Golden Web Review

McKonly & Asbury

URL: www.macpas.com

Substance	7
Team competence & commitment	7
Differentiation	7
Reasons to return	6
TOTAL CONTENT SCORE (40 points possible)	27
Navigation & usability	7
Attractiveness	10
Personalization & personality	9
TOTAL APPEAL SCORE (30 points possible)	26
TOTAL INTERACTION SCORE (10 points possible)	10
OVERALL SCORE (80 possible)	63

Comments:

Attractive and creative, McKonly & Asbury rates well using our scoring system. This firm’s site is attractive, clean, and easy to navigate.

Industry pages offer strong content and the client photos and testimonials substantiate the copy. Photos of the clients are artistically done. You can see evidence that the firm is involved in their clients' key industries.

The bio page is a must see! Creativity here is nice and extremely different. The shadows are a really cool touch. Printable bios are also original. Definitely stands apart from what we usually see. One drawback in the bio section is that only partners and principals are included. A nice touch would be to add your whole group, or at least managers (we know firms are worried about recruiters pilfering their talent!)

A few things we thought could be better…

There's a lot of scrolling, even on the home page. Service content isn't quite as substantial or compelling as the industry content. Be aware of and try to avoid the “we and our” in each paragraph.

And paragraphs are rather long for Web writing. Breaking them up a bit makes the prospect of reading the text more inviting and it makes it easier to skim which is what Web readers do.

Downloads are easily accessible, but remember to warn of a PDF download (so many firms don't!).

Adding employee testimonials the same way client testimonials are done might be a neat touch in the career section. (And remember to use spell-check throughout).

Overall, this is a great, creative site. We refer people to this firm's site pretty often when they ask which sites we think are the best!

RubinBrown

URL: www.rubinbrown.com

Substance	7
Team competence & commitment	5
Differentiation	7
Reasons to return	4
TOTAL CONTENT SCORE (40 points possible)	23
Navigation & usability	8
Attractiveness	7
Personalization & personality	7
TOTAL APPEAL SCORE (30 points possible)	22
TOTAL INTERACTION SCORE (10 points possible)	5
OVERALL SCORE (80 possible)	50

NOTE: This site has undergone a major revision since our review.

Comments:

Time to review another Top 100 firm site! A Top 50, in fact. RubinBrown rebranded (formerly known as RBG) and launched this "new" site about a year ago in conjunctin with the rebranding.

We are immediately struck with the unique color scheme. It's about as different as it could be from the red/white/black of the former brand. Though the brown makes sense given the firm's name, and it does stand apart from the rest, the brown/blue/white just seems a little odd for this dynamic firm.

We actually don't have consensus here at Golden Marketing about the site's colorscheme. Two detest the colors and one doesn't mind them so much.

Moving past the colors, but still on the homepage, a couple other things catch our attention. First, the use of the logo in their flash-based scenes is creative, but seems to run a little fast. Maybe it's the little sliding dash-y thing that's going too fast. Hard to tell. But the bottom line is that it distracts from our ability to read what's on the homepage!

Secondly, the text blurb (white on blue) to the right of the flashy thing contains same-'ol, same-ol' text that results in poor use of prime homepage real estate. The text reads...

Since 1952, our specialized services have been making a unique and lasting mark on the financial future of clients in a variety of industries. Our specialized knowledge and our commitment to a philosophy of unmatched client service is how we provide superior value to our clients. And it’s how RubinBrown has become one of the most valued and respected names in our profession.

That's 2 "specializeds," a "commitment," a "philosophy," and an "unmatched." None of this is substantiated in the paragraph, anyway, so how about just cutting all the middle stuff out to simply state something more easily digestable, and hopefully more memorable:

Since 1952, RubinBrown remains one of the most valued and respected names in our profession.

Oh no! The second most prominent position, the welcome message, is a big repeat of the above blurb with another "value," another "superior," another "client service," two more uses of "commitment," and another reference to 50 years. Gads!

After fighting off a strong desire to nap, we dug in to the site.

Once into the site, we notice that the layout is simple and clean. We like the way the horizontal brown stripe is aligned with images on industry sub-page layouts and bio layouts. Most importantly, the site is pretty easy and intuitive to navigate, especially with the consistent submenu under the focal image on the service and industry pages.

The only seemingly odd thing we noticed is that the "home" button is not just a link to home, but is also a stealth drop down menu containing the about us, bio, association, and location links.

Services and industries pages are well done. Each section references relevant services, resources, publications and contact person. With the exception of a few practice areas that really stand out, content is fairly typical. We'll talk about the best ones below.

The 'typical' ones consist mostly of bullet points. Some of the best pages are Hospitality which has a really good Q&A and Homebuilders that, while it has bullet lists for services, offers link to product samples for many items (excellent!).

On these more detailed sections, there is little doubt as to the firm's expertise. The lighter sections, by comparison, cause one to wonder if there is actually less depth in those areas or just less interest on the part of practioners the development of their website. If we had to hazard a guess...

Some other specifics we noted:

• Internal audit overview page is a single giant hunk of text...remember to hard return every couple sentences just to make your web text easier to read!
• Tax consulting page has a sidebar item that references 2002 taxable wage base
• Service link to Abacus opens an affiliate site that is far below RubinBrown's site in quality...really seems out of place
• Service link to RBG staffing, by comparison, is fantastic and brings nice continuity
• Healthcare services list page has links that open a duplicative page. The second page has good descriptors...we'd eliminate the first link page and open right to the second one.

When it comes to content, it would be nice to see what actually sets the firm apart from their competition. Another addition to think about would be to feature client testimonials or representative client lists (with permission, of course).

More on content...the writing needs help.

On the Law "overview" page, there are just two paragraphs. In the first paragraph, "specialized" appears twice followed by "specialist." Then "specialize" is in the second paragraph. The irony is that the word "specialize" (and variations thereof) is one that lawyers are not allowed to use in their marketing so I bet it really jumps out at them.

On the Mortgage Bankers overview page, there are also two paragraphs. The first paragraph uses, in this order: "extensive," "experience," and "expertise." Then the second paragraph uses: "experience," "expertise," "extensive," and "specialize." The sidebar blurb also uses "extensive."

Please! Find some alternate words! For ideas, see Michelle Golden's blog post Please Don't Put This On Your Website.

The majority of the publication pages do provide links to the publications they reference, but a few listed only of the title requiring readers to contact the firm to obtain a copy of the article. Why the inconsistency?

Also, readers should always be warned when links launch a download, even a PDF. Or when they go to another site. We found the Service link to RubinBrown Advisors to be slow to open (even w/high speed) and we were surprised it took us to "another site" without a pre-click heads' up.

Some section pages list people who serve in specialty areas, but the people's names are not linked to bios! We think this is a big mistake. Bios seem only to be accessible from the About menu, and only for partners.

We also find it odd that while there is a dedicated “contact us” link for each service and industry, it only provides e-mail addresses for the persons listed. NO PHONE NUMBERS! It appears they would rather hear from you via e-mail than a personal phone call. Is that actually the intent?

News and publication content seems to be added fairly regularly. The news page contains nice photos--the only place to actually see some of the faces of the firm (besides partners).

Overall, this site has some good information and resources. The career section has a lot of basic info but isn't as "catchy" as it used to be.

Greenstein Rogoff Olsen & Co (aka GROCO)

URL: www.groco.com

Substance	6
Team competence & commitment	8
Differentiation	8
Reasons to return	7
TOTAL CONTENT SCORE (40 points possible)	29
Navigation & usability	8
Attractiveness	6
Personalization & personality	9
TOTAL APPEAL SCORE (30 points possible)	23
TOTAL INTERACTION SCORE (10 points possible)	8
BONUS POINTS for "OUT-OF-THE-BOX"	8
OVERALL SCORE (80 possible)	68

NOTE: This site has undergone a minor revision since our review.

Comments:

This busy but informative site is quite a departure from the traditional “brochure” look and feel of typical CPA sites. In the design/layout style of news websites (CNN, MSNBC, Forbes, Etc) GROCO offers headlines and original content advising readers while giving a peek into the personality of the firm. It is not evident, though, how old or new the articles are.

They offer video clips of their TV commercials which are pleasantly unconventional and feature the large family of managing partner, Alan Olsen. The commercials convey family values and personalize Olsen and the firm for the audience.

The use of very well-done caricatures on bios and service pages is terrific! What a fun way to stand out from the crowd and depict their people as personable and accessible!

It took quite a while for us to go through the site—we became engrossed in the articles and reading room content: tons of great advice and ideas. Same goes for the tax tools section where readers will find the traditional tools many CPA firms offer such as calculators for mortgage payoff and determining what it will take for you to become a millionaire.

While we really enjoy the site and it scored well, we do have a few suggestions.

1. Don’t try to use up every bit of space. Some white-space on the homepage, especially, will give the eyes a rest and enhance the professional appearance. As with most news websites, we were a little overwhelmed—not quite sure where to go first.

2. A “free with membership” form is setup on every page. Why do I want to be a member? What does membership give me? This needs more explanation.

3. Some of the service pages are light on content describing how we might benefit from the service. We frequently advise firms to be client-centric: be less abundant with the use of “our,” “we,” and the firm name in the content (especially in Technology—literally all but one sentence begins with we, our or GROCO). Nearly any sentence can be rearranged such that the emphasis is on the customer. Focus the subject matter on how the firm is different from other firms but in ways that are relevant and important to customers such as outcomes and use examples whereever possible.

4. The industries (listed under Clientele) do not have pages dedicated to discussing how GROCO helps each type. The firm is missing out on an opportunity to demonstrate how much your people know about each one and why it’s important for them to choose a firm that knows what you do. Beef up this section with more about what you can do for customers in each industry. Why should they use you?

5. Such an imaginative and innovative firm ought to convey more about the uniqueness of the firm and culture as well as discuss benefits and amenities in the career section. What’s it like to work there? 

6. In Services, under Accounting & Auditing, subsection “Trust Accounting,” we think that listing a book authored by the firm adds a lot of credibility to the service offering; however, we’d like to see a description of the firm’s service and not just a book order window on this screen.

7. Visually, some of the graphic elements (photos, etc) don’t mesh with the site design. We don’t think it needs a major remodel, but a little graphical fine-tuning would sharpen the site a lot and increase it’s appeal.

Summary:

Overall, this site was informative, fun, and a very nice diversion from typical CPA sites. This site is packed with useful information. By no means is it just a brochure with links to canned newsletters! GROCO also deserves huge kudos for listing their Business Valuation prices.