development and care of most straight forward websites. Using a CMS you can be your own webmaster even if all you have is a cursory acquaintance with computers.

A Content Management System is fundamentally just a “point and click site editor”. You can append and remove pages with it. You can also edit pages utilizing what is often referred to as a “WYSIWYG editor” which is actually just an exceptionally straight forward word processor. Don’t let the slang freak you out! WYSIWYG is just an abbreviation meaning “What You See is What You Get”. It permits you to plan the pages, construct tables and upload photos and other images. You can likewise change the complete architecture of the web site by editing the site’s Navigation Menu and laying out pages.

To summarize, a Content Management System allows just about any individual to speedily and effortlessly fulfill all the roles that took a professional programmer hours to do only years ago.

A complimentary or inexpensive content management system is available from practically any major hosting company specialized in serious CPA websites.

Obviously the outstanding difference between a CMS and a custom website designer is expense. For most small CPA firms this is a big difference. Most web designers are typically not as motivated as you are to get your work taken care of in an immediate manner and most make $25 or more an hour. Professional website design jobs can have turn-around times on website design jobs of 30 days or more.

If these costs seem high to you brace yourself. These costs don’t even include the cost of actually designing the site. Constructing first-rate CPA websites from scratch can often take 200 hours or more. That translates to months of waiting and thousands of dollars spent. this expense are averted by Content Management System providers by constructing sites in advance and offering menus of “ready-to-use” templates.

Lots of CMS providers are able to tweak their existing styles quite inexpensively, if not outright re-create your current site, for those site owners who are already very happy with sites they have already spent heaps of money on (or those who just reject using “templates”). This is a new technology, but it´s disseminating rather fast.

Regrettably, while inexpensive and easy to manage, sites built in this way typically lack important content. Before you race off to a generic hosting service do a Bing search for website providers that focus on “accounting websites”. An entire side industry has been built around the requirement for accounting specific content.

CPA Site Solutions is the best of these, and this is in no small part why they are this site’s Editor’s Choice. They’ve been providing top-notch CPA websites for CPA firms for more than ten years. They’re also one of those content management system companies on the cutting-edge that can “fine-tune” their site templates or duplicate existing websites.

Take a look at this YouTube video and you’ll understand what we mean when we talk about “accounting specific content”:

Note the free reports, tax due dates, links to tax forms and publications, a portal for transferring accounting files, interactive financial calculators, email, and a host of similar tools built specially for site owners in the accounting business. Maybe a financial adviser or business consultant could use some of the content on this site,but it would be useless for a business like a restaurant. A site like this is not intended to be worthwhile to a broad assortment of businesses. It’s actually only intended for accounting and CPA firms.

For a number of big national CPA practices it´s worth the time and money of retaining highly trained designers, but for many small and medium sized firms, especially in these tough economic times, it´s time to pay attention to new solutions. Finding a CMS that specializes in CPA websites will reduce your expenses and at the same time increase your power over your site.

Identifying the Top 7 Blunders Found on Accountant Websites

Many people discover the need for an effective accountant each day. CPAs are an essential part of any successful company and are in high demand annually at tax time to help people with their tax returns. Most successful people require the services of a good accounting firm. How prepared are you for the next time someone does a search for your business?

People don’t use telephone or newspaper listings to find professional services any more. Instead, they use the Internet. Sure some of your business may come from referrals, but you need to do more than that to grow your company.

Because people use the web as their primary information source, why not focus your efforts on improving your website. It is particularly important that websites for accountants provide information in a simple, direct way. The best accountant websites feature a simple layout with intuitive navigation. These are essential points to consider when doing a website redesign.

Why do people come to the Internet? In most cases it’s to solve a problem. It is your job to provide them with a simple solution through your website. If your website needs a redesign, you can avoid these common mistakes and do it right the first time!

Overly Complex Presentation of Content:
Simple design should be always on your mind when doing a website redesign. Accounting is a foreign topic for many people. Therefore you need to leave out graphs, spreadsheets or charts. Instead, focus on what people want to know – who you are and what services you provide.

Use of Confusing Technical Jargon:
Use everyday language to explain your accounting services. While certain terms may seem simple to you, most people will find them confusing.

Hard to Find Contact Information:
Place your contact information in a prominent place on your website. While this might be obvious, it is easy to overlook in the overall layout of our website. Since the Internet has become the go-to source for services, it is important that you make it as easy as possible for people to get in touch with you.

Homemade Websites:
Sure you’re a talented accountant, but can you create a professional looking website? Chances are this step of the redesign should be left to a professional web designer. Although it may cost some extra money, it truly will be worth the investment. With all of the other websites on the Internet, creating a professional web presence is more important than ever.

Websites That Can’t Be Optimized for Google:
All websites can benefit from the skilled use of Search Engine Optimization or SEO for short. SEO is important because it helps make the website relevant in the eyes of search engines. This helps the page ranking and in turn helps people find the website. When you think about it, you may be the best accountant in the world and have one of the best websites for accountants in the world, but if nobody is finding it, is does you no good.

Bad Navigation:
Your website may be the first introduction many people get to your business. This makes it very important that everything on it works and is easy to use. Nothing is more irritating than a broken link or a page element that doesn’t load properly. Make sure your navigation menu is intuitively organized and everything works so to avoid looking careless. Turn your visitors into satisfied clients by providing them with an worthwhile online experience.

Bad Sales Copy:
Use your website as another way to promote yourself and your accounting services. The website doesn’t need a lot of detailed information about accounting. It really just needs to present your services. Think about why people came to your website in the first place. It is a safe bet that they were looking for some accounting help from a professional. Offer your services in a reassuring, professional manner through your website. The old saying keep it simple is a good mantra to have in mind throughout the whole redesign.

While some are seasoned pros when it comes to working with accountants, other people may be new to the process. A basic online search may be the first step that those who are new to the process take. In light of this consideration, you will want to create a welcoming, reassuring first impression on your website. Show that you understand their financial situation and want to be of assistance. Redesign your website to be an online extension of yourself. If you are a friendly, professional person, you will want your website to mirror those qualities. That way your web visitors will already have a level of comfort in dealing with you when it comes time to meet. This is a simple, yet effective way to build the kind of relationship that leads to a securing a new client.

A Superstar’s Downfall Teaches Accountants About Business Strategy

The bankruptcy of Borders Books provides terrific data for accounting practices about the importance of embracing new electronic technologies.

Borders’ February 2011 filing was downright predictable to anyone who appreciates technology. The cause of their collapse was their hesitation to move into electronic publishing, which they saw as a distraction from their core business. For accountants, websites and new technologies can seem just as remote from their core functions. But understanding and embracing emerging technologies can be crucial to protect your firm from facing this kind of crisis.

The last decade has brought technological advances that improve accessibility, communication, and product delivery, making traditional print virtually obsolete. Increased access to information online means less paper production, which is better for the environment. With newspapers, books, magazines, even tv guides available online, we live in an online world. People automatically turn to electronics nowadays. And that makes modern marketing tools like attractive websites for accountants essential.

Once Borders Books was at the top of its industry. It had a proven product, a strong brand name and enviable market position. But ignoring the technological changes over the last decade, Borders chose to pursue a strategy of business as usual. Sound familiar? Borders did not get on board with e-books or e-communication because it simply wasn’t their world. This was a crucial strategy error, and Borders became a victim of a bygone business model.

Competitors of Borders, in contrast, were quick to adopt new technologies. They invested in product development because they saw the rewards to come. Their sales of e-books and online sales spurred exponential growth by reducing expenses and increasing profits. Previous customers of Borders who were excited by the electronic possibilities defected to more accommodating booksellers. Of course, Borders found customers who left were nearly impossible to retrieve.

Even after Borders figured out that they were losing market share, they kept operating the same way. Meanwhile new technological horizons kept opening up. Customers want to deal with a company that shares their interests and vision, and the exodus continued. Borders responded with their head in the sand.

The ensuing financial predicament spawned a series of further marketing missteps. In an effort to shore up eroding profits, Borders raised prices in retail stores and online, antagonizing their loyal customer base. Customers revolted and left in droves. This was the final straw for Borders Books, which was forced to file for bankruptcy.

So what does this have to do with your business? In every industry, businesses must adapt to a changing technological climate or become obsolete. Smart accountants will follow and welcome the changing world of technology and critical web marketing tools such as interactive websites for accountants. Technology means that those who do not move forward fall behind.