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!

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.

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!

Reed Tinsley CPA

URL: www.rtacpa.com

Substance	9
Team competence & commitment	8
Differentiation	8
Reasons to return	10
TOTAL CONTENT SCORE (40 points possible)	35
Navigation & usability	9
Attractiveness	9
Personalization & personality	8
TOTAL APPEAL SCORE (30 points possible)	26
TOTAL INTERACTION SCORE (10 points possible)	9
OVERALL SCORE (80 possible)	70

Comments:

This true consulting practice is doing a phenomenal job of demonstrating specialization and providing valuable information and resources for their target audience: the healthcare industry. The reader walks away with a strong impression that 'this guy must be good.'

Tinsley has not been afraid to state, quite plainly on his homepage, that his purpose is to be "a nationally renowned accountant and business advisor to physicians and medical practices." He has followed through by substantiating that claim throughout his website.

Most impressively--and the distinguishing factor from MOST practitioners, large firm or small--is that he has gobs of content (see articles, flash presentations and great checklists and other tools for download) plus he updates his site regularly via a blog. I've been monitoring the blog over the last month or so and it is good with quality information (brief, but useful) posted consistently a few times a week.

There are a few areas where Tinsley's site didn't score top marks. One is recruiting because there is no focus at all on that. Granted, he's either a sole practitioner or has a small shop of behind the scenes folks (that it isn't quite clear one way or the other if he a team has slightly impacted scores) so he's probably not in the market for hiring...or so it would seem.

Tinsley's spun the small shop angle to his advantage within his content even boldly stating what many clients like to hear: "When you hire Reed Tinsley CPA, you are hiring Reed Tinsley. Your work will be handled by me personally and not delegated to an associate."

Another area where the score was impacted is in regard to personality--though the site is attractive and clean with a strong homepage image, we felt the site, packed with great info, is a bit light on imagery. And we'd love to see a picture of Reed--who's the guy we are getting with all that personal service? :-)

The content is thoughtful and complete, if not a little wordy, and liberally using "we" (could be written from a more client-centric angle). The litigation support page, though, takes into account that lawyers who will use him don't want to read through gobs of text, so he keeps it short and sweet and, quite wisely, provides a long list of case citations. Lawyers considering him will love that. So will clients.

Overall great job. We'd love to see even large firms large learn from this site how they can better position their practice groups and prove they are market leaders.

Stonefield Josephson, Inc.

URL: www.sjaccounting.com

Substance	8
Team competence & commitment	9
Differentiation	9
Reasons to return	8
TOTAL CONTENT SCORE (40 points possible)	34
Navigation & usability	8
Attractiveness	10
Personalization & personality	10
TOTAL APPEAL SCORE (30 points possible)	28
TOTAL INTERACTION SCORE (10 points possible)	6
OVERALL SCORE (80 possible)	68

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

Comments:

Stonefield Josephson is currently our top pick from the standpoint of firm image and humanizing the individuals who comprise the firm. Lots of great creativity going on!

They’re doing so many things well: photography is exquisite, their Back Porch feature is unique, and the About Us page is simple, clean and useful.

They’ve done a great job of reinforcing their “We Pay Attention” brand throughout. We feel like we know them (though we don’t).

Their 8 industries and 8 service areas are an appropriate number of specialties for a 100-person firm so they don’t come across as trying to be all things to all people—a nice job of realistically representing their capabilities and service focuses.

Some areas where their scores were negatively impacted include recruiting where we don’t see much at all to specifically address this important audience. Though their quality of life values are reflected at the partner level, one wonders what life might be like for an associate.

We also feel the partner bios are a little light on specific experiences and we’re disappointed there is nothing about non-partner technical team members—no bios or contact information.

Many practice area descriptions are nicely client-centric and brief, but interesting. A handful, though, literally start every sentence with “we.” The firm also doesn’t seem to create much opportunity to interact with its audience via the Web site except to e-mail questions or requests for recipes.

Industry information is good, articles are terrific and the pictures and contact info readily available on each is a plus. So is the handy media page.

In general, from the color scheme and navigation, to their recipes and slide show features, this site is easy on the eyes and a nice reprieve from typical dull sites!