Your profile here has 6 elements. You can edit these at any time simply by logging back into your account.

1 – Your photo – This should be a decent (ideally) professional shot as experience tells us that a good photo can make all the difference. The absence of a photo or one that does you no favours can reduce the number of users who will get in touch.

Beneath your photo will appear our switchboard phone numbers so that all calls are answered promptly by a real person. Details of how calls are managed for us by Verbatim, are set out here>>>

2 – Your profile intro – This is what users see initially beneath your photo in the search results. It also shows at the top of your full profile page and when we feature your profile on the home page of the site and in our weekly tax tips emails to accountants. Think about what you can say here that is relevant to your area(s) of expertise and likely to make users want to read your full profile.

3 – Your location – You will have identified a city and a county as part of your account details.  These are displayed beneath your name at the top of your profile. Please do not put ‘London’ in both ‘City’ and ‘County’ fields as this would display as ‘London, London’ on your profile. In such cases it’s probably best to leave the ‘county’ field blank.

Please also ensure that your postcode is included in your account details so that you appear on the ‘Find A tax Adviser’ map. If we don’t have your postcode your profile will not show up when visitors search for tax specialists by postcode proximity.

4 – Your full profile – Think about what elements of your background will be of most interest to users. What do you think will encourage accountants (or indeed anyone) to choose you rather than other members?  – You will find suggestions with more tips at the foot of this page.

NB: It’s best to type directly into the text editor rather than to cut and paste from Word. The second best solution is to copy and paste from word into Notepad and convert the text to plain text before you attempt to copy it across to the text editor on your profile page here.

Assume that someone has searched for a topic of interest and the results reveal that you and 2 other tax advisers specialise in that field. What can you include in your profile to help persuade the user to contact you rather than the other two members?  Of course, none of us knows the answer to that, even though it’s a key question. Different people will prefer different styles and will focus on different elements of a profile.

5 – Your Specialisms – NB: The clue is in the word ‘SPECIALISM’. Please do not choose all those topics where you have a degree of experience. By definition you can only SPECIALISE in a select number of topics. However, at present we do not operate a numeric limit for tax advisers. This is partly because there are often many ways to describe similar tax specialisms.

Your profile will only show in the search results for those specialisms you have chosen on your profile. The current list of specialisms can be found through the link at the top of the page. Please note that some specialisms are referenced by more than term.

Overseas based tax advisers – please limit yourself to headline tax specialisms related to your specific territory. If you are the first adviser for a specific country simply send us a message and we will add any relevant country specific tax specialisms to the list.

6 – Your website – You can leave this blank which means users will only be able to contact you through our website (email/phone). If you include a website link, users MAY choose to follow that link before they get in touch with you via your website. Please note that we are unable to track such enquiries and experience suggests that users do not always recall they started their journey on our website. If asked they may simply say they found you ‘online’.

7 – Points you could include in your full profile – You might want to include some or all of the following items, with your own sub-headings to make it easy to read. What you put though, within reason, is entirely up to you.  Advisers typically want to both appeal to the right sort of visitors and also discourage those visitors who won’t be a good fit for your areas of expertise and style of working.

Why clients engage me – What really makes you different or better than others – (generally);

Available services – Are you available for ad-hoc enquiries, detailed exercises, tax clinic style retainer relationships,

Recent successes / examples of my work – One liner or more detailed summaries of recent successful pieces of work particularly related to your specialist expertise; The ways in which clients have benefited from your expertise and service especially as regards the specific areas of expertise that have come up in the search results.
Testimonials – You can include direct quotes from clients. They will have more credibility if you can identify the clients and who said what. But that may not always be possible.
Industry or sector specialisms – Mention whether you have any specific expertise in particular industries.  You might then use sub-headings to focus attention on key issues for each specialism separately. Make it easy for the visitor to see what they are looking for. 
How I work with you – Your general approach to enquiries you receive through the web; Your willingness or otherwise to travel to meet clients; Also your preferred style and approach when working with accountants;
Fees – Your approach to charging for your time or advice: Your hourly rate or a minimum fee that you charge to discourage time-wasters from calling you;
 
My background/experience – This is generally best added at the end, rather than at the start of your profile. Focus on your experience and expertise that evidences your credibility in advising in your areas of specialism. You might include: How often you have advised on specialist tax matters and over what period or when you first did so; Your involvement in and/or membership of any relevant professional bodies; Your training and experience within HMRC, IR, C&E or any other body and how this enables you to provide a better service to clients;
Away from tax – If you feel comfortable sharing something about who you are and your hobbies/interests, again, do it at the end of your profile. It will make you more of a ‘real’ person. And this may help encourage visitors to approach you rather than someone else. Sometimes it’s who we really are that is all that makes us stand out from our peers.