An unsophisticated appearance can express the wrong image to potential clients wanting dependable financial advice.

Accounting firms mirror any businesses in that they must entice new customers as well as hold onto old ones. To achieve that, your optimal tool is an enticing, thoughtful website that clients find helpful again and again.

Professional firms must walk the line in their marketing. They cannot be overly flashy, but they can't be dull either. If you're providing valuable content to your clients with online articles and targeted emails, you will attract clients.  And you will keep them because they appreciate your responsible guidance.

Accountants with the best online presences constantly update their sites with breaking information.  For example, tax and regulatory changes that affect their clientele. Show that you're looking towards the future.  Or as Charlie Sheen says, "I'm more interested in what I can do next than what I did last."

Don't shine your light under a bushel. Let less confident firms hide their expertise.

Your CPA website should be full of up-to-date techniques to assist clients. An advanced trick that consumers are coming to expect is an online calculator below each tip so that they can explore financial benefits based on your advice.

To be dignified is not to be cowardly, but to show your strength as a smart defender of your client. Great CPA websites project loyalty to clients, and confidence in yourself--"you're either in my corner, or you're with the trolls" (Charlie Sheen).

Effective CPA websites should be personable and very open to communication. Want to encourage contact and trust?  List contact information for all your professional staff on your website.

Offering free consultations to your new clients is a wonderful way to start a relationship. That signals to the client that you've got their back.

Have you considered a blog?  It can build community among your consumer base and demonstrate your knowledge in a very positive way.

Follow these tips and you'll be amazed. Online inbound marketing campaigns leading with professionally designed CPA websites are more powerful and more economical than traditional advertising.

Making an impression on people who come to you, rather than sending out a message to millions of people who aren't interested, is a lot smarter, and a much easier way to build loyalty.

Traditional marketing, which too regularly relies on hard-sell, often convinces your potential clients to run away as fast as they can. On your website, you can simply show your credibility.  You'll be following what Charlie Sheen does (or at least claims he tries to!), and "be known more for your work than for anything else."

Brian O'Connell is the owner and founder of CPA Site Solutions, one of the country's largest firms oriented entirely to designinghigh-quality CPA websites. His firm currently provides websites for more than 4000 CPA, accounting, and tax preparation firms.
http://www.websites4accountants.com/