Storybrand Website for Accounting Firms or CPAs

Jun 14, 2022

Don’t wrack your brain too hard trying to figure out how to make a Storybrand website for accounting firms or CPAs? We’ve got you!

As part of their Marketing Made Simple course Storybrand talks about creating a “wireframe” for your website. What they mean by a “wireframe” is the basic layout and words for your home page. We have a nice long blog post that talks about the different parts of a Storybrand website home page.

In this article we’re going to talk about the full website. Here’s what we will cover:

What should be on your site (Words)
What your site needs to do (Functionality)
What your site should look like (Design)

What should be on your Storybrand Website for Accounting Firms

Most accounting firms (almost all businesses really) will have a website with more than one page. So what other pages do you need, and what goes on those pages?

There are typically 5 core pages you need on a website for an accounting firm. That’s not to say that more is necessarily bad, but these five are the core of your site. Getting these right will have the biggest impact on your ability to book more calls (increase the conversion rate) of whatever visitors are currently coming to your site. Here are the 5 pages:

Home
About
Services
Pricing
Schedule a Call

Home Page

Your Home Page is your primary sales page. This page is for prospective clients, not current clients. It needs to sell the value of your services (not the features) and cast a vision for how much better life/business will be if they work with you. You can either hire a Storybrand Guide to help you create your home page wireframe or use a tool like the Storybrand wireframe template tool developed by Storysite.co to create one on your own.

About Page

We like to use the About page to “humanize” your business. If someone is convinced by your sales page, the next thing they’ll wonder is “do I want to do business with the PEOPLE behind this firm?” Accounting services can be very personal and vulnerable, because money is so personal, so you have to build trust.

We like to have the firm owner write a personal letter to their clients. In the letter you want to explain what you love about your clients and the work you do. Share your heart not your services. The goal is to show empathy and make a personal connection.

This is also a great page to talk about why you love your clients, talk about your core values, and introduce key team members.

Your about page is also a key page for introduction your company culture to potential job applicants. For many firms, hiring is almost as big of a challenge as business development, so use your About page to explain how great it is to work there.

Here are a few good About pages on accounting firm websites:

Services Page

This is a details page (but not too many details). You need to explain what your services look like in practice. Most Service pages are pretty bad because they’re confusing. A lot of times the work that needs to be done to create a good service page is more about clarifying what you actually offer and simplifying the choices. This is more a business question than a marketing question.

Another common mistake we see with Service pages is that it’s just paragraph after paragraph of the things you do without connecting the dots. We will often create a “Service Stack” graphic to illustrate how different services build on top of each other.

The key here is to give enough detail that someone is sure you can solve their particular problems, without overwhelming them with jargon. If you have a standard process that you require all of your clients to adopt, this is the page to talk about it.

Here are some examples:

Pricing Page

Many accounting firms are hesitant to include pricing information on their site because they typically put together custom packages for each client. But the truth is, “what will it cost?” is the number 1 question prospects are going to have when they land on your site.

I recommend that you have a separate pricing page, rather than just include prices on your service page. And if you have a direct link to the pricing page from your main navigation, it will likely be your second most visited page (after the home page).

Even if everything you do is a custom offering, your pricing page needs to answer the questions about price range, and what factors impact the price of your service. Your customers should never show up to a sales call without some idea of what the cost is going to be.

This will help bad-fit customers qualify themselves out before they talk to someone in sales, wasting you or your team’s time in conversations that won’t ever go anywhere.

Here are a few Pricing pages to look at:

Schedule a Call or Contact Page

This might be your general “Contact” page, but you need to think about this page from the perspective of a prospect. It needs to be very clear why they need to fill out the form and what will happen after they do. Many times having a form tied directly to a calendar scheduling link is best.

It’s not a bad idea to include your “Next Steps Plan” from your home page again on the Schedule a Call page. This helps your prospects understand where they’re going.

Additional Pages You May Want/Need

Here are a few other good pages for your site that I don’t quite consider “core” but are a good idea:

Blog page – a place for you to put content that you write.
Who We Work With page – describe your ideal client (industry, size, goals, etc)
Case Studies – show examples of how you’ve worked with businesses and the results you achieved for them.
Client Portal & Resources page – a “home” page for your current clients with all the important links and information that they need.

What Your Site Should Do

Compared to many other websites, an accounting firm website is very simple. No need for payment processing or any sort of online store.

Your website should be doing five things:

Communicate (with words) what you do, who you do it for, and how to get it.
Communicate (with words & design) that you are professional, competent, and a premium service
Get people to schedule calls with your sales team
Get people who aren’t ready to buy onto your email list
Connecting your current clients with the resources/links they need.

An important things to remember is that it should be easy for current clients to navigate your site, but it should be EASIER for prospects to find what they need. A current client doesn’t need a giant “client login” button, they can find the small link in your nav menu or footer.

What Your Site Should Look Like

A well designed website can really amplify your messaging. It can communicate that you are a high-end service, which helps you charge premium prices. On the other hand, sloppy design or a templated site can make you seem like a commodity CPA, just one of thousands of other CPAs that could do the same thing as you. Design is a key way to differentiate yourself.

Your site needs to meet a professional design threshold on both desktop and mobile devices. An outdated or clunky website is like an ill-fitting suit. Sure showing up to a sales meeting in a baggy suit doesn’t really indicate anything about your ability to do the job, but it makes an impression that you’re a bit sloppy and don’t care about details, which exactly the wrong thing your prospects want from an accountant. It’s the same with your website.

Most accountants aren’t designers, so what might seem “fine” to you, might actually be pretty sub-par. If you’re not sure how your site stacks up, take some time to Google other accounting firms in your area and see how your site compares to theirs.

Conclusion

Don’t forget the primary purpose of your website: sales. You want your website to bring in clients who are the right clients. With that in mind, words sell. Spend time to craft words that lead to more sales. Simple, right? Not always. We recommend you work with a certified Storybrand guide to create a Brandscript and wireframe for your homepage. Thankfully, we have a Storybrand Guide here at Banker Creative who would love to work with you.

Ready? Let’s talk.

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