Four months of the year you are drowning in deadline-driven tax returns from people comparing prices. The other eight, the advisory and CAS relationships worth many times more per client are the ones nobody can find. Most firm websites are built entirely for the first job, which is the one you would most like to do less of.
Website design for US CPA firms, accountants, and bookkeepers. Built for the season and for the relationship.
Traffic and enquiries concentrate hard into the filing season, and a site tuned only for that spends two-thirds of the year saying nothing to anyone. The off-season is when advisory relationships are actually chosen.
A site that leads with tax preparation invites a price comparison against software and storefront preparers — a contest you cannot win and should not enter. What you lead with decides which conversation you get.
CAS, fractional CFO, and planning work carry the margin and the retention, yet usually appear as two more bullets between bookkeeping and payroll. Nothing on the page explains why they are a different kind of engagement.
Clients hand over Social Security numbers and full financial records. Firms are subject to the FTC Safeguards Rule and IRS data-protection guidance, but almost no firm site says a word about how any of it is handled.
The single worst experience in the whole relationship, repeated every year, is chasing clients for documents over email — which is also the least secure route available. It belongs on the site as a real portal flow.
Most people cannot distinguish a CPA from an EA from a bookkeeper, and the IRS publishes guidance precisely because the distinction is unclear. Firms list the letters without ever explaining what they buy the client.
Structured so the filing season converts efficiently and the advisory relationship has somewhere to be sold the rest of the year.
A fast, transactional path for deadline-driven tax work and a separate considered path for advisory engagements, instead of one list serving neither.
The higher-value services given real pages that explain what the engagement is, who it suits, and why it is not priced like a return.
The site changes with the calendar — deadlines and intake cut-offs in season, planning and advisory content out of it, without a rebuild each year.
How client data is protected, stated plainly and aligned to your Safeguards Rule obligations, because clients are about to hand over everything.
Document collection and secure exchange wired into your existing portal, so the worst part of the annual relationship stops running on email.
CPA, EA, and specialisations translated into what they mean for the client — representation rights, standards, and scope — not just letters after a name.
Where you concentrate — construction, medical practices, real estate, nonprofits — given its own page, since that is what specialised buyers search for.
What happens after they enquire and how you charge, stated early enough to filter out the price shoppers before they reach a partner.
This is the structural tension in every accounting firm site, and most firms resolve it by accident in favour of the less profitable half.
Someone looking for tax preparation in March wants speed, price, availability, and a way to hand over documents today. Someone considering a fractional CFO or an advisory retainer wants evidence of judgement, sector familiarity, and a sense of what a working relationship feels like — and they are looking in September, not March. Those are different pages, different lengths, different tones, and different calls to action. Merged into one services list, the urgent, cheaper work wins the layout because it shouts louder, and the advisory business stays invisible.
So we build them as two tracks that share a firm rather than one page trying to be both. The season stays efficient, and the advisory work finally has somewhere to be sold.
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The seasonality, and the fact that the firm sells two very different products. Filing-season tax work is urgent, price-sensitive, and compressed into a few months; advisory and CAS work is considered, relationship-led, and far more valuable per client. A single services list serves the first well and the second not at all.
By not leading with the service that invites the comparison. When the first thing on the page is tax preparation, you are entered into a price contest against software and storefront preparers. Leading with the problems you solve and the clients you specialise in changes which enquiries arrive, which is a positioning decision the design then follows.
Usually a starting range rather than a full schedule. Silence guarantees that price is the first question on every call, including from people who were never going to fit. A stated minimum or a typical range filters those out before a partner spends an hour on them, and clients read it as confidence rather than as a quote.
More than nothing, which is what most say now. Firms handling taxpayer data fall under the FTC Safeguards Rule and IRS guidance on protecting client information, and clients are about to hand over their entire financial life. A plain statement of how documents are exchanged and protected removes a real hesitation — as long as it is accurate.
Yes, and it is usually the highest-impact piece. Most firms already pay for a portal and then collect documents by email anyway because the portal is buried. Bringing that flow onto the site, with clear instructions for the least technical client you have, cuts the chasing that consumes the season.
If you genuinely specialise, yes. A contractor looking for an accountant who understands retainage and job costing searches for exactly that, and a general services page cannot answer it. Only build the ones that are real — an industry page for a sector you have two clients in reads as thin to both readers and search engines.
Quoted per project after a scoping call. A solo practitioner and a multi-partner firm with several specialisations, a portal integration, and separate advisory positioning are different builds. You get a written scope and a figure before anything starts.
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