Skip to main content

Firm Management

Five Steps to a Highly Profitable Website

Is your website generating the amount of business you’d like it to? If not, take a look at these five ideas to see where your site might be lacking.

May. 09, 2016

cool-new-websites1_11228488

Is your website generating the amount of business you’d like it to? If not, take a look at these five ideas to see where your site might be lacking.

  1. Got Caffeine?

The main purpose of the home page is to keep people engaged. You don’t have a second chance, so the “best thing” about your business should be front and center. Don’t bury it three clicks down; no one will bother working that hard to find out about you except your mother. It’s not easy to come up with the best thing about you; ask your clients to help you discover what they love about your firm.

  1. Credibility

In our business, building trust is essential, and great way to shortcut the sales curve is to display everything you can that oozes credibility. This includes your bio, a photo, testimonials, certifications, memberships, awards, press, affiliations, and the like.

  1. Calls to Action

It’s surprising that some people just need a little nudge. They need to be told what to do. Calls to action accomplish that; they should connect your website goals with prospects’ and clients’ desired actions. In addition to adding a line that says “Call me,” include other calls to action such as offering a complimentary consult, a free report or white paper, a “book me now” button, or a form to fill out (my least favorite choice, but sometimes they still work.)

  1. Charm the Search Engines

Once you have the content (see #1 through #3), you‘ve only just begun. Now we have to drive traffic to the site. Within the site’s code, you can optimize your site for search engines. This is called organic SEO and should be done before any money is spent on ads. Firms that skip this step (and there are thousands who do) cost themselves a fortune in online ads. There’s way too much technical detail to cover even a few tips here, but the big one is to get your title tags optimized correctly. The best person to hire for SEO is an industry insider; most SEO firms don’t know the right keywords to be effective in our space.

  1. Crowd Control

Once you’ve done everything within your site to attract traffic (#4), it’s time to drive traffic to your site using techniques outside your site. External links to your site is one way to drive traffic; develop your profile on BBB, your Chamber of Commerce, software partnership sites, and other profiles. Develop you social media profiles as well. Use social media posts to link to articles on your site. Use the press to gain mentions of your business and your website. Update your signature file on your email. And otherwise spread your URL around widely.

Follow these five steps, which all start with a C, for more profits and more results on your accounting website.

————

Sandi Smith Leyva, CPA, CMA, MBA, has helped thousands of accountants grow their practices through her innovative coaching and training services.