Riding high on the momentum of a successful marketing campaign that had already boosted its revenues, accounting firm PKF Texas turned to the Web as a natural next step.

So when the Houston-based office revamped its Web site, it loaded up on sophisticated features including "The Entrepreneur's Playbook," a weekly business commentary that also airs on local AM radio. The online audio segments feature the mellifluous voice of host Gregory Price, sounding every bit the crisp broadcast professional.

But Price is no Edward R. Murrow: He is a certified public accountant and PKF's director of consulting solutions and IT. He's also the author of “From Greg's Head” (www.fromgregshead.com), a stylish blog replete with edgy logo and free-flowing thoughts. The blog is a hip addition for a pinstripe business, but for PKF Texas, it has also been profitable: The firm attributes several new accounts to traffic driven from the blog to its corporate Web site.

For growing numbers of service firms in consulting, IT, law, and accounting, "brochureware" Web sites are passé. They are being replaced by a new generation of online sites beefed up with blogs, forums, tagging, RSS syndication, and innovative ideas like virtual communities—all designed to attract and retain clients.

Yet failing to produce more compelling content is frequently a missed business opportunity. Although Web sites often deliver prospective customers precisely at their time of need, few services firms produce well-organized sites, according to The Bloom Group. The Boston-based market research organization found most sites left buyers struggling to find and understand the depth of their firms’ expertise, and offered no easy way for prospects to begin a dialogue with experts about their business problem.

Prospective clients' needs sometimes clash with corporate politics. "If I'm a buyer, the question is do I have a clear understanding of what this firm does and can they solve my problem," says Bob Buday, cofounder of the Bloom Group. But within most service firms, "Every practice wants their real estate on the home page." As a result, the Web site’s organization winds up ill-matched to prospective customers' way of thinking.

The advantages of well-organized and eye-catching online presence seem obvious, especially for midmarket firms. Compelling video and audio content, for example, give firms a new way to demonstrate expertise. Blogs and webinars open up opportunities to engage with prospective clients and build on their comments. And clients are drawn to the ability to control when and where they interact with the material.

What's more, in a competitive business landscape, Web sites can level the playing field among consultants, providing midsize firms with a cost-effective avenue to expand their client services and compete with deeper-pocketed rivals. "When you're a large company, you have the resources to spend a lot of money and get it done, or to hire consultants with specific skill sets and you get it done," says Craig Dewar, Microsoft director of community marketing. "When you're a small company you have to rely on yourself."

Yet until recently, even the biggest professional services firms were known for producing largely static, purely informational sites. A survey last spring of the top 50 accounting firms in the U.S. and U.K. by Muzeview, a research firm in New York, found the online sites way short on sizzle. Most were chock full of text, including newsletters, issue briefings, thought leadership surveys, case studies, and event invitations. However, only a handful took advantage of the Internet's audio, video, and interactive capabilities. Of the U.S. Web sites studied, only 4 included podcasts or RSS feeds. Just 2 had blogs. Only 11 provided some form of webcast or video content.

A positive digital presence often requires a cultural shift at professional services firms, where marketing has traditionally been soft-pedaled. New technologies, in particular, often present a hurdle. "The real challenge for midsize firms is getting executives comfortable with using new formats like podcasts and webinars," says Paul Gladen, president of Muzeview and coauthor of the study of accounting firms.

PKF Texas President Kenneth Guidry admits the idea of posting blogs and audiocasts took some getting used to. Price's close ties to Houston's technology community made him a natural choice, but the firm had "some general wariness and uneasiness about the whole blogging concept," says Guidry. "We're accountants, but we're accountants trying to be good business people."

Indeed, PKF Texas has also enlisted its expanded online presence as a key element of its recruiting strategy. "Millennials are finding the Web site and the blog," Guidry says of the pool of young twentysomethings from which PKF Texas regularly hires. "That creates a coolness factor in the conversation on college campuses."

Muzeview‘s Gladen agrees. "It's important to recognize how integral the Web is becoming to business activity. The next generation of entrepreneurs and executives are used to using the Internet, including online social networking, to find answers. If your firm doesn't have an active online presence, how will the next generation of clients hear of you or find you?"

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