THP Chartered Accountants

The relationship

I first worked for THP Chartered Accountants in 2011.

At the time, I was still being told that long-copy marketing did not work. People were too busy. Nobody read properly. The web had changed everything.

I was not convinced.

So I set myself a test. Taking my cue from David Ogilvy’s famous long-copy advertisement, “How to create advertising that sells”, I wrote my own version: “How to create a website that sells”.

It was self-promotion, of course. But it was also professional stubbornness. I wanted to know whether useful, detailed copy could still make the right person stop, read and act.

I left copies in the foyer of the building where I had my office and waited to see what happened. A day or two later, Jon Pryse-Jones, THP’s Head of Business Development, picked one up and got in touch the same day. Soon after, he commissioned me to take care of the firm’s website rewrite.

I liked that. The experiment had worked.

In fact, that flyer went on winning me clients for years. THP remains one of the best.

The challenge

THP is a well-established firm of chartered accountants and registered auditors with four offices across the South East. It has grown over more than 50 years and sits in an interesting place: approachable enough for owner-managed businesses, landlords and contractors, but substantial enough for larger companies and growing businesses that need serious specialist support.

That balance shapes the writing. The copy has to sound accessible to people who want a straight answer, while still reflecting the depth of the firm’s work in audit, tax planning and business advice. It has to work for people with very different levels of knowledge – business owners, finance teams, landlords, contractors and individuals trying to understand rules that may affect them. Some need a quick answer. Others need enough detail to make a serious decision.

The job, in other words, is not to make accountancy sound simpler than it is. It is to explain useful things clearly and accurately, in a way that earns trust.

The work

The first project was a full website rewrite: interviews with the THP team, staff biographies, main site copy and landing pages for branches in London, Essex and Surrey. Then came service factsheets, client newsletters, marketing emails, and event write-ups – including copy for THP’s 40th and 50th anniversary celebrations at the Wallace Collection and Houses of Parliament respectively.

From 2016, I began writing regular blog posts, keeping up with tax changes, HMRC guidance and the questions THP’s clients were likely to be asking. As the site grew, the work became more structured: keyword research, pillar pages, supporting articles and a clearer relationship between service pages and blog content.

More recently, with AI overviews changing how search results look and how readers behave, the old disciplines have become more important, not less. Answer the question precisely. Structure the page so its purpose is obvious. Make the expertise visible rather than assumed.

The result

THP now has a large archive of useful, search-led content built over more than a decade. Much of it helps the firm appear for competitive accountancy searches. Other pieces help clients stay abreast of changes that affect them – Budgets, new rules, HMRC guidance, and the steady flow of government announcements that businesses are supposed to understand.

The content is not there simply to bring people to the site. Once they arrive, it has to help them.

That is why the work has lasted. New material has been added when rules change. Older pages have been improved when they needed it. Useful content has been kept clear, accurate and easy to find.

For THP, that means the website has something solid to build on, rather than starting again every time search, tax or client expectations change.

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