realityhouse · perfect website.” accountants edition ... marketing as well as updates to your...
TRANSCRIPT
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.
“CRE
ATIN
G TH
E PE
RFEC
T WEB
SITE
.”ac
coun
tant
s ed
ition
REALITYHOUSE
2x pilau rice
1x madras
1x bhuna
2x g naan
REALITYHOUSE
“CRE
ATIN
G TH
E PE
RFEC
T WEB
SITE
.”ac
coun
tant
s ed
ition
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
REALITYHOUSE
“CRE
ATIN
G TH
E PE
RFEC
T WEB
SITE
.”ac
coun
tant
s ed
ition
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!
REALITYHOUSE
“CRE
ATIN
G TH
E PE
RFEC
T WEB
SITE
.”ac
coun
tant
s ed
ition
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...
REALITYHOUSE
“CRE
ATIN
G TH
E PE
RFEC
T WEB
SITE
.”ac
coun
tant
s ed
ition
risk factorspossible
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...
REALITYHOUSE
“CRE
ATIN
G TH
E PE
RFEC
T WEB
SITE
.”ac
coun
tant
s ed
ition
yoga @4:30pm
REALITYHOUSE
“CRE
ATIN
G TH
E PE
RFEC
T WEB
SITE
.”ac
coun
tant
s ed
ition
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.
departmentto itspeak
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!
REALITYHOUSE
“CRE
ATIN
G TH
E PE
RFEC
T WEB
SITE
.”ac
coun
tant
s ed
ition
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
REALITYHOUSE
“CRE
ATIN
G TH
E PE
RFEC
T WEB
SITE
.”ac
coun
tant
s ed
ition
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.
dep
art
men
tit
REALITYHOUSE
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
“CRE
ATIN
G TH
E PE
RFEC
T WEB
SITE
.”ac
coun
tant
s ed
ition