514 What I Learned Going Through 42 Accounting Firm Websites

Friends, I just went through a whole lot of accounting firm websites. It was, it was a journey. I love accounting firm websites because they're very representative of the vast spectrum of person that is an accountant. A lot of them were every bit as bad as you would expect, but some are super cool, super creative, like an interesting reflection of just how different the personalities of accounting firms are. But today, let's cruise through the most common things that many sites are missing and the changing role of a website in 2025. Actually, the job of a website now is very, very what the job of it has been in the past. So today I want to give you the most actionable nuggets. They'll have the greatest impact on kind of the overall efficacy of your website. So let's do it. So on my newsletter last week, I put out a call, I said, you want me to roast your website? Just hit reply to the newsletter and boy, did I get more than I bargained for. I think most of us are living in this perpetual state of. I'm pretty sure that this isn't very good, but I'm also not totally sure what to do next. By the way, if you're not on my newsletter, did you miss an opportunity? You should be on that. Something like 11,000 firms are on that now. Just go to jasononfirms.com newsletter because I know you're thinking, right now, this podcast isn't enough. Now I can, I can tickle your inbox every Wednesday. Okay, got a little list of nine things here. Observations I made going through a whole bunch of websites. Number one, most homepages of accounting firms have way too many call to actions. So think about your homepage as like a visual journey that wants. That is trying to take them to a specific destination that just doesn't work when there are 14 buttons to click. And that's what, like, most of these things end up looking like. Like your, your landing page is this like charcuterie board of all the different services you could possibly do. And man, that's just, that's a lot. And that usually means something to us, but it means nothing to the client who doesn't know what a lot of those words mean. It also does nothing to separate us from all the alternatives. And that is a very important job of your website is like, they're not just looking at you in a vacuum. Like, imagine you're going to go out and hire a landscaper right now. What's that process going to look like? Are you going to go to the very first landscaper you Find that's local and just stop there. Probably not. You're going to look at a number of different ones and if there's like anything with that, like, makes that one a little more specific to you, you're gonna, you're gonna lap that up because the vast majority of them will look the same. Let's take a pond. Or there's like a lake in the backyard. Is that a thing? You have a lake in the backyard. You know what I mean? If one of those landscaping companies says, hey man, we're into ponds, you're gonna be like, oh, that's me. And you know what? All the other landscapers will say, we all do ponds. There's nothing that different about doing ponds. But because that one website had it on it, we going to be like, well, we better go with this one then, honey. Because they do pawns. Everybody's just like, think about the mental state people have to be in to go to accounting firm websites. They're just looking for anything to cling to. And if all we're doing is just checking up a bunch of like, generic listings of services that really doesn't give them anything that they're not getting from every single other website. So having a hundred call to actions, a whole bunch of buttons on that landing page, it's usually just a signal that we haven't found the one or the two things that are the biggest problem people have that we want to work with. Give me an example. My website, jasononfirms.com. what do I try to get people to do? I either get them on the newsletter and the only other little call out there is like, hey, want my app recommendation database? Is that accurate? Let me go look. Yeah. So basically I set up the proposition of like, hey, I. I just help people run more profitable, sustainable accounting firms. Do you want a bunch of free goodies to help you? And then there's a secondary call out of, here's a giant app database. And that is the highest performing lead magnet I've ever had. Now we're. When accountants come to my website, do you think I lose people because they're not into app recommendations? Probably. But if I don't have this here, if I don't say, hey, here's some app recommendations you can swipe. What else do I put there? It's going to be something like, feels super generic, right? Something that doesn't feel as specific to you and doesn't give you any value. Like, why would you give me your email address unless you're going to get something valuable? In return. Even better if that thing you get is like immediately useful to you. You actually notice that as a theme throughout this list is I want your website to provide real value to someone, not just be this like generic business card, but be something that's actually useful. Okay, point number two, I got here. Most firms, they just talk about their services front and center. This, this menu of all the different things that you do. And again, it is like this, like the chicken parmesan of, of accounting firms. What are all the different things we can do? This looks the same on every single accounting firm's website. We talk about this on the podcast quite a bit. Blair Enns talks about in his book the Four Conversations. You don't want to win a client on breadth of services. That's a very hard business to build. When you do more than anybody else does, you want to win them on specificity. So if there's a great client working for another firm, the better way to win them is not doing more. It's doing a thing that's very specific to them that the current firm doesn't do. And so we're always looking for rare problems that folks we want to work with have rather than just doing more than everybody else. In fact, Alex Hormozi talks about this a lot in his latest book, $100 million money models don't sell 100 different things, sell 100 different ways to deliver a thing. And if you think about what we talk about with three tier proposals here on the podcast, a lot, that's 100% what I've been preaching for a long time. Your three tier proposals shouldn't be set up on scope. Gold shouldn't be three times. The work is bronze. Gold's just first class. Gold's access to, to the Admirals Club. Gold is the VIP service line, which is literally just a second phone number that rings to, you know, a couple of the really good people on your team, but they're now paying 2.5x for access to that different phone number. And so priding ourselves on doing everything under the sun, man, that's just a hard way to run the business. Run a business. And I actually don't think it really converts on your accounting firm website because it looks just like everybody else's. Third thought here is we usually feature ourselves more prominently on the website than we do the problems of our ideal customers. And it's not to say you shouldn't have real photos of you on there. You should, like that's very important to be able to look and feel Like a real human being, because there's so many faceless websites. But you aren't the center of it. The hero shouldn't be what you do and what your qualifications are. The hero that is, you know, the very top of the landing page, the biggest text. The hero ought to be who they are and what rare pain you solve for them. So restaurant owners that use this specific platform, dental practice owners that use open dental, beekeepers who offer queen. What's it called? I don't know. They got a bunch of queens and they take them places. They're the hero of the story. Like it is. It's the client. Because when somebody visits the website, again, you're trying to attract the pond guy that's like, oh, it's the landscaping company that does pond stuff. That's who we're trying to speak to. And so if they see themselves in the hero, that's the best reaction someone could have to a website is they're like, oh, I finally found this firm that is specifically for me. It doesn't mean you can't talk about yourself later on. Like, I wouldn't do too much of that and say, like, here are my qualifications. But you should not be front and center. You're not the hero of the story. Point number four, and this is a. I mean, you already know I'm going to say this one. The website's just not speaking to a specific enough person yet. We're afraid by getting specific in who we talk to that we close the door on everybody else. When it's like, yeah, but that's also the point. And the trouble with a website that doesn't say anything particular is it doesn't speak to anybody in particular. If you're afraid to commit to this and get more specific in your website copy. And again, your website copy is for your next new client, not for the clients you already have. It's for the next client you want to attract. If you're afraid to get more specific in your language here, use a landing page like your website, forward slash, beekeeping. And then when you go on that beekeeping podcast, that's the URL that they plug. But I would actually argue if we. If we think about the overall job of a website in 2025, it has changed now that social media has exploded. And especially in the last three years, it's just on a different level now where folks will scroll LinkedIn or they'll go to YouTube or they'll go to Instagram. And in the past, the strategy was like, ooh, how do I get them off of there, onto my other thing. When the people that crush on those social media platforms realize that it's that if somebody is consuming on that social media platform, they don't want to leave that social media platform. Like they're not, as they're not begging for something to come up in the feed to take them somewhere else completely. They want you to deliver value or entertainment to them in that platform where they're already consuming. And so where people first learn about you is no longer your website. In all likelihood, it's. It's social media. And I, I rail on this a lot. The notion that your LinkedIn headline, that is the little like subtext under your name, those are the most important words about you on the Internet. Think about the number of people who have seen my website versus the number of people who have seen my LinkedIn headline. For most of us, a thousand times as many people will see your LinkedIn headline if you're posting any sort of content, as will every see your website. So top of funnel, now that's social media. That's live events, that's doing a podcast interview, something like that, where people, new people will find you. That is top of funnel, rather than your website, website being top of funnel. So then what is the job of the website? I would argue it is, it's to continue building a relationship with that person. So if somebody enjoys your social or online stuff so much that they'll actually go to your website, I think all they're looking for is more, more of the same, easier access to the same. Maybe they're like, man, I really like this person's posts. I would rather get them over email because a lot of the times I don't see them on the social media algorithm or I'll take a break from social media. But their stuff is still so helpful, I still want to find a way to get it. The trouble is most websites, it just talks about your services and says, click here to book a call. And that's, that's jumping in, I think a little too intensely. That is like proposing to your Tinder date on the first date. It's like if they've, if they've consumed some of your stuff or if they've seen you elsewhere and they just want to come and learn some more about what you do. Committing to being like an ongoing client or starting down that path, that's kind of a reach, right? As opposed to what's something more simple where they can learn a bit more from you, go a little bit deeper without having to make that big scary commitment. I think that's the job of the website, is to build even more connection. If they really want to work with you, I mean, they'll find your contact page, they'll figure out how to get in touch with you. That's not hard. So the call to action on the homepage shouldn't be get in touch with me. If they really want to get in touch with you, they will get in touch with you. More thoughts on that, actually, in a later bullet point. This episode is brought to you by Team up, who will find you talented accountants in the Philippines. Team Up. Their motto, hire a person, not a company. So Team Up's difference is there for the folks that literally just want to engage the people in the Philippines to come and work for them, rather than like Accounto Corp, who then employs a bunch of Philippines accountants. And then you pay a counto Corp. Because sometimes the problem with Accounto Corp is you're paying as much to Accounto Corp as the actual individual that's on your team gets. That's kind of a bummer. I'm paying 2,000 bucks a month and only a thousand of that's going to my team member. Very common progression that I see with folks building offshore teams. They start with a counter corp for the first few hires and then they're like, we just want to do this ourselves. We actually don't like the middleman. And oftentimes it's actually impossible or insanely costly to get your team member out of a Counto Corp. So then you're kind of like trapped. Anyways. Team up, they've got recruitments, recruiterments on the ground in the Philippines who will find talented folks for you. You just work with them directly. Same way you'd work directly with somebody in the States. If you haven't done it before, you're going to have a bunch of questions. What about computer stuff? What about security? The answers for those usually the same as whatever you do for your like, domestic team. What about disclosures? If you do tax work, yeah, you gotta put something in the engagement letter. If you're using em for 1040 work, there's a standalone disclosure that you do. But I did both these in my firm. Wasn't a big deal. And Team up, they've helped so many firms go through this that they can give you like, great expert answers and best practices for how to navigate any of these things that may be spooky. Even if you just wanna have a conversation to learn more. Hit Em Up. That's Teamup. Learn more Check out the link down in the show notes today's episode. It is brought to you in part by makershub. Makershub's an accounts payable platform, the one that is going like super hard on AI. Really good for large volume, complex accounts payable scenarios. And gang, this is like a real arbitrage opportunity Right now the clients we have with the messiest accounts payable departments, they're the ones with the most to gain by AI enabled AP stuff. Unfortunately the like the big boys, the traditional bill pay platforms, they're still relying on like OCR technology rather than AI vision models which just take like the automated extraction so much farther. In a vastly more detailed way too. When you can literally pull anything off a document, even handwritten stuff, the degree to which you can then automate not only entry but also the subsequent approval workflows. Really, really cool. Makers have done some other stuff I like. Like they have a very very good two way sync with QBO so that Microsoft doesn't become this entirely separate source of truth. If you use a different erp, they've got a really good API for building your own custom stuff, even for like customizing how you export data en mass for import into another system. I've said it before, accounts payable. It is the fastest changing part of the accounting profession right now. If you want to help your clients leading the charge into kind of the modernization of their back office, makers up a great tool to do it with. To learn more, check out the link down in the show notes number five. Most are pouring all their efforts into the aesthetic of the website. How many times have you heard that's a really nice website because it is your favorite shade of teal and it looks cool and it looks modern and it's like that's a great, that is a great accounting firm website. Is it though? Just because that's your esthetic and you like it doesn't mean anybody else likes it and it doesn't make it useful. What it achieves is it sets you apart from the accounting firms that just like launched a templated website from CCH's, a website builder. For sure you're ahead of those now, but weren't you already ahead of those people? Like, is the goal to get into the top 70% or is the goal to get into the top 1%? If you're speaking to a specific type of person with a specific problem, you're immediately into the top 1%. So esthetics, great, knock yourself out. But not a replacement for very specific messaging. Trying to help specific people. Number six, most counting from websites, just show pricing minimums. I mean just, just think about what this is doing, the expectation it's setting for every client that's coming in the door. When all you show is the minimum, that's what people expect to pay. And that minimum, honestly, in 18 months time you're probably going to hate that minimum. You're probably not even going to let people in the door anymore at that minimum. So why are we setting the expectation of folks paying the minimum rather than folks being like the average? Like the clients we actually want, what do we want them to pay? Is it the minimum? Almost certainly not. So if somebody's going to come and work with you and they can afford the minimum, but they can't afford, you know, 1.5x or 2x the minimum, which is more the average or more what you want to see, then let's not let them in the door at the minimum. Instead show like the average pricing, the median pricing show. And this is my favorite version of this show. Real clients. Obviously not, not their names. Show real clients, you know, their, their ballpark revenue, how big their team is and what are the things that you do for them and what they pay for that. That gives people a realistic snapshot of the type of engagement that you want. By the way, these are the engagements that you're presenting, are your favorite engagements. But then also similar to pond guy shopping for a landscaper, when potential customers get to that screen and they see somebody that looks like them, they're like, oh dang, they're going to know how to do my stuff just fine. Because I can see that they're working with this person that is very similar to me. So it has an effect of attracting more engagements. Just like that one that you showed off, it can kind of manifest more of that. And this is where it's, you know, all about doubling down on that A client. And so it's the A clients we're showing off here who are not clients that are paying your minimums. It's the clients you actually want more of. So notice show your minimums. Show something that's more reflective of averages or like actual real engagements is what I do. Number seven, most sites aren't hijacking trust from other associations or software companies, that sort of thing. If you think about who your potential customers look up to, who are the people or the groups that they think are impressive, almost every type of industry now has associations and member committees and all these different things. And if you can show off that you're a member of these things and you engage with them, man, that puts you in the 1% of the 1%. And we want to show that stuff off front and center, like ideally right below the hero panel on your homepage. So the hero panel is a very top one. Big text, big image. What is your big headline? A little bit of subtext. But then right under that I want to see a carousel of the associations that you have done stuff with or the impressive podcast that you've been on. I tell software companies this. In the accounting space, the fastest way into an accountant's heart is co marketing with a brand they already trust. If I love this company, and I swear by their tool, if I see them doing like co marketing with another tool I haven't heard of, that tool immediately jumps so far up my list because of that association, right? And so if you look at the, the associations for professional people, we want to like get plugged into that stuff. So it's something that we can show off that, that adds to our legitimacy, hijacking the trust of those other groups, basically because that lead can see like, oh wow, no, I've heard of that group before. These people must be pretty legit. Okay, number eight, man, many sites, many kind of firm sites still don't have a self service portal. And I don't really care how you feel about portals and if your clients hate them or not. In this day and age, pretty much everybody wants a self service option like don't make me call to pay a bill, like where can I grab my invoices, my prior year tax return, last month's month end close. That's not a hard thing these days. And practice management systems, they have good portals like this just needs to be the top right option on our nav is login. Just like every other company you work with, the utility company, like we can like it is not devaluing what we do to give folks a self service portal to be able to do that and not have to bug you. Okay, last one I got here, number nine. We hit on this a bit earlier. Most accounting from websites are not themselves valuable. That is they don't do anything useful. So how can we give them something of value that pulls them a little bit further into your web, like a five minute video or a PDF resource or something like that. Because again, the best job that the website can do is build a little bit more trust between you and that lead. You and that person that may come and work for you, work for you, work with you. These days, like people don't buy from the white pages, right? Like, if I'm shopping for accounting services or a bookkeeper or a landscaper or something like that, we're looking for something more than just this is your trade and you do this thing. And the people who aren't looking for more, it's because they don't realize that it exists yet. Like, I shared the story of going to a new barber, and he's been working with generalist accountants for the last two decades. And I'm like, you know, I know a guy that just works with barbershops, and he was like, who is like, get out of here. He was so excited, like, too excited. And I put him in touch with him and he's like, 20 years has gone by, and he's never felt like he worked with somebody that understood what he does. People, like, they're not just buying off of, you know, yellow page listings. Someone that can come and repair flood damage. Like, that's not what they're looking for in their advisor. The person to help them navigate what is, like, pretty stressful financial stuff in their business. And so when they're comparing those different websites, if they can build a bit of a relationship with you, man, you are like, you are in the driver's seat. Like, this is the way to not only get them over the finish line to do the scary thing to book a call and, like, potentially start an actual relationship, but then when they do for them, it feels less risky, which translates into they are willing to pay more. Something we don't think about very much. When new clients come to us and they have no idea what it's like to work with you, risk is factoring into their buying decision. If they don't have complete trust that you're going to be able to execute on this, that is discounting their willingness to pay as opposed to someone who has built trust with you. They have no doubts about you being, like, capable of delivering. Then when it comes time to get the wallet out, they just have a totally different expectation. And, like, I can understand if this feels like grandiose or like, oh, of course influencer boys is saying this, but these days, like, there's people creating content and just about any space and, you know, content and influencing on a very small scale is becoming just kind of a core part of. Core part of business. And really all it is is just being useful to people beyond who's on your client list, because that's how you get discovered these days, is like putting useful stuff out into the world. And then people coming to work with you for the application. So information is free, application is paid, and it remains. The greatest way to stand out to a specific type of entrepreneur is be useful to them, put useful stuff out into the world and then they want to come in and see what else you have to offer. So if you can find that one thing that's super valuable to a lead at the point that you want to start working with them, that's another great like filtering function is you're like, I just, I really only want to work with dentists when they are scaling to like multi office clinics or when they're hiring their first associate or when they're rolling up into a DSO or you know, something very specific. The tools and the resources you provide can be around that specific transition they're going through. Then you're putting out stuff that is like get picked up in SEO. So like you'll, you'll rank on Google around solving this problem. It's a, a great resource you can share. When you're like pitching a podcast host to say like, hey, I'm, I'm super knowledgeable about this stuff. Do you want me to come on and talk about it? But then the main goal is when that person comes to your website, there's something a little meatier there that they can sink their teeth into. Because if the only option we give them is to book a call with me or leave, 99% of them are going to leave because they're not there yet. If what we give them is the option to consume a little bit more of something of value, it increases the likelihood they'll book a call. If they were coming to book a call, they will bypass that and still book a call. And at the very least, that person now trusts you more than they did when they came and visited the website. Right? Which is like a net win. Less is more really. And as soon as we start going down the rabbit hole of here are all the things we do that that website just kind of becomes a mess, right? We're putting what we do first rather than putting the problems of the people we want to work with first. After all, those are the people visiting your website. This website isn't for you. It's for the folks that are struggling with those problems. And the more we learn how we can articulate that stuff in ways that they'll understand rather than the ways that we talk about it, the more those folks are going to be excited and feel like they just finally found the solutions provider for barbers or, you know, for the plumber that is for the first time removing themselves from work. They're, they're at a half million a year and they're struggling to like remove themselves from doing the day to day. Those tipping points like where they're stuck on that thing, those are such great points to attract clients around because you have such a valuable perspective on this stuff. Getting to go through this journey with so many folks, whereas the entrepreneurs like their experience. It's just, it's one of one, right? It's, it's inherently limited. Think about it, man. This is one of those, one of those few things in your business that works while you sleep. Your website, it's one of the highest leverage ways you can kind of shape the future of your firm and the clients that come and discover you and nothing about it is final. That's another thing we, we fear is like, oh, if I get more specific or do this or that, like I'm somehow burning the ships. It's like, no, every aspect of this is reversible. But man, if you are just doing the least just a little bit of content on LinkedIn for specific type of person, you reshape that website copy just a little bit around the problems that those people have. You will find so much opportunity. So I was DMing with somebody on LinkedIn the other day. I, I sent them something because they had commented. So I sent them something on LinkedIn and I saw two years earlier they had like DM'd me. They're like, holy smokes, you finally convinced me to like show up consistently on social media. And then I was just like eyes spinning or something and I had never responded. And so this was two years later the other day. I'm like, how's that going for you? And he's like, we've grown to over 2 million in two years. And I was like, that sounds awful. But he go outside it really like, not to say it's always going to be that easy, but being that sort of generalist firm, it's very easy to end up paralyzed there for like a decade. Any thoughts? Is this something you've dabbled with? Any, any website thoughts? Pop that stuff down in the comments. Thanks for coming to Hanging today. I'll catch you in the next one. Sam.