Building an accounting website for your business

When starting a bookkeeping or accounting business, it’s hard to think of something more important than creating a website.

Sure, your services and reliability are high on the list, but when it comes to being found online, building a presence, and pulling in clients, everything comes back to your website.

Before you even think about starting up any marketing activity make sure you’ve built a solid, functional, and attractive website for your accounting firm or bookkeeping services.

Choosing a website platform

Both for the user and for yourself when you manage the backend and design the site, choosing your website platform is integral to your website experience.

Do some Googling to gather some bookkeeping website ideas. Research the simplest, most powerful, and most popular platforms and you’ll be on the right path.

Some platforms, like Wix or Squarespace, are all-in-one website builders. They’re powerful, intuitive, and will have plenty of the functionality you’ll need like eCommerce and SEO.

Such website builders are undoubtedly the most easily approached by novice bookkeeping businesses. Better yet, they can also handle your domain name choices and hosting.

You can also go with popular open-source platforms like WordPress. WordPress is a bit more complicated, requires separate domain hosting, and is not as intuitive as an all-in-one builder. On the plus side, if you’ve got a strong vision for your website, you can do absolutely anything with WordPress. Further, you don’t need to pay for a plan, and you can choose a mammoth number of plugins. It’s also very easy to transfer if you choose another platform later.

For your first outing though, it’s hard to go past the likes of Wix and Squarespace.

Domain and hosting

To create your accounting website, simply choose and purchase a domain name and then host your website on a server.

If you go the route of Wix or Squarespace, you can purchase a plan that includes buying a domain and then handles the hosting for you (for a fee of course) making it much more centralised.

If, however, you go for WordPress or something else open source, you’ll have to purchase a domain separately and find a hosting service as well.

When choosing a domain, be sure it matches your business name. You may want to find out whether your intended business name is available before you cement your branding.

You can get away with small inconsistencies, but you should aim to match your trading name with your domain as much as possible.

Establish your business brand

Now you have the basics – you’ll need a name, a basic set of brand guidelines and artifacts to define your business identity.

Choose a name (it may just be a variation on your name or something snappier) and then go forth and make a logo. (Design one yourself with online tools or look to enlist a designer for a more polished feel.)

Now set up a tagline that denotes what you want your customers to think and feel when they look at your branding elements.

Make sure to set a colour palette that suits your business. Think about style as well – what kind of imagery will you use? Will you have a cohesive theme?

Create a professional colour palette

The key to establishing an effective website is choosing an appealing colour palette. Firstly, think about your brand values and the mindset of your potential clients, then do some research before you decide.

Colour psychology helps identify the best colour for your accounting firm or bookkeeping business. In general, orange is associated with energetic energy and excitement, and brown is regarded as strong and reliable. Blue conveys professionalism and trust.

Accounting websites centred around people

As many small businesses are now switching to online accounting systems, the nature of bookkeeping and accounting has become more personal. Further to this, you also need to ensure your website is ‘people-friendly’ in its functionality.

This means that your approach to acquiring potential clients, branding, and marketing must also become more people-centric, as opposed to merely transactional.

More than ever before, your website needs to exude a user-friendly touch. Start on the right foot by opting for simple appealing language, a clean, approachable layout and simple interfaces. Your copy should be warm and appealing.

Ensure your website makes it as easy as possible for users to get in contact, understand your offerings, and ultimately, engage your bookkeeping services.

Have a clear business description

Make it abundantly clear on your site who you are and what you do. Be just as clear about how you can help them.

If prospective accounting or bookkeeping clients can’t quickly scan your homepage and discover what you’re offering, go back to the drawing board.

If you have a slogan, it would be good to put it on the homepage of your website. You should also add a few words to describe the work your business does.

Making your website mobile-responsive

We live in a mobile-first world, which means it’s increasingly likely your website will be read on a mobile phone. Thus, your site needs to be designed to be ‘mobile friendly’.

A website that isn’t easily accessible on mobile devices may affect your prospects. By using your backend website-building tools and options, you should be able to handle this.

Prioritising your SEO

When building a bookkeeping website, considering SEO is essential. Search engine optimisation is a technique that improves search rankings, making you more visible online.

When a website has high visibility in search engines, it also gains a higher number of leads and conversions.

It’s a long game though, so be prepared to use website SEO and copywriting tools along with regular blogs and updates to keep your site as fresh and relevant as possible.

Learn how to create a high-performing landing page

When you post a social media link or an online ad, you want to include a CTA or call to action which prompts someone to click that link and see your website. They should land on your webpage that easily enables them to fill out a contact form, express interest, or book a consultation.

Write blogs explaining bookkeeping, tax & accounting software

Make sure you maintain a regular accounting or bookkeeping blog on your website. Not only does this provide you with content to post on socials, but it also helps your SEO (as Google prefers sites that are updated with new content regularly).

Try writing blogs around tips, tricks, and advice in bookkeeping, software, financial matters, payroll services, business management, tax, receipt organisation, or other useful content.