Hi,

Firstly my original post was removed by admin, i have spoken to them and it is was because it looked like spam, well it wasnt im just not very good at this sort of thing. hopefully this one won't be removed.

Well i am here because i need some advice on employing a company to create and manage my accountants firm website. I need a company for specilise in websites for accountants. I have done a bit reaserch and have spoken to this company webwatch they are currently in the process of drawing me up a quote for a lite website. So far i have only contacted them because they are relevtivly close to where we are based.

My questions are, how can i , sort of test them to see if they are any good or not? They're websites seems nice and is validated by W3C they also seemed pretty professional on the phone too! but i know there are cowboys out there so i am tready carefully. My accountancy firm is not yet know "online" so SEO will be an important factor of our name and brand being spread over the web. How can i test their knowledge on SEO? I don't wants website designed that Google will regard as not releavent because i willbe stuffed. My budget is around £2000, although i would prefer an on going monthly agreement.

Thanks for your help , Craig D

Hey Craig

I've also been tossing around ideas on how I might get a website done.

I looked at some cheap freebie types where you can do it yourself (my budget will be less than yours!) but I really don't want to waste my time learning something different which I won't use much and probably make a mess of anyway!

One I've been looking at a bit is the Accountant Websmiths which also specialise in Accountant sites.  I'm mostly just concerned that a lot of the websites around for accountants (though I will do bookkeeping) all look much the same, nice but a bit cold and impersonal.  I'd wanna have a site that says ME!

Also I've looked at a few and there's so much duplicate stuff with "Our Philosophy", tax calculators and budget news.  It's pretty boring and I don't know how much clients even care. Why would a client need a tax calculator?

At the moment the best option for me seems to be just a general web developer.  I don't know much about SEO or why W3C might be important as I mostly want something that says something more unique. Prices seem a bit high and monthly would be easier on my pocket!

To give you another option to look at, http://www.yourfirmonline.co.uk/ do websites for accountants.  I have no experience of using them, but you can look at some of the demo sites that they have done, to see if you like the look of them.