How to Refresh Your Firm’s Website for Tax Season

Kickstart a successful tax season by refreshing your firm’s website. By giving your site some extra T.L.C. (that’s tender loving care), you may find positive results for your firm.

Refresh Your Website to Reap These Benefits (and More!)

• Prospect confidence: Have you been to a website that has out-of-date information? Do you wonder if they’re still in business? If your website has content that is several years old, prospects may wonder if your firm is current and relevant.
• Current customer confidence: In order for your clients to feel prepared and confident for their upcoming tax appointment, keep your website fresh. Clients will rely on your website to find your location, fees and other important information.
• Improved Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Content that is updated more frequently is often ranked higher on Google. Google’s search algorithm crawls for content that is newer because the information is often more relevant and timely. Adding new content regularly helps contribute to a higher ranking. Learn more helpful SEO tips from our Intuit® ProConnect™ Tax Pro Center article “Improving the Online Presence of Your Tax Practice.”

What Updates Should You Make to Your Website Each Year?

Refreshing your website isn’t a one-and-done activity. In fact, you should update it regularly, but if that’s not feasible, then plan to do it annually. Here’s what you should update:

1. Company information: Pricing, location, staff and other critical information should be adjusted as changes happen, and it’s important to audit your site at least annually for accuracy. This is also a good time to do a check for broken links; consider using the “Check My Links” Chrome browser extension for checking all of the links on each page.
2. Multimedia: Give your site a quick and simple makeover with some refreshed graphics and video. Prioritize your homepage and highest trafficked pages first.
3. Relevant tax information: If you provide content for your clients, ensure it’s the most relevant, up-to-date information to ensure customer confidence. If your website contains content such as blog posts, be sure your most recent post isn’t several years old and your content is still accurate.
4. Dates: Update the copyright date in your footer. Although this seems like a small detail, prospects may see an out-of-date copyright date as a red flag. Also, check for other dates that may be out of date.
5. Improvements and additions: If you have Google Analytics or another data capturing tool, consider looking at your most successful pages to determine which ones might need optimizing. Ask your clients how their experience was on your website in order to make decisions on additional improvements.

These are only a few considerations to refresh your firm’s website. I hope they will be helpful to give you a head start to a successful tax season!

Editor’s note: Need help launching your firm’s website? Learn best practices with Becca Decker’s article “5 Steps to Building Your Firm’s Website.”