How to get results out of your accountancy website

With proper planning and forethought, a website can be a powerful business tool. This article covers the most common website strategies use in the business-to-business (B2B) sector. As well as highlighting some of the metrics you can use to measure success of your strategy.

On this page:

Stop trying to do everything

The three key website strategies

Set realistic goals

Integrate into the marketing mix

How to measure website success

How to implement website strategy

Stop trying to do everything

When used correctly, your website can be an incredibly powerful tool for your business. Whether that's through lead generation or a part of your marketing strategy.

However, having a website that works for you and your business requires thought.

It is easy to assume that websites are relatively straightforward. And why that is actually makes sense. The vast majority of websites people use on a daily basis have been designed to be simple and easy to use.

But this is where danger lies. A lot of strategic thought processes and planning goes into the websites we use every day to make them simple and easy to use.

Trying to do too much is one area that websites fall victim to if a strategic thought process has not been employed.

In an effort to try to get the website to meet all their business goals, it becomes confusing and complex.

As a result, you may struggle to encourage users to convert. Search engines may start to rank it lower. Or online shoppers may avoid placing sales.

Instead, you want to look at focusing your website around a primary strategic aim. Design this in line with your overall business and marketing objectives.

This will give your website focus. Users will have a better understanding of who you are and what you want them to achieve on the website.

Having a clear understanding of what you need your website to achieve will help increase conversions or meet more business goals.

The three key website strategies

Deciding a primary strategy for your website will help give it focus. Not only does this improve the experience for your website visitors, but it helps the wider business understand the purpose of the website.

Business websites typically have one of three common main objectives. These objectives can be seen in the majority of effective website designs.

Each of these tend to complement existing business and marketing strategies. Sticking to one of these strategies will make your website work for you.

Generating enquiries

A B2B website typically does not have e-commerce features allowing visitors to make a purchase.

As a result, a business website may be hoping to generate more enquiries.

If this is the case then you need to look at having a strong call to action for your users.

For example, you can have a contact form placed on your homepage, making it easy for people to get in touch. It will allow you to collect some simple data on them too.

Along with this, your contact number and email should always be visible and easy for the user to access.

It is important to remember that you need to reduce the number of barriers that users may have in trying to contact you. One way to achieve this is to look into investing in webchat features where visitors can contact someone directly and quickly.

A source of information

If your aim is to have a website that people will return to time and time again, then it is important that your content is relevant and updated regularly.

Having resources that are of interest and of value are key in making sure people view your site as the place to keep informed.

This can also be enhanced by emailing newsletters to your clients and those who register on your site. Make sure you provide them with your information (such as tax tips or advice) on a regular basis.

Becoming a source of information can also assist with any search engine optimisation (SEO) you might be hoping to achieve. SEO is the art of optimising your website so that it appears in higher positions on search engine results.

The higher your website appears, the more chance you have in increasing website traffic. And, as a result, increase conversions.

Key to becoming a source of information is creating and writing useful content for your visitors. This can be in the form of a blog or articles that your customers find useful.

An online presence

It may be the case that your firm does not need to actively seek new business. Even in these situations you will still need a website. This is because having a website will show those seeking you that your firm is available.

Rather than a large website, you will need a website that can just support your business reputation and provide contact information.

Going for professional looking website can help reinforce your image. Even if it is used just to portray a message about your firm and staff in general.

Having a website focused on online presence can help with your local SEO. This is a form of search engine optimization whereby you have a local presence of search engines. This can help improve your chances of existing and new customers finding you.

Set realistic goals

It is important to have realistic expectations about what your website will help achieve. A common misconception is that you can add something to your website - perhaps a new product or service - and it will instantly work for you.

Unfortunately, it is highly unlikely that a website on its own will generate numerous leads and new business for a firm. It needs to be part of an overall online marketing process.

Almost every firm has a website. So just like any other service, people will shop around.

You can expect that nearly everyone that has viewed your website has also visited a competitor or two. As a result, this is where you need to differentiate and look at what you want to achieve.

Integrate into the marketing mix

To make your website work for you, it needs to integrate into your wider online marketing. A website that isn't integrated, will not help you meet your business goals.

Fortunately, there are a number of ways a website can be integrated to wider online marketing mix to help generate traffic.

SEO

SEO is the art of optimising your website in a way that makes it favourable for search engines.

To achieve good SEO, you want to be able to identify what search terms your potential customers are typing into search engines. From here, you then want to optimise your website for these search terms.

You can take your SEO game further if you create a full content marketing strategy. This is where identify further search terms that your audience may be searching. Then you create content that will address these search terms. To have a better impact for your SEO, you can employ the services of a professional copywriter to create content that will open up new sales opportunities for you.

PPC

PPC (Pay Per Click) follows a similar path as SEO. But instead of creating content and optimising your website for search terms, you can pay for your website to rank higher for certain search phrases.

With PPC, you tend to pay every time someone clicks on your link. Depending on the search term you appear for, this can be for a couple of pence to a couple of pounds.

Social media

Having an effective social media strategy can also help drive traffic to your website.

Ensure that each social media channel is utilised correctly with relevant posts create for the channel's audience.

If your social media posts are created to be relevant to the audience, you have a stronger chance that any links you post to your website will get clicked on.

Landing pages

It can be tempting to just link people directly to the home page of your website.

However, directing people to a particular page on your website can increase your chances of getting conversions. These are called landing pages.

Design pages to carry a particular message for a product or service. Ensure the landing page focuses content on the key point you want to make.

These can then be used for SEO, PPC or social media.

Online portals

Another method you can use to increase how many of your customers use your website, is by creating a need to use it.

For example, online portals can be a great way to encourage repeat business.

These provide a reason for existing customers to repeatedly visit your website. With this you can increase awareness of other products or services that may be beneficial to them.

How to measure website success

Once you've decided on your website strategy, you will need to measure success. The metrics you would want to be looking at will vary depending on the strategy you opt for.

The number of metrics a website can produce can get overwhelming. We've created the following list to show which metrics you can measure success with. These are based around the three most common website strategies a business website should focus on.

Generating enquiries

Success for websites looking to generate enquiries should look at:

• Number of leads made
• Phone calls made
• Webchats

These can be tracked using a method of tagging which reports on clicks and submissions made.

You may require assistance from your website developers to set this form of tracking up.

A source of information

If your website is hoping to be a source of information for customers or potential customers, then your success metrics will need to focus on two areas. These are reach of content and engagement of content.

For reach of content, you will want to report on:

• SEO metrics (search terms appeared for, number of impressions, average search position)
• Channel acquisition (i.e., how did your website visitors come to your website)
• To measure the engagement of your content, you will need to look at:
• Average time on site/page
• Pages visited
• Landing Pages visited

All these reach and engagement metrics can be gathered by using Google Analytics and Google Search Console.

Your website developer may be required to set these up for you if do you not currently have them installed on your website.

An online presence

If you are hoping for a website just to have an online presence, you may be thinking that monitoring any metrics would be a useless task.

However, keeping an eye on how you are performing compared to competitors can be useful to know.

For an online presence, you can monitor your performance using Google Business Manager. This tool will give you an indication of how your firm is performing locally on search results.

How to implement website strategy

If you are unsure if your website is meeting your needs, then ask yourself why. Importantly, talk to your provider or marketing team to understand what can be done to improve or change your approach.

The first step is to understand what your business objectives are. From this, you can identify how your website can help you achieve this.

At Mercia, we work on numerous websites for accountants, so please feel free to contact us for some advice or how we may be able to help with your website or content.