Custom builds · You own the code
Custom sites built by engineers, with the structured data most rebuilds skip. And a straight answer first about whether you need a new site at all, because on the evidence most firms do not.
We will tell you when a redesign is not the right spend.
Built in your codebase, handed over with the keys
Fewer things than most proposals suggest, and one of them is almost always missing.
A website for an accounting practice has a narrow job: convince a stranger you are credible, make it obvious how to reach you, and describe the practice clearly enough that search engines and AI assistants can repeat it. Everything else is decoration, and decoration is where most of the budget goes.
Template vendors in this space are fast and cheap, and for a solo practice that may genuinely be the right answer. What you give up is control of the code: when the entity markup or Core Web Vitals need work, you can only change what the template exposes. We build in your codebase, so nothing is out of reach later.
If your site loads quickly, works on a phone and converts the visitors it gets, a redesign is unlikely to be the thing that grows the practice. We will tell you that. It costs us the project and it is the only version of this advice worth paying for.
From our own audit
That is an odd thing to say on a page selling website design, so here is the evidence. In we measured 28 independent accounting and CPA firm homepages:
These are not broken 2005 websites. They are fast, they work on phones, and they are almost entirely illegible to a machine trying to work out what the business is. A rebuild that changes the appearance and skips that layer produces a better looking site with the same problem.
So the first thing we do is establish which of those two you actually have. Run the free scorecard, or read the detail on SEO for accountants.
These figures describe the 28 firms we audited, not accounting firms in general: five metros, homepages only, one moment in time.
Where rebuilds go wrong
Four failure modes, and none of them are about taste.
Firms rebuild, the site looks better, and nothing moves. Across the 28 accounting sites we audited the median page loaded in 0.7 seconds and every one was mobile-ready. Appearance was rarely the constraint, so changing it rarely changed the outcome.
Proprietary builders and locked templates mean the next fix depends on whether the vendor exposes that setting. Firms discover this at the worst moment, when something needs changing and the answer is that it cannot be.
Vertical template shops ship the same layout, the same stock photography and the same three service pages to hundreds of practices. It is competent and it is completely interchangeable, which is a difficult starting point for arguing you are different.
Only 18% of the sites we measured declared an accounting-specific business type in their structured data, and 11% published opening hours. A rebuild that skips this ships a prettier site with the same invisibility.
A site you own, built to the standard we would want to inherit.
Built on modern, standard tooling and handed over with the code. No proprietary page builder between you and your own website, and no licence that stops being paid.
Your practice declared properly in structured data: AccountingService, address and service area, opening hours, the services you offer, and FAQ markup that mirrors the page. Retrofitting this later costs more than including it now.
One office or five, each location gets a page that is a genuine entity rather than the same paragraph with the city swapped, which is the pattern that quietly competes with itself.
Core Web Vitals measured and fixed at code level rather than hoped for. We build sites that score well on Google’s own audit, and we will show you the numbers on work we have shipped.
Semantic headings, real landmarks, keyboard-navigable interfaces and sensible contrast. This matters on its own terms, and it happens to be the same structure search engines read.
A redirect map from the old URLs to the new ones, checked before launch. Rebuilds routinely lose years of accumulated ranking because nobody mapped the old paths, and it is entirely avoidable.
Proof
We do not have a portfolio of accounting clients and will not pretend otherwise. What we can show you is engineering quality on work that is live, measured with Google’s own audit, on a site you can go and run yourself.
A luxury gauge-restoration business, and to be clear, not an accounting firm. Their previous provider warned that animations would slow the site down. We built them anyway and built them properly. Google’s audit scores, measured , are on the right.
“We were told not to do all the bells and whistles from another IT guy because it would slow our site down. Michael made the perfect and eloquent website with all the bells and whistles, and it runs perfectly.”
Performance
SEO
Accessibility
Everything we would implement on your site is implemented here:
Every project we list is live. Browse all 21 in the portfolio and click through to any of them.
Starting with whether you should do this at all.
We look at what you have and tell you whether a rebuild is the right spend at all. Sometimes the honest recommendation is a smaller piece of work, and we would rather say so on the first call.
Structure and layout driven by what your prospects need to decide, not by whichever template was on the shelf. You see it before anything is built.
The site and the entity layer together: structured data, performance, accessibility and the redirect map from your existing URLs.
Rich results tests, Core Web Vitals, redirects checked, Search Console wired up, and the code handed to you. Then a snapshot of where you stand so the next change has a baseline.
21+
Projects shipped
Every one linked and live in our portfolio
15+
Years of engineering
Senior team, no junior handoffs
28
Firm sites we audited first
Before writing a word about this market
Three things. Convince a stranger that the practice is credible, make contact obvious, and describe the business clearly enough in structured data that search engines and AI assistants can repeat it accurately. A site that does those three well will outperform a better-looking one that does not.
Possibly not, and we would rather establish that early. When we audited 28 accounting firm homepages in August 2026, the median loaded in 0.7 seconds and all of them worked on a phone. These were not broken websites. If yours loads fast, works on mobile and converts the traffic it gets, the constraint is probably visibility rather than appearance, and the cheaper fix is the structured data.
Two differences that matter. You own the code, so nothing is limited later to whatever the template exposes. And the structured data is part of the build rather than an add-on, which is the layer our own research found almost every firm site missing. The template vendors are genuinely faster and cheaper, and for a solo practice that may be the better trade. We will say so if we think it is.
It can, and this is the single most common way a redesign goes wrong: new URLs ship without a redirect map and years of accumulated ranking is dropped overnight. We map every old URL to its new destination and verify the redirects before launch, so the equity moves with the site.
Not a wall of them, and we are not going to manufacture one. We are an engineering team that came into this vertical through original research rather than an existing client list. Our shipped work in other industries is live and clickable in the portfolio, with real Lighthouse scores you can re-run yourself.
Less than the industry selling redesigns suggests. We run search for a tax practice whose site is deliberately simple, and it gets found, because presentation was never the constraint that decided it. What decides it is whether the site states clearly what the practice is, where it operates and what it answers. That is worth knowing before you spend on a rebuild.
It depends on how many pages and locations are involved, so we scope it on a call rather than quoting a number we would have to walk back. Most work runs on pre-paid hours, which means you pay for what is delivered rather than a retainer that renews whether anything shipped or not.
Book a call and we will look at what you have and tell you straight. If a rebuild is the right spend we will scope it. If it is not, you will get the cheaper answer and we will have been useful anyway.