Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The digital information age has not only revolutionized businesses worldwide, it has also created a number of challenges and opportunities for accountants.

Online Challenges For CPAs

Accountants today must work harder than ever to remain in business. Not only do they have to be fully involved in the communities and industries they serve, they must also develop an active web presence. This includes having a website and searching for smarter ways to promote your business online.

In addition to spending money in offline marketing activities such as advertising on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv, etc., you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to compete, you will need to delegate a bigger amount of your budget to develop and manage a website that attracts new prospects, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and helps you gain a wider degree of marketing reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, your pages have to be fast-loading, and your website layout has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that the needs of your website will change over time and sections may need to be updated frequently. This requires the implementation of a well-planned website and content management strategy.

Another difficult challenge that accounting organizations face (as all other professions do for that matter), is that they have around 30 seconds to provide users what they need or they will look elsewhere.

“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 Accounting Businesses In The Web Economy

As well as facing a number of significant business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for businesses in the accounting sector that can adapt to meet the challenges of the online economy and think outside the box in terms of marketing their business services better online.

In this guide, you will learn new ways and opportunities to find new accounts and create significant improvements in your business presence online.

As well as providing tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your business online, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) to power your accounting business website or blog.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, go here:

• How A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Cost You Money And What To Do About It
• Everything You Need To Know About Growing A Successful Small Business With WordPress

How To Improve Your Accounting Site

This section will show you how to improve your website and get better results. We will look at what web pages you need, what type of content works best for accounting websites, layout and navigation, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your website, visit this page: The Website Planning Process - A Money-Saving Guide For Business Owners

Improving Your Website Pages

All websites require several basic web pages. Let’s go over these.

Services Description Page

It’s essential to include a page that lists your products and services.

Your page will include all the products and services you offer, such as:

• Business – planning, formation, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, book keeping, forecasting, financing, budgeting, strategic planning, consulting, 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

Make sure to list all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about what your services do and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

Who We Are

The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, supported community projects, etc.

It’s important to list any awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote the company and position it above your competitors.

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

Team Profile

Are you looking for simple ways to sell more products or services online? Then make it easier for prospects to get to know your organization better.

Your business needs to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors are probably not that well-versed in accounting terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. It should even include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow your staff members on their social networks.

On this page, make sure to outline each staff member’s qualifications, how their skills add value or contribute to the success of your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add an employee page. Screenshot source: deepsky.com)

We have created a detailed tutorial on how to easily add a list of employees or team members in your site using free WordPress plugins here: How To Create A Simple Staff Directory For Your WordPress Site

Job Opportunities Page

List any career opportunities available within your firm. It would include type of training provided, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. It should include information such as the job outlook and additional career opportunities in the accounting industry.

Include also a positions available section in this page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to this page, join your updates list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies

Testimonials and case studies are a great way to show prospective clients what type of solutions you are capable of implementing to help them solve their problems. By adding a page with client reviews and case studies, you will also help to establish social proof.

(Add a page to your site with reviews from clients and case studies. Screenshot image sourced from: pcg-services.com)

We have written a comprehensive article on using case studies, testimonials and reviews improve your business online. Go here to learn more: How To Create Better Results Online Using Knockout User Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a functional contact page is crucial.

It should include some or all of the following information:

• Name
• Location of office
• Phone
• Facsimile number
• Email address
• Map and directions
• Web address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media links
• Interactive chat feature

If you operate out of several locations you should make this clear when displaying the address and contact info.

Consider also including a few links for commonly-asked questions, useful pages, special offers, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.

Blog Section

A blog is a powerful business marketing tool. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content like announcements, updates, training articles, informative posts, videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an established accounting site, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to promote your business.

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

Not many people know this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic machine that can help begin to attract web traffic to your website, simply by publishing regular content to your web site.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can drive traffic automatically to your site)

Go here to learn more about this: WordPress Web Site Traffic Blueprint – How To Create An Automated Traffic Generation Machine With WordPress

Legal Information

As a professional business, having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is important, not just for building trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not contravening local, regional and federal laws or regulations in whatever region you provide services to.

Depending on what services you provide, adding the following legal pages to your accounting or financial services website will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Google), and other potential sources of threats and legal inconveniences:

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

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your website here: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

Tips For Improving Your Web Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, the earlier you begin to engage in the practice of content marketing, the sooner you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from competing businesses.

By committing to providing great content with useful advice and tips, you will get your readers to share your content and come back for more. Using content is the most effective way to inform and educate your visitors and prospective clients about your business and about using your services.

For example, topics for an accounting or financial services business could include:

• How balance sheets work
• Profit and loss statements
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• How to present accounts for fundraising activities
• Cashflow planning tips
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Protecting revenues
• How to structure a self-managed retirement fund
• Do’s and don’ts of … (e.g. purchasing vs leasing, setting up payroll systems, etc.)

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your prospective clients understand your services, such as finance accounting, business accounting, business budgeting, reducing debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to include keywords and terminology in your articles that your prospective clients would search for.

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 show exactly how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating useful content that will add value to your visitors and grow your business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Ways To Improve User Experience

Improving user experience (often referred to as UX) will help you keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you different ways to improve visitor engagement and user experience.

Adding RSS Feeds

Adding RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and user experience in a number of different ways.

If you provide useful information, other sites may want to syndicate your content.

Some of the benefits of having other businesses syndicate your content, include:

• All of your updates are kept in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• An RSS feed provides links back to your site
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides multiple ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. users can read the content on their mobile device using different applications)
• RSS is built into WordPress

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

You can find RSS feeds with loads of useful content for your website by visiting sites of finance and tax-related government departments and industry bodies.

Below we have listed some exaples of feeds you may want to consider adding to your site:

• 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 feeds to improve your accounting site’s UX.)

Adding Online Checklists And Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a fantastic way to increase visitor engagement, add value to your readers and provide something unique. They can provide step-by-step instructions and resources to get necessary tasks completed. They are great business planning tools.

You can provide a range of checklists and forms covering subjects such as:

• How To Set Up A Company
• Negative Gearing Worksheet
• Fundraising Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Requirements
• Partnership Tax Checklist
• Trust Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Add Online Tools

Providing useful online tools, gadgets and applications for businesses (or links to these tools) on your website can help increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your target audience. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are popular tools for accounting websites. Other tools can include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.

In the next section, we discuss a several online tools you can use in your website using WordPress plugins that can help improve seo, improve user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part 1 of this guide on ways to build your accounting web presence.

Click on this link to keep reading:

• A Complete Step-By-Step Guide To Building And Growing An Accounting Business Online Successfully – Part 2

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