Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accounting professionals today face increasing challenges.

Challenges Accountants Face Online

Certified Public Accountants today must work harder than ever before to remain in business. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the communities and industries your business serves, you must also develop and maintain a strong web presence. This includes having an effective website and figuring out better ways to promote your business services online.

In addition to investing dollars advertising offline, you will probably find that in order to remain competitive, increasingly larger amounts of their budget will need to be assigned to developing and managing a website that brings new prospective clients, engages visitors, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and helps increase your presence online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, your web pages have to load fast, and your site layout has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that the needs of your website may change in time and many aspects may need to be updated often. This requires having a well-planned website and content management strategy.

Another problem that accounting firms (and most businesses) face with their websites, is that they have around thirty seconds or less to provide users what they need or they will go away.

“Websites have evolved into central information hubs where service information is still present but enhanced with web portals, hyperlinks to state and federal sites, and a variety of free tools.”

Michael Alter, http://www.accountingweb.com/technology/accounting-software/tips-for-improving-your-website

Opportunities For Certified Public Accountants In The Online Economy

As well as facing many challenges, there are also many online opportunities available to businesses in the accounting profession that can adapt to meet the challenges of the online economy and think strategically about improving their online marketing skills.

This article will help you uncover new opportunities to source new business and establish stronger online credibility for your business.

As well as providing practical tips and information on ways to improve your website, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS) to power your accounting or financial services business website or blog.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS), see the articles below:

• Learn Why A Poorly Designed Website Can Lose You Prospective Clients And What To Do About It
• An Online Guide To Growing A Successful Small Business With A WordPress Site

Practical Tips For Improving Your Accounting Website

Let’s start by covering the basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your website and get better results. We will look at what pages an accounting site needs, what type of content works best for accounting websites, ways of improving your site’s layout and navigation, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, see this guide: The Website Planning Process - A Practical Guide For Non-Technical Business Owners

How To Improve Your Website Pages

All websites require several essential pages. Let’s go over the pages your  need to have and how to structure your accounting website for best results.

Services

It’s essential to include a page that describes your services and any products that you offer.

It should include all the products and services you offer, such as:

• Business accounting – planning, incorporation of companies, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, book keeping, financing, forecasting, budgeting, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
• Taxation – preparation, planning, reviewing, auditing, advice, problem resolution
• Investment strategies
• Corporate accounting
• Wealth creation
• Superannuation/retirement plan (401k) advice
• Audit risk assessment and assurance
• Quickbooks – setup, training, tune up, and support
• Specialist services – mergers, acquisitions, information technology, secretarial, rentals, trusts, fiduciary accounting, succession planning, selling businesses, transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what your services do and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

About Us Page

The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, philanthropy, etc.

This page should also include any industry awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote your company and position it above other competitors.

(List all of your awards certifications, accreditations, recognitions, publications, associations, etc. in the About Us page. Screenshot source: deloitte.com)

Staff Page

Are you searching for quicker, simpler and cost-effective ideas to sell more products online or get visitors to engage more with your site? Then make it easier for your visitors to get to know you and your organization better.

Your business needs to be relatable. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff or team members. This page should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors are probably not well-versed in accounting terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. This page should also include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients to follow your team members on their social networks.

On this page, make sure to highlight each staff member’s expertise and qualifications, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a team profile page. Image sourced from: deepsky.com)

We have written a detailed tutorial about how to easily create and add an easy-to-manage simple team members directory in WordPress here: Adding An Employee List Directory To Your Site: Tutorial

Recruitment

This is a listing of career opportunities available within your company. This page could include training offered, benefits, professional development, etc. You should also include stories of graduates who have risen within your firm and information about career opportunities in the accounting and financial services industry.

Maintain a positions available section in your page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to the page, subscribe to your newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials

Testimonials from past clients and case studies are a great way to show potential clients what it’s like to do business with your company. By adding a page with case studies and client reviews, you are also helping to provide social proof.

(Add a page to your site with case studies and testimonials from previous clients. Screenshot source: pcg-services.com)

We have written a comprehensive article about using testimonials and client reviews to grow your business online. For more details: Learn How To Achieve Better Results Online With Powerful User Testimonials

Contact Us

A contact page is essential.

Your contact page should include the following information:

• Business Name
• Your address
• Telephone
• Fax number
• Email
• Map and directions
• Website address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media URLs
• Live Chat/Skype (optional)

If you operate in multiple locations you want to make this clear when displaying the address and contact information.

Consider also including links to an FAQ section, useful pages, special offers, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Or Financial Services Blog Section

A blog is a very powerful business marketing tool. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to promote your business using timely content like news and events, updates, useful articles and tutorials, informative posts, videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an existing accounting or financial services site, then consider adding a WordPress blog to promote your organization.

If you don’t have a website yet, or your existing accounting or financial services site is hard to keep updated or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can serve both as your business website and blog.

Something few businesses know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic-generation system that will begin driving a stream of web traffic to your web site, simply by adding content on a consistent basis to your website.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

For more details, go here: Web Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Attracting More Website Visitors For Your Business Automatically With WordPress

Legal Info Pages

It’s extremely important to have a compliant website, not just for establishing trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not contravening any local, regional or federal laws or regulations wherever your business services clients.

Adding the following legal pages to your website will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential sources of legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms And Conditions Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your site here: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Tips On How To Improve The Content On Your Website

In today’s highly competitive global economy, the sooner you begin to publish great content on your site, the sooner you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from your competitors.

You will want to provide great content with useful advice and tips that will get your readers sharing your web pages and coming back for more information. Publishing content is the most effective way to educate your visitors and prospects about your business.

For example, for an accounting business, topics could cover the following:

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• How to present accounts for non-profit activities
• Business cashflow planning
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Risk prevention
• How to structure a self-managed retirement fund
• Dos and don’ts of … (e.g. purchasing insurance, claiming business expenses, etc.)

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your your readers understand your accounting services, such as finance accounting, business accounting, using office accounting software, reducing business debt, understanding accounting concepts, etc.

Remember to include keywords and terminology in your content that your readers will be searching for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating useful content for your site visitors and grow your business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving your site’s user experience (typically referred to as UX) helps you keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you ways you can improve visitor engagement and UX.

Syndicate Content Using RSS Feeds

Adding RSS feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and UX in many ways.

If you provide information that adds value to others, other businesses will want to syndicate your content to their visitors.

Some of the benefits of syndicating your content to other businesses using RSS feeds, include:

• All of your updates are kept in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• It provides links back to your content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides multiple ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. users can view your content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to adding syndicated content to your website from other sites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

To find useful RSS feeds for your website, visit sites of relevant government departments and well-known industry bodies.

For example, here are some exaples of useful RSS feeds you may want to add to your accounting website:

• Taxation Policy Center: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/press/rss.cfm
• Australian Taxation Office: https://www.ato.gov.au/RSS-news-feeds.aspx
• Canada Revenue Agency: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/rssfeeds/
• UK HM Revenue and Customs: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/rss/rss.htm
• South Africa Revenue Service: http://www.sars.gov.za/Pages/RSS-Feeds.aspx

(Add RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to provide your visitors with a better UX.)

Adding Online Checklists & Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a great way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your readers and set yourself apart from the competition. Forms and checklists can provide users with useful step-by-step instructions and resources to complete a necessary task. Checklists and forms can also be great planning tools.

You can provide online or downloadable forms and checklists (or links to these) covering a range of topics such as:

• How To Set Up A Business
• Rental Property Worksheet
• Not-For-Profit Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Company Tax Checklist
• Trust Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Unique Tools

Providing unique tools and applications for businesses (or links to these tools) on your website can help increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your users. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are some of the most popular tools for accounting websites. Other tools can include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.

In the next section of this detailed guide, we discuss a number of WordPress plugins and themes you can add to your site that can help to improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

Click on this link to continue:

• Your Accounting Website – Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic To Your Business Generation Using WordPress Plugins

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