Jan Carlzon once said: “Any time a customer comes into contact with any aspect of your business, however remote, that customer has an opportunity to form an impression.”

If you look up a hotel’s website and the photos are dingy, the booking form looks unsafe and the ‘seasonal menu’ is two years old, chances are you’ll look somewhere else. The hotel itself might very well be a perfectly decent place to stay. But the first impression created by the poor website – the ‘moment of truth’ – is critical and irrevocable.

This applies to your website. In order to project a professional, reliable, reassuring image to your prospects – an image that reflects the quality of your work – then you need more than just a an accounting website. You need a GOOD accounting Website! There really is nothing worse than a site that looks like it’s been thrown together by an IT student. I’ve seen accounting firm websites with low-res scanned logos, amateur animations and ‘free reports’ and ‘Current Tax Rates’ that are four years out of date. Your website is a vitally important ‘face’ of your firm. Even if your website doesn’t bring in hundreds of new clients every month, at least make sure it doesn’t put anybody off!

As an Accounting Website Designer I have Identified a few of the worst traps to avoid.

• Out-of-date ‘news’
• Amateurish animations and splash pages
• Pictures that take too long to open
• Too many fonts
• Pages that all look different from each other