Opinions on my new site - The Book-keepers Forum (UK)

kjmcculloch · Guru

Opinions on my new site

Alison · Senior Member

Hi

Would say colour scheme and presentation of the website is good.

Possibly would say the services section could benefit with more detail. This is because some clients who do not have a bookkeeping background may not know what is involved with the various aspects of bookkeeping and if you explain each one on your website they will have a better understanding of what you have to offer.

Did you do your website yourself?

I am lucky my husband did mine for me, he graduated in computing and works in IT firm so got mine done for free

http://www.rjoneswm.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/bbs/index.html

Alison

Mary · Veteran Member

Hi

I agree with Alison that you could beef up the services page, but other than that your site looks very good.

________________
Mary

kjmcculloch · Guru

Thanks for that. I'll have a look at the services page.

Alison, in reply to you yes, I did it myself. In a past life I did a bit of web design for small businesses (I may combine the two at a later date). Tried the link you posted and got an error 404.

Kris

Terri · Senior Member

Kris

I thought that your website looked fantastic and there wasn't too much information.

The only one thing that I stood out for me and it is only a tiny thing, is that nowhere on the website did I see a contact name and I think that it made the website feel a little impersonal. If I am looking at a website and want to contact the company for further details, I like to see a name of the person that I will be speaking with and if there isn't a named contact, then I would think that maybe I would be calling a call centre and that may put me off a bit.

That is only my opinion but other than that I think that you did a great job

Terri

kjmcculloch · Guru

Thanks Terri,

That's something I'll look at too.

BobHarper · Guru

Kris, Alison & Terri - do you expect to win clients finding you on using Internet searches?

kjmcculloch · Guru

Bob, are you suggesting that this is not possible?

This is one of many streams for generating clients.

Is your site sucessful in gaining clients?

-- Edited by kjmcculloch on Sunday 23rd of August 2009 09:35:27 PM

BobHarper · Guru

Kris - it is possible and the best way is doing SEO because it's free and we esitmate 5% to 15% of new clients will come this way. I've had a look at your site and can't see you doing SEO...are you?

kjmcculloch · Guru

Bob,

Our website is intended to provide further information on us and our services. We understand that not everyone wants to make that phone call to find out more about you.

Our website provides that and allows a form to be submitted allowing us to make the phone call.

We are developing our marketing plan with the website as a part of that. The site is optimised for our specific keywords and we have engaged a google adwords campaign concentrating on these specific keywords.

We started this on Wednesday and are noticing a rise in the traffic to our site through other sites and organic google searches.

As I said our website makes up a small part of our overall marketing strategy, and in terms of our costs to returns ratio it's looking good for a 2 week old site.

-- Edited by kjmcculloch on Sunday 23rd of August 2009 11:00:17 PM

Alison · Senior Member

If I search bookkeeping Bingley the town I am in after the people who have paid for being on top of google mine is the first after that, I do not pay anything to google as I know how to get up high on google anyway.

Even if bookkeepers don't get new clients directly from the website it is a great marketing tool, if you get a list of new businesses in your area and write to them promoting yourselves and other bookkeepers do this also who don't have a website they are more likely to go with the bookkeeper with website because they can look at website and gain further information about you then someone who just writes to them with a contact number or email address.

Admittedly my website does need some updating but has been put on a backburner for a while as started 3 other parts of our business recently which are more important to promote first as bookkeeping side already very established as started in August 2006.

Alison

Terri · Senior Member

I use my website mainly so that people can see the address via advertising and then use the website to see more information or to contact me. I am looking at using google words within the next few weeks as well on a trial basis to see how that goes.

Terri

BobHarper · Guru

Terri - online and offline work well together and Google AdWords is great but over 70% of people will not click on sponsored links!

Alison - have you heard of the hedgehog principle. Do one thing exceptionally well and you won't need to develop business processes for multiple service lines.

Kris - interesting.