Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accounting professionals today face increasing challenges.

Online Challenges For CPAs

Now, more than ever, accountants must work hard and find smarter ways to stand out from the competition, find new business, and keep their current clientele. 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 dynamic website and learning how to better promote your services online.

In addition to spending dollars in offline marketing, businesses in the accounting industry are now also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget will need to be assigned to developing and managing a website that attracts prospective clients, engages users, outranks the competition in search engines and social media, and helps increase their presence online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, load fast, and be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs will change over time and many areas will need to be frequently updated. This requires having a sound web and content management strategy.

Another difficult challenge that CPAs (and most professions) face with their websites, is that they have only around thirty seconds to provide users with what they are looking for 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 The Accounting Profession In The Online Economy

As well as facing many business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available for accounting companies that can evolve to meet the demands of the online economy and who can think strategically when it comes to marketing themselves better online.

This guide will help you uncover ways and opportunities to attract more visitors and improve your business results 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 platform to power your accounting website or blog.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system, see the articles below:

• Why A Poorly Built Web Site Can Cost You Business And What To Do About It
• An Online Guide To Building Your Successful Business Using A WordPress Site

Useful Tips For Improving Your Accounting Website

We’ll start first by covering the basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at ways 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 and financial services sites, layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your accounting website, read this detailed step-by-step guide: A Practical Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Essential Website Pages

All websites require a number of essential web pages. Let’s discuss these.

Products And Services Description Page

You need a page that lists your services and products.

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

• Business – planning, company structures, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, book keeping, financing, forecasting, budgeting, strategic planning, consulting, etc.
• Taxation – preparation, planning, reviewing, auditing, advising, problem resolution
• Investment strategies
• Corporate finance
• 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. Educate your visitors about what your services do and direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us

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

It should also mention any CPA awards, certifications, recognitions, accreditations, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote the company and position it above other competitors.

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

Your Staff Page

If you are searching for simple ways to sell more products online, then something you can do, is make it easier for prospective clients to get to know you, your team and your organization better.

You want people to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your people. It should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors won’t be familiar with accounting terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. It should even include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow selected team members on their social networks.

On this page, make sure to outline your team member’s qualifications, why they are an 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 sourced from: deepsky.com)

To learn more about how to create and add a simple and easily updatable simple staff directory to your site, refer to this tutorial: How To Easily Add A Simple Employee Directory To Your WordPress Site Without Editing Code

Work With Us

This is a listing of career opportunities within the organization. It should include training provided, benefits, professional development, etc. You can include stories of recruits who have risen within your organization and information about additional 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, join your announcements list, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials

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. Adding a page with case studies and testimonials from previous clients also provides social proof.

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

We have written extensively about using case studies, testimonials and client reviews to grow your business online here: Turn More Visitors Into Prospects Using Compelling User Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a clean contact page is crucial.

It should provide visitors with some or all of the following information:

• Business Name
• Your address
• Telephone number
• Facsimile
• Contact email
• Map and directions
• Web address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media URLs
• Online chat

If you operate from different locations you will want to make that clear when displaying the address and contact information.

You could also include links to the most commonly asked questions, useful pages, special offers, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.

Blog

A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Most blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to easily promote your business using content such as announcements, product releases, useful articles and tutorials, informative posts, videos, webinars, etc.

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

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

Something not many people know about, is that WordPress can turn into an automated traffic machine that can instantly attract web traffic to your website, simply by adding content to your website on a regular basis.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more about this: Web Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Turn Your WordPress Web Site Into An Automated Traffic Generation Machine

Legal Pages

It’s vital for accounting and financial services companies to ensure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online, not just for building trust with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not contravening any laws and regulations wherever you service clients.

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

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

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your website. Go here to learn more: How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Improving The Content On Your Website

In today’s globally competitive economy, the willingness to deliver valuable content to visitors free of charge has become one of the key differentiators for businesses.

You want to provide great content with information and tips that will get your readers to share your content online and come back for more information. Content marketing is the most effective way to educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business and about doing business with your company.

For example, for an accounting business, topics could include:

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• How to present accounts for non-profit activities
• Business cashflow planning tips
• Business insurance
• Risk protection
• Tips on structuring your self-managed retirement fund
• Things to look for when … (e.g. purchasing insurance, claiming business expenses, etc.)

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

Remember to include keywords and terms in your content that your prospective clients would search for.

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

Ways To Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Using RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds provide many benefits for your accounting business.

If you provide valuable content, other businesses will want to syndicate your content.

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

• All of your content updates are in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared online
• Feeds allow for subscribing
• It provides a way for external links to point back to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• There are a number of ways readers can receive your content (e.g. subscribers can view your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• It’s built into WordPress

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

To find useful RSS feeds for your website, search online for finance-related government departments or well-known industry bodies.

Here are a few RSS feeds you may want to consider adding to your 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

(RSS feeds can help to improve your accounting website’s user experience.)

Checklists And Forms

Checklists and forms are a great way to increase user engagement and add value to your visitors. Forms and checklists can provide users with useful step-by-step instructions and resources to complete necessary tasks. They are great business planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Company
• Negative Gearing Worksheet
• Not-For-Profit Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Individual Tax Checklist
• Self Managed Super Fund Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Online Tools

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

In part two of this detailed guide, we will be discussing a several WordPress-based tools you can add to your accounting or financial services website that improve your seo, increase user engagement and generate 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 – WordPress Plugins That Can Improve SEO, Increase User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation

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