REALITYHOUSECREATING BRANDS, WEBSITES AND CAMPAIGNS THAT PERSUADE PEOPLE TO BUY WHAT YOU’RE SELLING.WE’RE THE GHERKIN ON YOUR BIG MAC.

“CREATING THE PERFECT WEBSITE”accountants edition

THINKING ABOUT CREATING A NEW WEBSITE FOR YOUR FIRM?This guide is designed to help you identify

what you need, to show how to plan your

website and how to avoid common pitfalls

along the way.

1. WHAT DO YOU WANT YOUR WEBSITE TO ACHIEVE?It’s an obvious question but one that is

often overlooked. Be honest with yourself,

think forward a year to when your new site

has been up and running for a while; at

that point what does success look like?

It could be the number of leads gained,

enquiries generated or the volume of

downloads or number of sign-ups to your

newsletter. It could simply be increased

visitor numbers to your fee earner pages

as people check you out online. It might

be more job applications.

The clearer you are now about all the

different things you want to achieve – then

the more likely it is that your site will be

focused on delivering those goals.

10 STEPS TO HELP YOUR FIRM DELIVER A BUSINESS WINNING WEBSITE.

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2. THE TECHNICAL STUFFIt’s very easy to get bogged down in

technical details with websites - and if

you’re technical then feel free to skip this

section or click to request our advanced

website guide - but here are the absolute

essentials to include in your website brief:

• Your site should work on desktop,

mobile and tablet devices (often

known as creating a responsive

website). Look at existing website

stats to see how your visitors use

different devices currently.

• Your site should work on different

browsers - the latest versions of

Internet Explorer/Edge, Chrome,

Firefox, Safari are the essentials.

But there are earlier versions of

these browsers that are critical in key

sectors plus other browsers such

as Amazon Silk and Opera that you

may want to include. The decision

of which browsers you optimise for

will have implications for how visually

sophisticated your website can be

and how much your testing/QA

will cost.• Your site should be quick to

download - nobody likes

• waiting for websites particularly

on mobile devices.

• Editability - editing your website

means using a Content Management

Platform such as WordPress. The

decision you need to make is how

much of the website you want to

edit. If it is changing text, images

and videos - then a standard editor

will make life easy. If you want to

regularly change the layout of pages

then there are drag and drop options

but development costs will increase

if you go this route.

• Search Engine Friendly - you need

your site to be readable by the search

engines - again this is a given. If

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

is a priority then you need to involve

SEO specialists early to talk about

the structure of the site in relation

to your key search terms.

• Another given these days is Social

Media integration - social sharing

buttons, links to profiles etc. But do

you want more extensive integration

of content. Consider this early in

the process.

THESE ARE VERY TOP LINE (BUT IMPORTANT) TECHNICAL POINTS.

BUT THIS IS JUST THE START. REQUEST OUR ADVANCED WEBSITE

GUIDE WHICH PROVIDES MORE DETAIL FOR THE TECHNICALLY

MINDED BUT IF YOU’D LIKE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT CREATING A

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION, THEN PLEASE GET IN TOUCH. ANYWAY,

NEXT POINT...

talk to

seo

guys

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3. BRANDING - GET YOUR MESSAGE RIGHTLet’s start with the obvious point - your

website will need to reflect your corporate

identity - logos, fonts, colours, images

etc. If you don’t have a clearly defined

online brand structure then you may need

to look at this within your website project.

However, there is a more complex brand

issue that you will face during a website

project - your brand messaging. Your

website is likely to have multiple products

or services aimed at different audiences.

What is your overarching message to

them - in other words, what makes your

accountancy practice different and why

should they use you? And then do you

need to dial up or dial down that message

in different sectors or potentially take a

different approach to specific audiences.

For example, you may want to talk to a

Finance Director about M&A in a different

way to a small business owner who’s just

been notified of a tax investigation.

And following on from this, what tone

of voice should you use? You need to

balance the professionalism of the firm

with the need to communicate quickly

online - with short, sharp sentences,

bullet points, ‘pulled out’ text.

Another early decision you will need to

make is how you want to communicate

and who is going to write that content -

there’s more on content in section 5.

what are

we saying?

who to?how?

not theb word!

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4. WEBSITE DESIGN – CREATE AN IMPACTFor many people this is the interesting

part - what will my website look like?

There are two core elements to great

website design, and the first is usability

which is a combination of user

experience (UX) and the user interface

(UI). The second element is design

impact.

USABILITY - UX AND UIUX is the way that your visitors experience

your website - the journeys they take,

what they click on, how they engage with

you and why they leave. UI is the

navigation structure of the site - in

essence is it easy to find the buttons,

search boxes and forms and are they

easy to use.

When planning your website, it pays to

consider the personas of your visitors

- who are they, why did they come to

you and what do they want. This will

then help you create a sitemap - in other

words what pages go where (you’ll hear

the phrase Site Architecture which is the

sitemap plus the technical detail that

drives it). Plus it will help refine the ‘data

structure’ - in layman’s terms - what goes

at the top of the page and the order of the

other content.

So far so complicated. Now the fun bit...

DESIGN IMPACTYou may have noticed that websites in

your sector can look very similar. That’s

because the UX/UI may be almost the

same for many firms (plus lazy designers

have a tendency to copy what has been

done before!).

The challenge then is to take the UX/

UI outlines and create a website that

presents your brand messages in a way

that is memorable and helps you stand

out from your competitors.

Only by being different will you have

impact - and that is the real challenge

of great website design.

ux = user

experienceui = user

interaction

do not copycompetitorsmake it

better !!

5. CONTENT - LESS IS MORE...USUALLYContent lies at the absolute heart of your

website. Your knowledge and expertise is

what will drive enquiries... coincidentally it

is also the most difficult part to get right

and is the area that is most likely to delay

the launch of your website.

Our top tip? Plan ahead; start curating

your content as early in the project as

possible and critically set a tone of voice

and a copy style. Great content is critical

but if you tell a visitor everything they

need to know on your website then there

is no reason to contact you..

So for a typical accountancy website

- what content will you need and how

should you handle it?

• Corporate content – this is the

traditional stuff that websites are

made of and with very few honour-

able exceptions it is too long, too

boring and not focused on what the

client wants. Keep your ‘about us’,

short, sharp and relevant. When

you’re writing about your services

keep them to one page and focus

on the benefits to clients. Most

importantly, give visitors a reason to

contact you to learn more; don’t give

away everything online.

• People Profiles - these are

frequently the most visited pages on

professional services websites.

People buy people and this is even

more critical for smaller and mid-tier

firms. Please invest time in creating

strong fee earner photography - it will

pay massive dividends. And typically

we recommend you keep profiles

on websites short and to the point -

with links to more depth on LinkedIn

profiles. It is also worth referencing

case studies, thought leadership

pieces/bogs and testimonials.

• Resources – every accountancy

practice has a resources section -

containing blogs, calculators, guides,

downloads, videos, presentations.

There are two challenges here -

navigation and particularly making it

easy to search. And curation - don’t

simply dump all your content - be

selective and don’t be afraid to

remove poorly performing content.

• A quick word about Video and

online presentations – there is an

old advertising adage “show don’t

tell” and this is what video and

online presentations offer. If you are

developing content for a webinar or

seminar – why not show a cut down

version online? This is where sites

are heading.

Finally, before your website goes live we

strongly recommend developing a rolling

content plan that will guide all of your

marketing as well as updates to your

website and social media which brings

us to...

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6. SEARCH ENGINES, SOCIAL MEDIA AND YOUR DIGITAL WORLDIn the beginning, you had a website and

that was it. Today, your website sits at the

heart of your wider digital world. When

developing your website you need to have

in mind all the other elements that feed

into your online presence:

• Search engines - mainly Google but

think about how visitors will search

for your firm and your services and

what they will want to see when they

reach your website.

• Social media - inevitably LinkedIn and

Twitter but consider Instagram and

other routes. What are you saying on

these media - how does that content

work with your website?

• Digital media - paid advertising is

playing an increasing part of the

journey to websites - what does this

look like, where will people land and

what will they do?

• Remarketing - the ads that follow you

around the web after a website visit

(yes we use them). How will you bring

people back to the website?

• Email automation - when someone

signs up, how will you keep them

engaged and coming back via email?

But this is just the start. You can find more

information on creating a Digital World for

accountants - by clicking to see our

guide. But now let’s look internally at...

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7. WEBSITE INTEGRATION - LINKING TO INTERNAL SYSTEMSAs soon as you are in the digital domain,

you are into the very large and sometimes

scary world of data (and yes GDPR, but

let’s not worry about that right now!).

So what data are we talking about...

• The content on your website - the

text, the images, the video. You may

well enter this content yourself using

the content management system

but you can also use ‘data feeds’ to

integrate content from other sources.

For example, some firms feed their

fee earner content from internal

systems such as Active Directory.

• The traces left by the users on your

website. All users can be tracked -

what are they doing on your website,

how are they using it and, often,

who are they. This data can be used

for reporting (see below) but can

also be fed into CRM and practice

management systems to help drive

your BD process.

• Engagement from users - signing up

using forms, clicking to download,

contacting fee earners. All of this data

can be integrated into CRM systems

but also into Automation system

such as Pardot, ActiveCampaign

and Hubspot which will drive your

engagement with prospects as well

as clients.

THE KEY TO INTEGRATION IS CLARITY ON WHAT YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE AND ENSURING YOU MAINTAIN DATASECURITY AND SYSTEMS INTEGRITY. IT IS A COMPLEX AREA BUT WE’RE READY TO HELP. IF YOU WANT TO KNOW GET IN CONTACT OR GIVE US A CALL.

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8. WHAT DOES A WEBSITE PROJECT LOOK LIKE?Everybody loves a process - how long

will this take, what resources will I need,

what does it look like and how much will it

cost? We’re happy to talk to you about all

of the above but this overview of a typical

website development process may help

you gain some understanding:

• Briefing and Onboarding - this is

all about setting goals, identifying

audiences and ensuring that

everyone involved in the process

understands what’s going on.

• Branding & Messaging - you may

well already have a brand in place

- but web projects can often push

what’s possible with you brand and

particularly your messaging. It’s

worth bottoming this out early in the

process.• User Experience - this is the critical

research phase where you confirm

the user personas, proposed

user journeys, site structure, SEO

architecture.

• Content Curation (and Uploading) -

next comes the process of curating/

creating the content to match the site

structure. Often we enable clients to

start entering/uploading content very

early in the project.

• Design - starting with the User

Interface and then getting more

creative with moodboards, concepts

and, eventually, page layouts.

• Development - taking all of the above

and coding the back end (the data

structures) and the front end (how the

site looks and behaves). There will

then be internal QA and then ‘Beta’

pages or site for you to review.

• Client QA - testing the website to

ensure it does what you expected.

• Final content entry and review -

which says what it is.

• Sign-off and Soft Launch - we don’t

recommend big bang launches.

A soft launch is where your website

goes live, you review internally before

really starting to push it to the

wider world.

It is as easy as that!

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A QUICK WORD ABOUT SPRINTSAgile project management is very much

flavour of the month at the moment. And

with good reason. It is a way to flexibly

develop projects quickly. With this in

mind, we recommend breaking larger

projects into short sprints - in simple

terms, let’s deliver the homepage and

the people section first for you to review

before we move on. Definitely

worth considering.

9. RELIABLE HOSTING AND SUPPORTSo much of life is about managing risk

which is why it is important to ask these

questions. Where is your site hosted (if

you’re in the UK, so should your hosting)

what availability does your hosting

have and how reliable is it? And if

something goes wrong, how quickly will it

be fixed. Is there someone available 24/7?

10. HEATMAPS, USER RECORDING AND REPORTING When you’ve just spent a huge amount

of effort creating a website, here is the

message you don’t necessarily want to

hear... it is going to change.

Using advanced user tracking systems it

is easy to see how visitors are using your

website, what they are ‘getting’ and what

they are not - which in turn means you

can easily see what you need to change.

For example, that great new idea for

an online calculator you had may work

brilliantly from day one. But more often,

once real users get their hands on it, you

will need to update and modify to get the

very best results. And that is the joy of

digital reporting - it helps your website

work ever harder.

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TO LEARN MORE ABOUT CREATING THE PERFECT ACCOUNTANCY WEBSITE, PLEASE CONTACT MIKE FIELDHOUSE OR ANTHONY MULLINDER ON 01225 580016 OR GET IN TOUCH VIA THE CONTACT US PAGE ON REALITYHOUSE.CO.UK

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