A referral used to be enough.
Someone mentioned your name. The prospect called. The relationship started.
That is not how most buying decisions happen anymore.
Today, a prospective client may hear about your firm from a trusted friend, business owner, attorney, or financial advisor—and then immediately research you online before ever making contact. They visit your website. They read about your team. They compare firms. Increasingly, they may even ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or another AI assistant whether your firm is a good fit.
And if your website does not clearly communicate who you help, why you understand them, and what working with you actually looks like, a referral you already earned can quietly disappear.
In this episode of The Growth Minded Accountant, Lee Reams and Rebekah Barton, Chief Visibility Officer at CountingWorks PRO, break down three website pages that many tax and accounting firms overlook:
Who We Help. Your Bio. How We Work.
Each page answers a different question running through a prospect’s mind:
Do you understand someone like me?
Can I trust the person I’m going to work with?
What happens if I say yes?
Lee and Rebekah explain how firms can use these pages to turn expertise into visible evidence, reinforce referrals, reduce uncertainty, create stronger positioning, and give both prospects and AI systems a much clearer understanding of who the firm is built to serve.
Because most firms do not have an expertise problem.
They have a visibility problem.
And then I would make the Future-Ready Firm Blueprint the primary conversion link immediately after those resources rather than burying a generic demo CTA:
Get Your Future-Ready Firm Blueprint
Someone may already trust the person who recommended your firm and still research you before reaching out.
Your website has to confirm the referral.
If the prospect arrives and sees the same generic claims they see everywhere else—“personalized tax and accounting services for individuals and businesses”—they may never discover the expertise that actually makes your firm a strong fit.
That creates what Lee describes as an especially frustrating form of lost opportunity: a prospect you never knew existed.
Most accounting firms organize websites around the way the firm thinks internally:
Tax. Accounting. Payroll. Advisory.
Prospective clients usually think differently.
A restaurant owner may be thinking about a third location, rising labor costs, equipment purchases, uneven cash flow, tax surprises, and decisions their accountant hears about only after they happen.
A strong Who We Help page connects your expertise directly to those situations.
Instead of forcing the prospect to translate “tax planning” into their world, show them that you already understand their world.
Positioning can be based on an industry, but it does not have to be.
A firm might specialize in restaurant owners, medical practices, real estate investors, or construction companies.
Another firm might specialize in families with unusually high annual tax liabilities, business owners approaching an exit, or another clearly defined client situation.
The important question is whether the right prospect can see themselves in your messaging.
Compare: “We provide tax planning services.”
With: “We work with restaurant and hospitality owners managing multiple locations, labor pressure, equipment purchases, seasonal cash flow, and tax decisions that need attention throughout the year.”
The second statement does more than describe a service.
It tells the prospect:
We have seen your situation before.
That recognition can become one of the strongest reasons to keep exploring the firm.
The standard accounting bio usually looks something like this:
Years of experience. Degree. Professional organizations.
A sentence about travel and family.
Those facts may be appropriate, but they rarely explain why a particular client should want to work with that person.
A stronger bio connects background, experience, perspective, and the clients the professional serves.
If Susan grew up working in her family’s restaurant before becoming a CPA and now advises restaurant owners, that story immediately gives a restaurant prospect another reason to trust her.
Professionals sometimes resist stronger bios because they do not want to expose their personal lives online.
They do not have to.
There is a difference between personality and oversharing.
A relevant story about why someone entered the profession, an industry they know particularly well, a formative business experience, or the types of problems they enjoy solving can humanize the professional without revealing anything they would rather keep private.
Prospective clients frequently research the person they expect to work with—not simply the firm.
Partners, advisors, managers, and other important client-facing professionals should therefore have pages that help prospects understand who they are, what they know, and why they may be the right person to help.
Credentials establish qualification.
A story helps establish connection.
Hiring a new accounting firm creates uncertainty.
What happens after the prospect contacts you?
Who responds?
What information will they need?
How does onboarding work?
How often will the firm communicate?
When does planning happen?
A How We Work page removes some of that uncertainty before the first conversation.
That can make the next step feel much easier.
Firms often assume clients only care about the final technical work.
The experience surrounding that work matters too.
If your firm has a strong onboarding process, regular planning conversations, proactive communication, modern technology, or a defined way of surfacing opportunities throughout the year, explain it.
Do not make prospects guess what working with you will feel like.
A firm can say it specializes in restaurants.
A stronger website demonstrates that expertise through:
Connected together, those elements stop looking like isolated marketing pages.
They become evidence.
The same specificity that helps a human prospect understand your firm can also give search engines and AI systems more context.
If your public website clearly communicates who you serve, the issues you understand, the people behind the firm, and how you work, AI systems have more information available when interpreting your expertise.
AI cannot reliably understand positioning that you never communicate.
Many tax and accounting professionals already possess the experience their ideal clients are looking for.
The problem is that almost none of it is visible online.
The opportunity is not necessarily to reinvent the firm.
It is to make the expertise that already exists easier to see, understand, trust, and recommend.
Start by looking at your own website through the eyes of someone who has never met you.
Can they quickly answer:
Who is this firm especially good at helping?
Why should I trust the people here?
What is it actually going to be like to work with them?
If those answers are difficult to find, start with:
1. Who We Help
Describe your ideal clients, their situations, their challenges, and the decisions they regularly face.
2. Professional Bios
Go beyond credentials and explain the experiences, perspectives, and expertise that make each professional relevant to the clients they serve.
3. How We Work
Show prospects what happens from the first conversation through onboarding and the ongoing relationship.
You do not need another generic accounting website.
You need a website that makes the right prospect think:
These people understand me.
We know that everyone digests information differently. That’s why we’re now sharing the full transcript of each episode of The Growth Minded Accountant right here on the CountingWorks PRO blog. Whether you’re short on time, like to scan and highlight, or simply prefer reading over listening, you can catch up on every conversation at your own pace.
Each week, we cover topics that matter most to tax and accounting professionals—from AI and automation to marketing strategies, firm growth, and client relationships. Scroll down to read the full episode, or subscribe to the podcast to listen on the go.
Q. What are the three website pages tax and accounting firms should consider adding?
The three pages discussed in this episode are a Who We Help page, stronger professional bio pages, and a How We Work page.
Together, they help prospects understand who the firm serves, why they should trust the people behind the firm, and what they can expect if they decide to become a client.
Q. Why isn't a normal accounting services page enough?
A traditional services page usually describes what the firm sells: tax preparation, accounting, advisory, bookkeeping, payroll, and similar services.
Prospective clients tend to think about their situation rather than the accounting terminology.
A Who We Help page translates the firm's expertise into the problems, decisions, industries, and circumstances the prospect already recognizes.
Q. What should a Who We Help page include?
It should explain the types of clients the firm understands particularly well and the situations those clients commonly face.
For example, a restaurant-focused page might discuss multiple locations, labor pressures, expansion, equipment purchases, uneven cash flow, and year-round tax decisions.
The goal is to help the right prospect quickly recognize that the firm understands their world.
Q. Does a firm have to choose one industry niche?
No.
Positioning can be based on an industry, but it can also be based on a type of client, level of complexity, life stage, financial situation, business transition, or another meaningful characteristic.
The important thing is clarity.
Q. What makes a strong accountant or CPA bio?
A strong bio includes relevant credentials and experience, but it also explains the professional's story, perspective, expertise, and connection to the clients they serve.
It should answer a question that credentials alone often cannot:
Why would this particular client want to work with this particular person?
Q. How personal should an accounting professional's bio be?
Personal enough to create connection, but not so personal that the professional feels uncomfortable.
Relevant experiences, professional motivations, industry backgrounds, and interests can make a bio more memorable without requiring someone to disclose private information.
Q. Why is a How We Work page important?
Prospective clients may hesitate because they do not know what happens after they contact the firm.
A How We Work page can explain the consultation, onboarding, information gathering, communication, planning, and ongoing relationship.
Reducing uncertainty can make it easier for a prospect to take the next step.
Q. Can a firm's onboarding process be part of its marketing?
Yes.
If the firm's onboarding process is organized, proactive, personalized, or easier than what prospects have experienced elsewhere, it can be part of the firm's differentiation.
The client experience begins before the engagement is signed.
Q. How can these pages support referrals?
A referral creates initial trust, but many prospects still research the firm before making contact.
These pages give the prospect additional evidence that the recommendation they received makes sense for their specific situation.
Q. Can better website content help AI understand an accounting firm?
Clear public information about who the firm serves, its expertise, professional backgrounds, client situations, services, FAQs, and related content gives search and AI systems more context for interpreting the firm.
That does not guarantee an AI recommendation, but vague or generic content gives those systems considerably less information to work with.
Q. Should firms include examples or client stories?
Examples can make expertise more tangible because they show what the firm's knowledge looks like in practice.
Firms should be thoughtful about confidentiality and applicable rules when using client information. Anonymized or hypothetical examples may sometimes be more appropriate.
Q. What's the first thing a firm should change after listening to this episode?
Look at your website as though you were a referred prospect who knows nothing about the firm.
If you cannot quickly determine who the firm is especially good at helping, why you should trust its people, and what happens after you contact them, those are the first gaps to address.
Listen to other podcast episodes or read other related blog articles with relevant information and insights.
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