What the best UK accountancy firm websites do differently
Seven things the strongest UK practice websites have in common, judged on whether they generate work rather than how they look, plus a five-minute audit for your own site.
In short
- Judge a practice website on whether it wins work, not on how it looks. Award-winning sites that generate nothing have failed.
- The highest-leverage change most firms could make is naming who they are for, above the fold. It costs nothing but a decision.
- Google\u2019s AI Overview explicitly names transparent pricing as a feature of good accountancy sites.
- Credentials belong directly under the hero, not in the footer, and sector bodies outweigh general ones for specialists.
- Almost no practice website is written so an AI can quote it, which is why AI answers cite software vendors and training bodies instead.
On this page
How we judged these
Not on how they look. A website that wins design awards and generates no enquiries has failed at its job. We looked at seven things that determine whether a practice website actually works, and we checked them against what Google's own AI Overview says a good accountancy site contains, which is a usefully objective standard.
- Is the specialism visible in five seconds?
- Is there a price, or any indication of one?
- Are the people real, with names and credentials?
- Is there third-party proof near the top?
- Is the client portal easy to find?
- Is there a tool, calculator or resource worth returning for?
- Could an AI assistant quote this page?
1. Say who you are for, above the fold
The strongest practice sites answer one question immediately: is this firm for a business like mine? "Chartered accountants and business advisers" does not answer it. "Accountants for construction contractors across south London" does.
This is the single highest-leverage change most practices could make, and it costs nothing but a decision. The demand data supports it plainly: accountants for contractors gets 590 UK searches a month at a £67.64 cost per click, accountants for ecommerce gets 720 at £25.92, and accountants for dentists gets 720 at £24.41. Every one of those searchers is looking for a specialist and will scroll past a generalist.
2. Put credentials directly under the hero
The best UK practice sites place their ICAEW, ACCA or sector body badges immediately below the headline rather than in the footer. Xero Platinum, AISMA, NASDAL and CIOT all do more work in the first screen than they do at the bottom of the page where most firms bury them.
For sector specialists this matters more than the general credential. A dentist recognises NASDAL and will weight it above ICAEW, because it tells them something specific.
3. Publish something about price
Google's AI Overview explicitly names transparent pricing as a feature of good accountancy websites, which is a strong hint about what users are looking for. It does not have to be a full price list. A band, a "from" figure, a fee calculator or a worked example all do the job.
The objection is always that pricing varies. It does, and a range communicates that honestly while still letting someone rule themselves in or out. A firm that says nothing forces every enquiry into a discovery call, which is expensive for you and off-putting for them.
4. Use real photographs of real people
Stock photography of a diverse team pointing at a laptop is instantly recognisable and quietly corrosive. Accountancy is a trust purchase. A slightly imperfect photograph of your actual team, with names and qualifications, outperforms a polished stock image every time.
If photography is genuinely not possible, an illustrated or typographic approach is far better than stock. Nothing beats real faces, but honest absence beats fake presence.
5. Build a tool, not just pages
The best practice sites give a visitor a reason to return before they are ready to buy. A tax calculator, an IR35 status checker, an incorporation comparison, a dividend calculator. These earn links, get shared, and hand you an enquiry from someone who has already engaged with the problem.
Ken Bell Accounting in the West Midlands, for example, runs a UK tax calculator directly on the site. It is a simple idea and most firms have not done it.
6. Make the client portal obvious
Existing clients are a large share of your traffic and they are all looking for one thing. A prominent Client Login in the header, ideally on your own subdomain with your branding, removes a steady stream of support emails and makes the firm look considerably more modern than a site that hides it.
TaxDome, Karbon and IRIS OpenSpace all support custom branding and subdomains. Most firms never set it up.
7. Write so an AI can quote you
This is the newest criterion and the one almost nobody has addressed. On many accountancy searches, Google's AI Overview now sits above every organic result and names a shortlist of firms. When we checked which sources it drew on for accountancy queries, the pattern was consistent: software vendors like Xero and TaxDome, training bodies like Mercia and 2020 Innovation, and long list-format guides.
Accountancy firms themselves barely appeared. Not because their expertise is worse, but because their websites are written as brochures and a model cannot quote a brochure. It can quote "the VAT registration threshold is £90,000 as at September 2026". It cannot do anything with "we pride ourselves on a personal service".
The five-minute audit
Open your own site and answer these honestly.
- Can a stranger tell in five seconds which businesses you serve?
- Is there any indication of price anywhere?
- Are there real photographs of the actual team?
- Is the client login visible without scrolling?
- Is there one thing on the site worth returning for?
- Does any page open with a direct answer rather than three paragraphs of preamble?
Most practices score two or three. Fixing the first and the last two is usually a copy job rather than a rebuild, and it is where we would start.
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