Titus-US

URL: www.titus-us.com

Substance	8
Team competence & commitment	5
Differentiation	10
Reasons to return	2
TOTAL CONTENT SCORE (40 points possible)	25
Navigation & usability	8
Attractiveness	10
Personalization & personality	10
TOTAL APPEAL SCORE (30 points possible)	28
TOTAL INTERACTION SCORE (10 points possible)	3
BONUS POINTS	10
OVERALL SCORE (80 possible)	66

Comments:

A friend pointed us to this site because of its “compelling content.” We agree. And we appreciate the site for its innovation, brand expression, and fun use of color and graphics.

For those readers who've seen our other reviews, you may have realized the score box has a new Bonus line. The reason is that we tacked on 10 bonus points due to this firm's complete deviation from the norm. Much to our delight, until you look very closely, you'd never know these people are CPAs.

Titus does a magnificent job of reinforcing their firm's brand, “Different by Design,” throughout their site and, appropriately, even through the site's design. Be sure to hit refresh (F5) a few times when you are on their homepage because they have alternate homepage designs, each of them creative and fun.

Here is another:

We don't know the people at Titus, yet, but we look forward to meeting them because we are curious to know if they, in person, are as unique as they portray themselves to be. Their content style is upfront throughout. Titus truly holds themselves accountable. Their vision, lofty growth goal and competitive rate claims are out there for all to see. And, they are employee owned – yet another demonstration of how they differ.

The Our Difference page (under About Us) is our favorite page. This is what they say:

When it comes to consulting firms, companies have always had plenty of options to choose from. Often times, it’s been difficult to tell one firm apart from another. But Titus clearly stands out.

Since our inception in 2000, we’ve always had a passion for finding better solutions for our clients. This innovative spirit is apparent in everything we do. It’s reflected in our business model, how we deliver services, and the fees we charge our clients.

In fact, innovation is what defines us and helps our clients and prospects answer the question, “Why choose Titus?”

They go on to describe their philosophies surrounding "Experienced Employee-Owners," "Service Distinction," and being "Value Driven." Wisely, they articulate why each of these is important to the client.

While we are pretty crazy about this site, there are a few things that could increase their review scores. We’ll explain:

Bios could be better. With the exception of Greg Fritsch, there’s little explanation of individual's skills or what value they bring to clients. Everyone listed has impressive Big firm experience, but it’s as important to show what each person does now as it is to show what they've done in the past.

Further, it’s difficult to get a sense of the actual size and composition of the firm. There are lots of offices, where are the rest of the people? Perhaps it is by design, but our take is that as upfront as the content is, the vagueness about who does what, where, is inconsistent.

Plus, there are NO photos of the people. Given that several conservative sites have cutting-edge bio photos, the tone and style of this site sets the expectation that we'll see some highly creative photos on the bios we found. Nada. (NOTE: Bio photos have been added since our original review.)

Service area content is pointed and well written. Client testimonials, project examples, and full service lists, presented differently than any other firm, further substantiate each practice area (all product/service based versus industry based). We are disappointed to see little industry expertise indicated, none emphasized. Titus states their audience is Fortune 500 companies. Maybe that is enough market segment differentiation, internally, but we think they would benefit from being more specific, outwardly.

Navigation is a bit of an issue. Readers must go back to the main page each time they want to go to a new area. It’s a bit cumbersome and an easy fix. We understand the desire to stay uncluttered, though, and perhaps the most overriding observation about the navigation is that it's definitely unique.

While the nav score dipped a little because of the extra "clicks" (and slight waiting while the graphics do their thing), the penalty was offset by the fact that Titus has a search feature and good site map.

Interaction is minimal throughout the site. Though with a Fortune 500 target market, we wouldn't expect a lot of sign-ups and such, an innovative site such as this deserves to be accented with content that is updated frequently to keep people coming back or fed to interested parties via RSS – maybe a blog or newsfeed? The point being, these people are interesting, we'd sure like to hear know what they have to say!

There seems too be little focus on recruiting. The firm seems like such a great place, but tells us a little more about it. Employee testimonials, day in the life, and what it's like to work in this unique CPA firm environment...any of these would be great. Link Our Vision and Contact Us to "Careers" too. We think that, to help you reach your goal, you’ll want additional material in this area.

Overall, this site is fresh and innovative and one of the best we’ve seen. We’ll sure be interested to see if this cutting-edge firm with its very different, perhaps "Firm of the Future" model, reaches it's goal in 2012!