12 Website Errors Practitioners Need To Avoid

Many accounting firms still don't have a website, and that drives me crazy! They're missing out on a lot of opportunities.

But what really drives me batty is those websites where the firm has given little or no thought to their site and just established a presence online because they felt they had to.

These are the firms who make so many mistakes, they're actually better off not having a site at all!

Here are some of the common blunders I see...

• Long lines of text

People don't like to have to take mental health breaks when reading the text on your website.

They don't want to have to squint or try to decipher one line from another, especially if you're using too small a font for your site and the visitor has to edge to the front of their seat in order to stand a fighting chance of reading the text on the page.

As an example, here's the exact same text from above, in a format you might well find on an accounting firm's site...

People don't like to have to take mental health breaks when reading the text on your website. They don't want to have to squint or try to decipher one line from another, especially if you're using too small a font for your site and the visitor has to edge to the front of their seat in order to stand a fighting chance of reading the text on the page.

See how that one simple change makes all the difference to the readability of the text?

• Using the same wording as everyone else!

I can point you to over a hundred different firms websites where they have used the same text on many of their pages - verbatim. How did this happen?

Simple, they subscribed to a cookie-cutter service and couldn't be bothered to change the text to make their site personal to them!

• Writing about themselves as opposed to what the client wants

If you land on a site that tells you, before you have a chance to look around, all about itself, such as:

- when it was established (who really cares?!)
- the background of the Partners (telling you what you consider to be basic necessities for them to be partners!)

and similar mundane facts, it's not likely that you're going to hang around to find out what's in it for you.

• Being too difficult to navigate

If I cannot find what I want on your site, I'll go looking elsewhere pretty darned quick.

• Containing out of date facts and data

In December 2009 I filmed a DVD called 'How to build a great website for your accounting firm' and one section was called 'the good the bad & the ugly!'

I discovered a firm that in December 2009 still had a page of information for clients with warnings of what to do to be ready for Y2K! Yep, information ten years out of date, and that's supposed to impress me?

• Broken links

Nothing says 'clumsy' more than broken links - I know, I made more than my share of these basic mistakes myself in my career.

• No Meta Tags or search engine optimization

If nobody visits, why have the site? These are simple things to address and again shows the visitor that you're not really serious about your online presence.

• No reason to return

No newsletter, free tips, new video clips, or other reason to bring me back on a regular basis.

A few days later I can't even remember the name of your firm or its online address, and you've lost a potential client.

• Just plain ugly design

Graphic designers are not that expensive these days and an ugly site will turn off visitors.

• Links to the tax office and similar useless links

How often do you think your clients visit the tax office website? They engage you to deal with this stuff so putting links on your site that are plain useless smacks of 'filler'.

• No use of social media

Everyone is on Facebook or YouTube these days, to name just two of the popular social media sites. If you're not on them you might be discounted as 'out of touch'.

• No email contact details or photographs of you and your team

These are two separate complaints really, but tightly related.

People want to be able to get in touch with you after visiting your site - so make it easy for them by putting your email address, mailing address, phone and fax numbers in an easy-to-find spot on your site.

Also, people want to know what you look like, so please, put some photographs on your site, so they can see you don't have two heads!
Avoid these 12 blunders and you'll have a much better, more productive website, which should create a much better impression of your firm for those candidates who are surfing the net before they decide to apply either directly or through a recruiter, to your firm.