UK Accounting firm Website

[Indigosa]

Hello everyone and thank you in advance for any assistance that you can provide. I have a website that was written for me but is to my own design and content. I am however an accountant not a salesman and I have doubts about the positioning and the style of the buying page (Instant Quotation Page) This is supposed to be a high volume low cost on line service so automating the initial sales enquiry is important.

 

www.indigo-self-assessment.co.uk

 

If anyone has any advice on how to better direct potential clients to the quote page it would be much appreciated, any general comments would also be welcome, be savage I have broad shoulders...

 

Thanks

 

Phil

[Sogo7]

Well it appears clean and functional, though dubious about the inclusion of a blog however such things are useful for Search Engine Optomisation so will pass on that. Testamonials from existing clients and link exchanges with any websites they have is also worth exploring as are the number of forums where self the self employed gather seeking the benefits of picking somebody elses brains as they may find yours particualry tasty.

 

[Indigosa]

Thanks for that, why would you not have a blog on the site? do you tink this should be seperate and have its own domain?

[Sogo7]

well... based upon the premise

 

Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. - source wikipedia

 

You have to ask the question: Is a client who is paying for a service likely to be interested in the finer points of accountancy and taxation law or

reading about how good/bad your life/business is going at a given point in time? Put more simply.. If I order something online am I ever going to want to read the delivery drivers blog?

 

Informative articles however that are relevent to your existing and prospective clients needs are a good thing, after all a good accountant  justifies the size of thier fee in porportion to the money that they can save the client.  With this in mind I noticed the newsletter sign up and think you are missing a trick here, do you put the old ones online a month or so after members/signups have had a chance to read them first ? Seems a shame to waste what is probably good content by not sharing it.

 

 

 

 

[Indigosa]

Good points, especially about the newsletter, thank you for takinmg the time to look at this. I have commenced the transfer of the blog to its own domain and will put historic newletters in the resources section.

 

Once again Thank you

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Axeia]

Headings are used properly which is nice to see, some other things could use improvement though.

 

http://www.indigo-self-assessment.co.uk/Who-completes-a-tax-return.html alt="book_image", if the image doesn't convey information but is just there for decoration leave the alt tag blank.

 

http://www.indigo-self-assessment.co.uk/Instant-Quote.html The form relies on javascript, you should never rely on javascript if it can be avoided, poses accesibility problems. Moving the javascript to an external file would also be a good idea.

Another thing I noticed is that this form lacks labels, if you something like the code below most browsers will make a click on the label select the radiobutton in it.

<label><input type="radio">Yes</label>

On the refer a friend page you did use labels for the text inputs, but not in a way that makes sense. You have:

<tr>
    <td height="40" bgcolor="#9F7DCE" class="Quotation" style="padding:2px 6px 2px 6px;">Please provide your Name</td>
    <td valign="middle" bgcolor="#D5D5D5" align="center"><label>
      <input type="text" id="name" name="name">
    </label></td>
  </tr>

While it should be:

<tr>
    <td height="40" bgcolor="#9F7DCE" class="Quotation" style="padding:2px 6px 2px 6px;"><label for="name">Please provide your Name</label></td>
    <td valign="middle" bgcolor="#D5D5D5" align="center">
      <input type="text" id="name" name="name">
     </td>
  </tr>

These tables are pretty bad btw, tons of bgcolor tags and inline styling.. you oughta move that to a stylesheet and redo these tables by hand as the code seems to be spit out by some program that isn't doing a very good job at it.

 

http://www.indigo-self-assessment.co.uk/Our-Process.html

You really should use a ordered list here instead of divs, divs don't mean anything while a list means there is a relation. Since there is a order to things it makes sense to use an ordered list.

 

I guess the captcha on the contact page is a placeholder? Static link and no text on it.

[Indigosa]

Wow!!

 

Food for thought, thank you for that I will work my way through it.

[QuickOldCar]

A blog is only a blog if you use it as a blog.

 

I feel if you use it as a cms for information and latest news, then it's now that.

 

If anything I'd just rename the blog to tips, current events, latest news, information, so on