75% of accountancy websites we checked fail the mobile loading test
We ran the same checks as our free scan on 36 independent accountancy websites across the South West in September 2026. Here is what came up most, what it costs a practice, and what to fix before January.
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The problems that came up most often
Based on 36 accountancy practices. Each figure shows how many sites it was measured on.
75%of sites took more than four seconds to show their main content on a phone (24 of 32). Only 5 loaded in the time Google counts as good.
Someone who has left their tax return late is comparing accountants on a phone, in the evening, a few seconds each. A slow first screen makes a careful practice look careless.
First fix: Start with the large photo at the top of the homepage: resize and compress it, and make sure nothing else has to load before it.
Test your page on a phone36%of sites had no DMARC record at all, and only 12 of 36 told inboxes to quarantine or reject fake email sent in their name.
Practices email tax figures, payment requests and bank details. Without DMARC, anyone can send a message that looks like it came from you, and your own emails are easier for inboxes to distrust.
First fix: Add a DMARC record to your domain, start it in monitoring mode, then move it to quarantine once your own email passes.
Check your DMARC record25%of sites did not settle on one web address (9 of 36): the www and non-www versions, or http and https, did not all lead to the same place.
A client types your address the way it appears on an old letterhead and gets a security warning or a different copy of the site. Search engines can also split your reputation between the versions.
First fix: Pick one address (https, with or without www) and ask whoever hosts the site to redirect every other version to it in a single step.
Check your redirects
Self-assessment season is when your site gets checked
The weeks before the 31 January deadline are when people go looking for an accountant in a hurry, and when existing clients come back to your site for a phone number, a portal link or your opening hours.
Most of them will be on a phone. The fixes on this page are small jobs for whoever looks after the site, and autumn is the time to do them, before the traffic arrives.
Ask AI for an accountant in your town. Can it read your site?
More people now ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google's AI answers for a recommendation before they open a website. Those tools can only describe a practice whose pages they are allowed to read, and which says plainly what it does and where.
We check readiness: whether AI search crawlers are let in, and whether your site states what kind of business you are. Nobody can promise that an AI answer will name you, and we do not track mentions.
What to fix first
If you run a small accountancy practice, this is the order we would take these in. Then run the free scan to see which apply to your site.
Lock down your email domain
Add SPF and DMARC records. For a practice that emails payment details, this is the fix with the most at stake, and it is a one-off job for whoever manages your domain.
Make the first screen fast on a phone
Compress the hero image and put your phone number and services where they load first.
Send every version of your address to one place
One redirect rule at the host covers www, non-www, http and https.
About this research
- 36 independent accountancy practices across twelve South West towns, audited on 26 September 2026 with the same checks our free scan runs. No site is named on this page.
- Homepage plus up to six further pages per site. Mobile speed is Google PageSpeed Insights lab data, measured twice and averaged.
- A site counts as failing a check only when it clearly misses it. Borderline results, such as a DMARC record in monitoring mode, are counted separately and not included in the fail figures.
- Some checks could not be measured on every site, for example when a page would not load. Each figure says how many sites it is based on.
Common questions
Further reading
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Read morewww vs non-www: Why It Doesn't Matter Which You Pick, But It Matters That You Pick
www.example.com and example.com look identical to a visitor and are treated as completely different URLs by search engines. Neither version is better for SEO. Leaving both reachable at once is what actually costs you.
Read moreHTTPS and Security Headers: The Trust Signals Most Sites Get Wrong
The padlock icon is just the start. Here's what HTTPS and security headers actually protect - and why Google and visitors both care.
Read moreStart with one page. Then let AuditCrow watch the rest.
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