Most of my clients find me through networking, recommendation and word of mouth. For a long time the website played almost no part in that: it was four pages, and it said very little about who we are or what we do. When I decided to change that, I asked MyDiro Digital, a web studio here in Staffordshire, to build it properly. I’m pleased with what they did, and I’d like to explain it, because the way a website is put together says something about the business behind it.
It began with my answers, not a design
Before anyone talked about colours, MyDiro sent me a long questionnaire about the practice: what people ring me to ask, what worries them about changing accountant, the mistakes I see most often, and the words clients actually use. Plenty of people call Making Tax Digital “that new tax thing”, and hardly anyone says payroll when they mean doing the wages.
Those answers shaped the site. The questions people ask before working with us are answered on the home page and on the service pages, in plain English, and the people you’ll speak to are named and pictured.
Research decided which pages exist
Before a page was planned, MyDiro measured 262 search phrases using Google’s own advertising data, to see what people actually type when they need an accountant. That decided the shape of the site: a page for each service I offer, a page for each kind of client I mainly work with, from sole traders and limited companies to CIS subcontractors, landlords and start-ups, and pages for the six towns around Uttoxeter where I support businesses.
It also decided what wasn’t built. Pages for dentists, charities, taxi drivers and farmers were measured and left out, because those aren’t clients I have. Each town page says plainly that our office is in Uttoxeter and explains how we work with businesses there, rather than suggesting an office we don’t have.
Getting the detail right
In my line of work, accuracy is the job, so I expected the same of my website. I’m an AAT licensed member, not a chartered accountant, and the site says exactly that, with my licence number published for anyone who wants to check it.
The guides are written under my name, checked against HMRC guidance, dated, and linked to the official sources so you can read the detail for yourself. The Making Tax Digital guide includes a short check that compares a year’s income with the published threshold and shows the start date that goes with it.
Nothing about me, my team or the practice goes on the site until I’ve approved it. When I decided not to publish a price list, MyDiro didn’t invent one: the fees page explains how a fee is agreed instead.
Private by design
An accountant’s website should be careful with people’s information, and this one is. It sets no cookies and runs no advertising or third-party tracking, so there is no cookie banner to click through. The fonts, photographs and office video load from the site itself rather than from other companies’ servers.
Visits are counted without identifying anyone, and if your browser asks not to be tracked, nothing is counted at all. The enquiry form asks you not to include passwords, bank details or tax reference numbers, and our privacy policy describes what the site actually collects.
Quick and readable on any screen
On the old site, the main picture could take around thirty seconds to appear on a phone. This one was built with phones in mind from the start and tested against Google’s own measures of speed and accessibility. Every pairing of text and background colour was measured in a browser against the accessibility standard, so the pages stay easy to read.
More than a website
MyDiro also built the private workspace my team and I use day to day. Website enquiries arrive there as well as in my inbox, with the page they came from. Companies House dates are pulled in from the public register, so deadlines don’t live on a spreadsheet. Clients I invite have their own secure portal to collect documents and approve accounts, and the reviews and Instagram posts shown on this website are ones I choose there.
Checked every time it changes
Each time the site is updated, it is rebuilt from scratch and checked before it is published. Working notes are stripped out, the links, headings and business details that search engines read are checked, every file a page asks for has to exist, and automatic design and readability checks run over the finished pages. If any check fails, the update stops until it’s put right.
Looked after, and still ours
The website is hosted and maintained as part of MyDiro’s service, and they look after my Google Business Profile and directory listings alongside it, with a plain-English report on how things are going. The domain is registered in my name, as it always has been, and our Microsoft 365 email was left completely alone. That matters to me: the website belongs to the practice.
Thank you
I wanted a website that sounded like us and did the practice justice, and that’s what I have. Thank you to Richard Hackney at MyDiro Digital. If you run a small business in Staffordshire and want a website built with the same care, I’m happy to recommend them.
Gayle Gardner-Shaw MAAT, GS Associates Accounting & Bookkeeping, Uttoxeter
