07 September 2016
Industry Spotlight: Bendigo Accountant Websites
A great spotlight to start with, seeing as it’s Tax time for a lot of people. The most obvious thing people will search for is ‘Bendigo Accountant’. And the first page of google results lists the following sites:
The Good sites:
MGR Accountants
What I like:
- Fast clean responsive site
- Loads in a couple of seconds - 1.3M payload, 57 requests
- Great platform (by synergy8)
- Good metatags for social sharing
- Very clean HTML
- Clear menu structure
Could improve:
- There’s no favicon, so bookmarks aren’t as pretty
- A ton of CSS/JScript inline. But that might be to reduce the number of requests
DSG Accounting
What I like:
- Fast clean responsive site
- Loads in a few seconds - 1.1M payload, 38 requests.
- Very clean HTML - looks well hand-crafted
- Clear menu structure
- Great copy
Could improve:
- Some of the responsiveness breaks/feels clunky at mobile width
AFS Chartered Accountants
What I like:
- Fast clean responsive site
- Loads in a few seconds - 1.5M payload, 53 requests
- Good metatags for social sharing
- Well set-up Wordpress site using Enfold theme (site developed by bendigocreative.com.au)
Could improve:
- I’m struggling to see any obvious improvements. This is a really well done site.
Allan Accounting & Tax Solutions
What I like:
- SUPER fast site! 43 requests, but in 1.3 seconds. (OpenResty/Nginx - great caching… Very well set up. Kudos to designexperts.com.au)
- Responsive, great in desktop and mobile.
- Lovely hand-cranked HTML - Built using Bootstrap.
Could improve:
- Again, tough finding much to improve upon here.
RSD Advisors
What I like:
- Fast clean responsive site
- Loads in a few seconds - 2.3M payload, 56 requests
- Runs on CCH iFirm, a good platform by Wolters Kluwer (Accounting package written in .Net)
Could improve:
- Slightly fiddly menu system on desktop. I feel it works better when viewed on mobile.
Strategem
What I like:
- Very fast. Less than 2 seconds, 1.5Meg - 41 requests.
- Runs on CCH iFirm, a good platform by Wolters Kluwer (Accounting package written in .Net)
Could improve:
- Small javascript error in console (Lightbox) - won’t bother most users
- Mobile styling could be improved. Small issue with margins.
Egan Taylor
What I like:
- Another very fast site. 1.5 seconds, only 572K! With 54 requests. Very nice and light payload!
- Subsequent pageloads are ridiculously quick, they’ll be getting a good google-boost from that.
- Looks excellent when viewed from mobile
- Incredibly well set up Wordpress site. It’s easy to do this wrong. (Think totalmarketingaustralia.com.au deserve the credit here)
Could improve:
- Small error on homepage at line 300 where Jquery is called before it’s loaded
- Running on older version of Wordpress (4.4.4) - should be up-to-date
SWR Financial
What I like:
- Fastest site in sample. 700msec, 21 requests, 565K. Wins hands-down. (Kudos to plannerweb.com.au)
- Responsive site works well.
- Really clean HTML & CSS code.
Could improve:
- A stock market ticker? Really? ;) (Get rid of it)
- Crazy keywords metatag. I guess they’re trying.
- At mobile resolution, some margins/sizing could be improved (particularly iPhone 5)
- Font choices could be improved.
The Not so good:
EDIT: 22/03/2017 - It’s here! The not-so-good