Review of Website Builders for Accountants — 2005

Continuing with our analogy between your bricks-and-mortar office and your
virtual office, let’s consider the alternative methods available to design
and build your office. At one end of the spectrum, you may want to establish
an office at the lowest possible cost that meets your most basic needs. This
typically means you’re going to lease pre-built space in a multi-tenant
office building that requires limited “build out” and may even be
pre-furnished with office partitions and desks left by the previous tenant.
At the other end of the spectrum, you may view the office as the most important
investment your firm can make, second only to your staff. In this scenario,
you might buy your own real estate, hire an architect to design it to your exact
specifications, construct it and then have an interior decorator design your
“theme” and recommend your furniture selections and wall, window
and floor coverings, etc. The same spectrum of options applies to web site design
and construction. At one end, you can utilize a pre-fabricated web site design
with minimal customization that is relatively inexpensive and easy to maintain.
At the other end of the spectrum, you can hire a web site development firm to
design and build a completely customized web site to your exact specifications.
Each approach has its pros and cons.

The purpose of this review is to focus on the “pre-fabricated”
approach. We are featuring web site builder tools that streamline the site development
process at a fraction of the time, cost and complexity of a completely built-to-order
site. The good news is that the tools we have reviewed are increasingly offering
a greater array of functionality and features that give you the best of both
worlds.

This review of web site builders courting the accountant community is focused
on the following evaluation criteria:

Design Theme — This refers to the capability to design
a site that is easy-to-navigate, visually pleasing and flexible enough to allow
you to convey the desired image of your firm’s virtual office. This criterion
covers items such as templates, color schemes, navigation tools, etc.

Content — This refers to the breadth and depth of pre-fabricated
content that you can customize or brand for your firm, allowing you to have
a site worth visiting without the burden of having to constantly develop content
from scratch. Examples include electronic newsletters, tax and accounting bulletins,
news releases, etc. Typical tax and financial calculators are included within
this section, as well.

Site Maintenance — This refers to the “under
the hood” work that is inevitable, including web page editing, design
changes, custom links, application integration, hosting services, etc. The better
this functionality, the less dependent you will be on the vendor to make changes
and additions to your site.

Utility Software/Applications — This refers to the
various software applications that the vendor provides for you to integrate
into the web site. These cover a wide range of applications such as e-mail,
online payroll, document/file storage and exchange, practice management applications,
etc.

Site Marketing — Building your web site is step one,
but helping potential clients find it (and your firm) is the goal. Many web
site development companies provide assistance with marketing the web sites,
from making it easier for search engines to find your site to inclusion in local
directories. Another common option is paid placement of a listing. This section
also notes how the domain name is managed — is it www.bobsaccounting.com?
Or is it www.bobsaccounting.vendor_name.com? A firm really needs its own domain
name.

Vendor Service & Support — This section focuses
on the vendor’s overall ability to help you design, build and market your
site. This includes consultation on how to use specific features and functions
and getting your web site registered with the search engine services. Some of
the metrics used to assess this aspect include years of service and the subscriber
base.

Pricing/Value — This section covers the cost of the
service relative to the breadth and depth of features and functions provided.
Generally speaking, this typically includes a setup fee, a recurring fee (monthly
or annual) and then a la carte fees for specialized applications, functionality
or services.

While this review is intended to help you research and select web site builders
that are compatible with your firm’s objectives, the best way to evaluate
a particular application is to get the names of some of the vendor’s customers,
view those customers’ web sites, and contact them directly to get their
candid assessment of the vendor’s services as well as the behind-the-scenes
functionality provided. Before jumping into the vendor reviews on the following
pages, please note that an overall lower rating doesn’t necessarily mean
that service provider has a poor service offering. The lower ratings are generally
the result of fewer features and functions. For many of our readers, such applications
may be the most suitable solutions.