Answers · Tax preparers
Is a website worth it for tax preparers?
Almost always yes, because in tax preparers the customer comes back. A good one leaves you somewhere around $1,000 over two years, so the math runs against $1,000, with the $600 job as only the first slice of it.
Updated · By Esel Solutions editorial team
The math, with your numbers and not mine
$299 to build and publish your website. You see your homepage free first and pay only if you want it online. Domain and hosting are included for 3 months. Then $39 a month with maintenance and changes, or $69 a month with Google Business Profile and SEO. Your homepage arrives within 24 hours; publication follows approval and receipt of missing material.
$299 to build and publish your website. You see your homepage free first and pay only if you want it online. Domain and hosting are included for 3 months. Then $39 a month with maintenance and changes, or $69 a month with Google Business Profile and SEO. Your homepage arrives within 24 hours; publication follows approval and receipt of missing material.
Put your own number over mine. Charge less and the job count goes up; charge more and it goes down. It still clears either way, and that is the whole point of it being one-time.
What changes when they come back
In tax preparers a customer is not a one-time thing. They come back every year, and that is where the business is.
Counted that way, a good customer is worth around $1,000 over two years. That is 3 times the cost of the site, off one customer. Which is why in your trade the question is rarely whether it clears.
The expensive mistake is judging the site by the first job that comes in. The first job is the sample. The money is in the two years after it.
When the answer is no, and I mean it
You do not need to spend this if your book already fills the season and you cannot take more.
If that is you, a website fixes nothing, because being found is not your problem. Keep the money and come back when you want to grow, or when one of those steady accounts goes away.
We say this before taking your money, not after. Call us and if that turns out to be your situation, you will hear the same thing on the phone.
What actually makes the phone ring
A tax preparers site that works is one where you can see the price by return type and who signs as preparer without hunting for it.
The rest is decoration. With that in place the visitor calls. Without it they go to the next result, however good the design looks.
And watch the calendar
In tax preparers the year is not flat: January through April is the whole year.
Which means you want the site up before the season, not in the middle of it. Google takes a few weeks to give something new a place, and those weeks are better spent while the phone is quiet.
Why it did not pay off for some people
When somebody says they paid for a page and it did nothing, it nearly always had showing up only in January, when half your customers search in March. It went live, it looked fine, and it never did the one thing it was there for, which in tax preparers is getting people to ask you for a return.
The math cannot work out that way. What changes the outcome is the page carrying the price by return type and who signs as preparer where it shows, and that is not about spending more: with a return at $150 to $600, that placement is what decides whether it pays, not the budget.
doubts
What people usually ask
What if I already have Facebook or Instagram for my tax preparers business?
They help, but they are theirs and not yours, and they do not show up when someone searches Google ready to hire today. Most people end up with both: social for the work, a site so they get found and called.
Is there a monthly fee?
No. It is $299 once, hosting included. The only separate cost is the domain, about $12 a year, bought by you in your name.
What if I don't like it?
$299 to build and publish your website. You see your homepage free first and pay only if you want it online. Domain and hosting are included for 3 months. Then $39 a month with maintenance and changes, or $69 a month with Google Business Profile and SEO. Your homepage arrives within 24 hours; publication follows approval and receipt of missing material.