Inbound lead generation - procuring potential clients by way of a website - is as vital in CPA firms as for any other businesses. Therefore websites for accountants should be carefully designed and managed to do an excellent job of pulling in potential clients. Here are five steps that allow websites for accountants to increase fresh clients for your accounting business.

Make Sure Websites for Accountants Are Simply Designed

A well-designed website is very important in inbound lead generation. The website must be simple to navigate so visitors can easily locate the necessary information.

When procuring the services of a designer, ask to see all his or her designs. Definitely do NOT sign an agreement with the designer unless you're able to view his or her complete portfolio.

Remember that if your site displays interesting and compelling content, readers will be far more likely to sign up for your newsletter. Use a series of contact tools including a simple web form to enable your visitors to receive your newsletter by email. Make the registration simple; request only the subscriber's name and email, and nothing more.

The Best Websites for Accountants Are Loaded with Content

Your website should contain a large amount of useful content. Incidentally, it's important that the servers CPAs use for their websites for accountants have enough capacity to house many hundreds of pages of web content.

And don't forget to arrange your content in a meaningful and intuitive way so readers can easily jump from topic to topic.

Refresh your content on a regular basis. Offer an alert function so that visitors can tell you what sort of information update they would like. In this way, the subscriber has more buy-in to your site.

Allow Your Readers to Steal Your Web Tools

Some tools - like financial calculators - should be free to all visitors. This will increase your inbound lead generation and also enables you to net new clients who find your services superior.

Take a look at the tools you ought to provide:

• Newsletter sent by email

• Access to news and alerts services

• Customizable tax planners

• Secure file transfer facilities for clients

There are lots of other tools you can offer of course. These are just a selection of my personal favorites. Others are weather reports, an investment ticker, white papers - anything that attracts your clientele. Use your imagination. You know your clients well enough to know what kinds of tools and resources they will want to use regularly.

Don't Ignore Online Marketing

When selecting a web designer, look for a professional who will be your webmaster, too. The reason for this is that a website must be a workhorse in addition to looking great.

In addition, hire a designer who has mastered the following:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

• SEM or Search Engine Marketing

• How to determine and position keywords

• Placement of anchor text

High-quality SEO and SEM boost your site over other websites for accountants in Google, Bing, and Yahoo. This is because SEO and SEM help search engines - Google, Yahoo, and Bing - determine how relevant your site is.

To decide on your site's relevancy, the search engines use keywords and links coming to your site from other sites, blogs, and forums. The better the incoming links and keywords, the more popular the search engines perceive your site to be, and the higher they place your website.

Given all this, it's important your web designer understands SEO and SEM and can use keywords and links to your advantage. Your web designer should make a list of the keywords that attract the most promising leads, as well as which pages to place them on and where on the page to position them. An investment in SEO and SEM will pay impressive dividends - in the form of new prospects - down the road.

Devise a List of Top Keywords and Keyphrases

When CPAs are finding keywords for their websites for accountants, they need to remember that their intended audience is broken down into different sources. Some visitors will be looking for tax help, some require business accounting, and some need a forensic accountant or medical biller. Also keep in mind local versus national clients, and adjust your keywords accordingly.

The type of keyword lists should be:

• Which services the accountant provides

• The geographic area they cover

• Their specialties: tax prep, payroll, QuickBooks, etc.

• Any tools they offer

It's important to know that you should place keywords not only on your home page, but on internal pages as well. And remember that too many keywords make a page difficult to read. Aim to add no more than 3 to 5 of a particular keyword per page.

The preceding 5 tricks will have a positive impact on online promotion for any and all websites for accountants. Stick with it - within a few months, you'll find your efforts have paid off with a fresh batch of fresh clients.