Web design is probably the most vital ingredient of your practice’s online presence. We normally spend oodles of time talking about content, and content indeed remains “king”, but now we’re going to change things up a bit. There are some fundamental components of web design that often get ignored to make room for content issues. Designing good quality websites for accountants goes well past only content issues. If a website’s basic elements are not properly in place the quality of your content just won’t matter. Elements like aesthetics and organization are hugely important. Let’s take a look at three website fundamentals that need to be implemented into a successful basic design.

Take It Easy: Pictures and animations have their place, but you don’t want to use them just for the sake of using them. If images tell a relevant story, or if they show your connection to the local community or illustrate your relationship to accounting or taxation then you may want to consider putting a few static images or a slowly rotating slide show on your home page. This connection is one of the keys to building websites for accountants. If you can connect with prospects on a personal or emotional level you’ll have a much easier time converting them into clients.

This “less is more” sensibility is pretty much a universal rule in design. The same rules apply to your copy. Here’s a good rule of thumb: If it doesn’t actually HAVE to be there, it probably doesn’t belong on the page. Keep the pages neat and easy to read. Avoid clutter. It will overwhelm visitors to your site and will be a turn-off, potentially causing them to click away. Put your major key points (even use bullet points) on your page, and then create hyper-links if you want the user to be able to read more. Give viewers an introduction to your practice and distinguish yourself from other accountants, but don’t clutter your pages with content. Nobody wants to read a web page that looks like a college text book, and the attention span of a website reader is even shorter than the attention span of someone reading a newspaper or magazine.

Keep It Organized: You’ll want to take a good look at your website’s navigation to ensure that you have a user-friendly website. Personally I’m a big fan of horizontal drop down menus, but vertical menus with dropdown sub pages are great, too. Horizontal menus are a little harder to use because the width of the browser limits the number of first tier menu items you can have, but people are already accustomed to them and find them easy to use. Start out with your main topics as your top-level navigation. From there you can create your sub-links, specific pages that are logical extensions of the top tier item. You can even create a third tier if necessary. Three tiers is about the limit. If you make visitors drive down any further they’ll likely get lost and frustrated with your navigation menu.

If you order your content in a logical manner that’s easy to use you have a higher likelihood of keeping potential clients on your site. Your website can even help you cross-sell your services. By keeping everything neatly organized and easy to find you increase the probability of a client finding a service he or she might need, perhaps even something that will help you generate some billable hours off-season.

Make Yourself Easy to Find: Once a prospect decides to get in touch with you they shouldn’t have to search your site for a phone number. Well designed websites for accountants make it easy for a visitor to find your contact information. The bottom of a web page is called a footer. Grace the footer of every page on your site with your firm name, address, phone number, and email address.

You might also want to put your phone number in the website’s header. You’ll also want an easy to find “Contact Us” page. This page should have all your contact information, a map, and dynamic driving directions.

Designing first-rate websites for accountants is a distinctive craft, but in these three respects it’s very much like designing any business site. They have to engage prospects and keep them interested. These basic design principles will help ensure that your visitors like their experiences on your site. Simultaneously it will also expose prospective clients to your brand and position you as the experts to turn to if they have tax or business questions.