Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The web economy has not only revolutionized business globally, it has also created new challenges and great opportunities for the accounting and financial services industry.

Challenges Professional Accountants Face Online

Accountants today must work harder than ever before to remain in business. Not only do they have to become actively involved in the communities and industries they serve, they must also develop and maintain an active digital presence. This includes having a dynamic web presence and learning how to better market your services online.

As well as investing money marketing offline, you will probably find that in order to remain competitive, increasingly larger amounts of their budget need to be assigned to develop and manage a website that will attract prospective clients, engage users, outperform the competition in search engines and help you gain a wider degree of reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, load fast, and be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs may change over time and many areas will need to be updated often. This requires a well-developed website and content management strategy.

Another problem that accountants face online, as all other professions do for that matter, is that your site has an average of thirty seconds or less to provide visitors with what they are searching for or they will go 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

Online Opportunities For Certified Public Accountants

As well as facing many new challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available to accounting businesses that are willing to adapt to meet online economy challenges and think strategically in terms of marketing their business better online.

The guide below will help you uncover ways to attract and engage more visitors and create significant improvements in your accounting and financial business presence online.

As well as providing practical tips and information on ways to improve your accounting website, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress content management system to power your accounting or financial services business website.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, see these articles:

• Discover Why A Poorly Built Web Site Can Lose You Money
• An Online Guide To Building Your Successful Business With A WordPress Blog

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

We’ll start first by going over the basic stuff. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your accounting website and get better results. We will look at what pages you need, what content works best, your layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your accounting website, see this detailed step-by-step guide: How To Plan Your Business Website - A Practical Guide For Non-Technical Business Owners

Basic Pages

Professional business websites need several basic pages. Let’s go over the pages your  need to have and how to set up your website for best results.

Services And Products Page

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

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

• Business – business planning, incorporation of companies, accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, book keeping, financing, forecasting, 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, asset transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

Make sure to list all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using these services and why they should book an appointment.

Who We Are

This page should give a description of your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, supported community activities, etc.

Remember to also include any professional awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, associations, publications, etc., that could be used to promote the company and position it above the competition.

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

Meet Your Staff

Are you looking for quicker, easier and cheaper ideas to grow your business online? Then one of the things you can do, is make it easier for prospective clients to get to know, like and trust your business better.

You want your business 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 will not tend to be familiar with 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 visitors to follow selected staff members on their social networks.

On this page, make sure to outline each person’s experience, why they are an invaluable asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a page that introduces your staff to prospective new clients. Screenshot image source: deepsky.com)

If you need help how to create and add an updatable simple team directory to your website with no coding skills required, see this step-by-step tutorial: How To Add A Simple Staff Directory To Your WordPress Site

We’re Hiring

This is a listing of career opportunities available within the company. This page could include training offered, employee benefits, professional development, social aspects of working for your firm, etc. You can include case studies of graduates who have risen within your organization and information such as the job outlook and career opportunities in the accounting industry.

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

Testimonials

Testimonials from past clients and case studies are a great way to show prospective clients what kind of financial solutions you can implement to help them solve their problems. By adding a page with case studies and reviews from clients, you will also help to establish social proof.

(Add a page with case studies and testimonials from past clients. Screenshot image sourced from: pcg-services.com)

If you would like to learn more about using testimonials and reviews go here: How To Convert More Visitors Into Qualified Prospects Using Powerful Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A contact page is absolutely necessary.

Your contact page should provide the following information about your company:

• Name Of Your Organization
• Street address of office
• Phone
• Fax
• Contact email
• Google Map
• Web address
• Contact form
• Request for information – who to contact
• Links to social media pages
• Live chat

If your business services different areas you will want to make this clear when showing your address and contact info.

You could also include links to an FAQ section, main pages, special offers, support page, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Or Financial Services Blog

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs are built around a content management system that allows you to promote your business by publishing timely content such as news and events, updates, educational articles and tutorials, discussions on current topics, how-to videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an accounting site, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to promote your firm.

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

Not many businesses know this, but WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic machine that will help drive targeted traffic to your business, simply by publishing regular content to your site.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can automate your traffic generation)

To learn more about this go here: Web Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Generating More Website Visitors Automatically

Legal Information Pages

It’s vital for accounting organizations to have a website that complies will all legal requirements online, not just for building trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not contravening any laws or regulations in whichever region you do business in.

Adding the legal pages below to your accounting site will help keep you out of legal hot water 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 Links Policy
• Health/Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your website. To learn more about this go here: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Improve Your Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, being generous with content has become one of the key differentiators for businesses that sell similar products or provide similar services.

By committing to providing great content with advice and tips, you will get your readers to share your web pages and come back for more information. This is the most effective way to inform and teach your visitors and prospective clients about your business and about doing business with you.

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

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Profit and loss statements
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• How to present accounts for fundraising activities
• Business cashflow planning
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Risk protection
• Tips on structuring your self-managed retirement fund
• Things to look for when … (e.g. purchasing insurance, setting up payroll systems, etc.)

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your prospective clients gain a better understanding of your services, such as forensic accounting, tax accounting, tips on using office accounting software, reducing debt, understanding financial conventions, etc.

Remember to use keywords and terminology in your content that your prospective clients would search for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating high-quality content for your visitors and grow your business online using content marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Tips For Improving Visitor Experience

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

RSS Feeds – Content Syndication

An RSS feed provides plenty of benefits for your business.

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

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

• All of your content updates are kept in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• A feed provides links to your content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• There are several ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. users can read your content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• RSS is built into WordPress

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

You can find many useful RSS feeds by searching online for relevant government departments or respected industry bodies.

For example, here are a few useful RSS feeds you may want to add 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 (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to improve your website’s UX.)

Checklists & Forms

Checklists and forms are a great way to increase user engagement and add value to your visitors. Forms and checklists can give them useful step-by-step instructions and resources to perform tasks. Checklists and forms can also be great business planning tools.

You can provide a range of online or downloadable forms and checklists covering topics such as:

• How To Set Up A Business
• Rental Property Worksheet
• Not-For-Profit Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Requirements
• Sole Trader Tax Checklist
• Self Managed Super Fund Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Online Tools

Providing useful tools and applications for businesses on your website can help increase visitor engagement and add value to your potential clients. 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 part 2, we discuss a several online tools you can use in your site using WordPress plugins that can help to improve your seo, increase user engagement and drive more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of part 1.

To view the rest of this guide, click here:

• How To Grow Your Accounting Online Presence Successfully With WordPress – Part Two

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