Website landing pages for accountants
As your online ‘shop front’, your website needs to showcase your offering to the best effect. Among SMEs, the clarity of an accounting firm’s website is rated as highly important, with research by PracticeWeb showing that 79% of SMEs would visit their prospective accountant’s website before engaging them. Presenting your business in a clear, professional way with jargon-free language is therefore essential.
As a rule, there are five key website landing pages every business website – accounting or otherwise – should have:
- A home page
- An ‘about us’ page
- A service landing page
- A blog page
- A ‘contact us’ page
Most accountancy firms can say that their website checks these boxes, so we’re starting off on the right foot. But what are each of these website landing pages really for, and what kind of content should go on them? Let’s take a deep dive into each page.
Home page
The home page is likely to be the first page most users see when they visit your site, so it needs to make a good impression. Research shows that it takes less than 3 seconds for a user to identify the area of a website that forms their initial impression.
Accountancy firms need to focus first and foremost on presenting a well-structured, slick design. Poor quality or irrelevant images, a sloppy layout and confusing navigation all deter a user from delving any deeper into the site. Moreover, a site that isn’t mobile friendly is likely to put potential clients off going any further. With that in mind, ensure your home page has a clear and user-friendly design, is fully mobile responsive, and delivers a positive experience.
You can get a feel for how well your home page is performing by looking at bounce rate metrics. The higher the percentage, the more users are leaving your site immediately without exploring further.
Once you’ve made a good impression, you’ll need to ensure your home page directs visitors to the service they need. This is where structured navigation comes in. Rather than being loaded with copy, a good homepage will offer snippets of information that help users decide which area of the site is most relevant for their query.
About us
The ‘about us’ page is where you can expand on your business, what you’re about, and who you’re here to support. A short history can be useful, but nobody needs to read a year-by-year account of the company from conception to present day. Instead, focus on key points that will persuade potential clients that you’re right for them, such as:
- the team’s experience
- core values
- your professional approach
Increasingly, consumers are looking for brands that are concerned with wider issues too, so anything you are doing to offset your emissions, help the community, or support others is worth mentioning.
Service landing page
Your service landing page is essentially the page that introduces everything you offer. Here is where your focus is on conversion, so again, it’s important to structure the page intuitively and present each service clearly, with the option of finding out more by clicking through.
As with your ‘about us’ page, your service landing page should be tailored to the reader, helping them to understand the benefits of choosing your firm. How are you saving them time and effort? How can you save their business money? Can you help them to grow, and can you provide scalable solutions?
While you are using this page to outline what you can do for clients, you also need to show that you understand their needs. You can go into more detail about specific services (VAT services, management accounting, estate planning) on other pages.
When developing your service landing page, bear your accountancy marketing strategy in mind. Ensure you’re using relevant keywords that will help your page be found for particular search queries, and offer plenty of opportunities for users to convert.
Blog page
Like the service landing page, the blog page is simply an introduction to all the great content you’re posting. It acts as a snapshot of the latest news and topics concerning finance, tax, and other areas that require the expertise of an accountant.
Your blog is an opportunity to establish the firm as an authority, and the right content offers readers value without pressuring them to convert. It’s a great tool for gaining the trust of visitors and showing them that your business is on top of all the current regulations and issues. You can link to relevant service pages from the posts themselves where appropriate, giving consumers the option of finding out more without a hard sell.
The blog page itself is more a statement of intent than anything else: a commitment to providing your clients with up-to-date information and analysis.
Contact us
The ‘contact us’ page does what it says on the tin: it provides visitors with a selection of ways to get in touch with you, often providing a phone number, email address and/or enquiry form. The aim of this page is to make it easy for potential clients to reach you, so don’t hide the details beneath huge swathes of copy. Display them clearly at the top of the page, next to a location map (if you have a physical office) and alongside your opening hours.
By all means, add copy to the page with keywords that will help you get found, but place it further down so as not to distract users from ultimately doing what you want them to – converting.
SEO services for accountants
Here at Whitefish Marketing, we specialise in marketing strategies for accounting firms, and can offer advice on how to structure your website for the best possible results. We also provide relevant, persuasive copy and SEO services for accountants that will improve your visibility in the search engines for key queries. Get in touch with us today to find out more about how we can help you drive traffic to your site and increase conversions.
