Focus Article- Janet Berry-Johnson and Jacqueline Harnevious

How to Make Your Website a Lead Generating Machine

Your website can be a lead generating machine for your accounting firm.

But a website that is confusing, doesn’t include effective calls to action, is missing strong content or lacks effective SEO is unlikely to convey a firm’s strengths to interested prospects.

Typical markers for website success are traffic and year-over-year growth, but high numbers don’t always reveal meaningful traffic or even quality leads. To ensure a firm’s website drives leads that impact the bottom line, make sure it follows these four guidelines.

Streamlined User Interface

When Karen Deaton started her role as marketing and business development manager at Hayashi Wayland, she noticed several pages of the firm’s website were getting little to no traffic.

Working with Team of Horses for their website redesign, Deaton made changes that had a significant impact.

“We streamlined our services and industries pages way down and made sure the site was mobile responsive so visitors can access the website quickly to find what they need,” Deaton said. Hayashi Wayland now gets five to seven qualified leads from the website each week.

Another way to ensure buyers can find what they’re looking for is to create paths that guide visitors to the information they want. For example, when a prospect visits your website to learn more about your firm’s business advisory services, their experience should be different from someone interested in wealth management.

“People are easily confused, so your website should help them out a little bit,” said Lee Frederiksen, managing partner at Hinge Marketing.

If you’re unsure whether your website’s user interface is in good shape, Scott Dine, partner and technical director for Catalyst Group, recommends a website audit, which can help you see how your site ranks for speed, how the code functions and whether there are any errors on the pages.

“A website audit helps you take a step back to see where users are getting hung up, causing them to leave,” Dine said.

He recommends tools such as Lucky Orange or Crazy Egg, which offer session recordings, heatmaps and other features to see where visitors get stuck so you know where to make changes.

Automation Tools

Many accounting firms have lead generating offers on their websites, such as whitepapers, checklists or templates that provide value to visitors in exchange for their contact information. Having a process for following up on the leads is just as important as a valuable offer.

Firms with multiple service lines targeting various industries may have difficulty keeping up on that followthrough manually, but automation can help.

“Each service line should have an automated email campaign,” said Jon Hubbard, shareholder and consultant at Boomer Consulting. “Set up your campaigns so when someone downloads a resource or completes a form, they receive a series of automated emails over the next five to seven weeks reinforcing the value of those services. Email automation has gone from really progressive to something a firm just has to have.”

Both Dine and Frederiksen recommend artificial intelligence-powered chat as an effective yet often-overlooked website element. Dine specifically recommends LiveChat, which can be programmed to pre-qualify leads.

The Right CTA

A website’s call to action (CTA) must be clear and direct.

“One of my missions is to rid the words ‘Contact Us’ from a website as the main CTA,” Hubbard said. “What does it mean? It’s very vague. Using a more direct CTA like ‘Schedule a Discovery Call’ and repeating it three or four times per page will increase the likelihood of it being clicked.”

A website audit can also reveal where users get confused by a website’s CTAs. For example, is the data showing they’re clicking the button and not filling out the form? Or are visitors not even clicking the button?

Positioning the right CTA in the right place is also essential.

“People try to get website visitors to ‘reach out’ everywhere. But it’s more effective to have your offer linked to where they are,” Frederiksen said.

In other words, make sure your CTA is linked to a relevant action based on where your visitor is in their buying journey. For example, suppose the visitor is on the homepage or reading a blog post. In that case, a transitional CTA, such as an invitation to read another blog or download a resource, is more effective than a direct CTA asking them to make an appointment.

SEO Best Practices

A website’s success and whether implemented strategies are working can be found within data analytics.

“Search engines prioritize user experience, especially mobile-first,” Frederiksen said. “When search engines indexed sites according to how well the site performs on mobile, that caught a lot of people off-guard.”

Search engines are also more focused on video, imagery and zero-click searches, where Google serves up the answers to questions without people having to click through to the website. This shapes the type of content firms need to have on their website.

“If you’re just starting out in your SEO program, it may not be realistic to only measure leads as a sign of success,” said Brian Swanson of Flashpoint Marketing.

If a firm is new to implementing SEO, a sign they’re on the right track is when Google Analytics shows an increase in organic search. Other positive signs are increased pageviews and the number of pages a user looks at per session. If they’re quality users (i.e., your target audience), they’re looking at more of your content and spending longer on your site, so you’re seeing time on site increase.

When it comes to getting buyers on your site, custom content and showcasing your firm’s expertise with consistency should be a priority, with the next step being on-page SEO. Think about the keywords you’re trying to rank for and ensure your editorial content calendar aligns with your SEO strategy. When you get your content and SEO in alignment, you’ll start to see the needle move on analytics. From there, look at your backlinking strategy. Who is linking to you? Are they linking to the right page?

From the end user’s perspective, education is the primary function of a website. This is why Swanson said it’s not enough to post staff bios and descriptions of your services.

Once you’ve put effort into your SEO program for about a year, Swanson said to expect two to 10 actionable leads a month, depending on various factors. You’ll know your efforts are working when you see an increase in inquiries from the type and size of prospects you want to work with.

Key Takeaway

Creating a successful website that brings in business for a professional services firm won’t happen just because a firm used a bundle of tools or the latest technology. A website is hardly complete once it launches. It’s an evolving growth machine that requires consistent execution of multiple strategies and followthrough.

With changes in technology and search engine algorithms, the strategy you use to attract buyers to your site and get them into your sales funnel must evolve continually.

Janet Berry-Johnson, CPA. Contact at janet@contantandcraft.co.

Jacqueline Harnevious, marketing manager, Windham Brannon. Contact at jsharnevious@windhambrannon.com