Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The digital information age has not only transformed businesses worldwide, it has also created difficult challenges and opportunities for CPAs and financial service providers.

Online Challenges For CPAs

Accounting businesses today must work harder than ever before to remain in business. Not only do you have to participate in the communities and industries your business serves, you must also develop a strong presence online. This includes having an effective website and learning smarter ways to promote your business services online.

In addition to investing money in offline marketing, you will probably find that in order to compete, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be allocated to develop and maintain a website that brings in prospective clients, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and gives you wider reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, load fast, and be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs will change in time and sections may need to be updated frequently. This requires the implementation of a well-developed website and content management strategy.

One other challenge that accounting organizations face (as do all other businesses for that matter), is that they have only around 30 seconds or less to provide users with what they are searching for or they will leave your site.

“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 Professionals

As well as facing a number of business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for businesses in the accounting industry that can evolve to meet the challenges of the online economy and can think outside the box about improving their online business marketing skills.

In this detailed guide, you will discover a number of ways to attract more potential clients and establish stronger online credibility for your accounting or financial services business.

As well as providing tips and information on ways to improve your accounting web presence, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform to power your accounting or financial services website.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, see the articles below:

• How A Poorly Built Website Can Cost You Customers
• The Beginner’s Guide To Building A Successful Business Using A WordPress Blog

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

We’ll start first by covering some basic stuff. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your website and get better results online. We will look at what web pages you need, what type of content works best for accounting websites, ways of improving navigation structure, etc.

If you need any help with website planning, go here: A Money-Saving Guide To Website Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Your Web Pages

Professional websites require several basic pages. Let’s discuss these.

Services And Products Page

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

It will include services such as:

• Business accounting – planning, incorporation of companies, general accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, book keeping, financing, forecasting, budgeting, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
• Taxation – preparing, 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 a business, asset transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

List all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using these services and direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us

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

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

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

Meet Your Staff

If you are looking for quicker and easier ideas to grow your business online, then make it easier for prospective clients to get to know your organization better.

You want your business to be relatable. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. It should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors won’t be well-versed in accounting terms your bio 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 visitors to follow your team members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to outline your team member’s expertise, 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 page that introduces your staff or team members to prospective new clients. Screenshot image sourced from: deepsky.com)

We have created a detailed tutorial about how to easily add an updatable simple team directory to your website using free WP plugins here: Adding An Employee List Directory

Career Opportunities Page

List any career opportunities within the company. It would include type of training provided, benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. You should also include stories of trainees who have established a solid career path thanks to your company and information such as the job outlook and career opportunities in the accounting and financial services industry.

Maintain a positions available section in this page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to the page, subscribe to your contact list, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials And Case Studies

Testimonials from previous clients and case studies are a great way to show prospective clients what it’s like to do business with your company. Adding a web page with testimonials from previous clients and case studies also establishes social proof online.

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

We have written extensively about using client testimonials and client reviews improve your business online. If you would like to know more here: All You Need To Know To Get Better Results Online Using Awesome Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a contact page is essential.

Your contact page should include the following information about your business:

• Name Of Your Organization
• Physical address
• Phone
• Facsimile
• Email address
• Google Map
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media networks
• Online chat feature (optional)

If your business services multiple locations you should make this clear when displaying the address and contact information.

Consider also including links to the most commonly asked questions, useful pages, special offers, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Or Financial Services Blog Section

A blog can be a powerful business marketing tool. Most blogging platforms typically include a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using content such as company announcements, company updates, useful articles, informative posts, videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an accounting or financial services website, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to promote your business.

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

You may not know this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic system that will begin driving an ongoing stream of targeted visitors to your site, simply by adding new content on a regular basis to your website.

(WordPress can generate new visitors automatically to your website)

For more details, go here: Website Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Turn Your Website Into A Traffic Machine

Legal Information

It’s very important to ensure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online, not just for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaching laws or regulations wherever you provide services to.

Depending on what services and products you provide, adding the legal pages below to your website 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 Statement
• Terms 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
• etc.

We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to your website. For more details, go here: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

Ways To Improve Your Content

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

By committing to providing great content with information and tips, you will get your readers sharing your content with others online and coming back for more. Publishing content is the most effective way to educate your visitors and prospects about your business and about using your products and services.

For example, topics for an accounting business could include:

• How balance sheets work
• Profit & loss statements
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• Presenting accounts for non-profit activities
• Business cashflow planning advice
• Business insurance
• Risk prevention
• Tips on structuring a self-managed retirement fund
• Things to look for when … (e.g. purchasing insurance, claiming business expenses, etc.)

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your readers understand your accounting or financial services, such as forensic accounting, business accounting, business auditing, reducing business debt, understanding accounting conventions, etc.

Remember to use specific keywords and terms in your content that 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 easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating high-quality 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 completely FREE!

Improving Visitor Experience

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

Adding RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds provide plenty of benefits for your business.

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

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

• All of your updates are 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 content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• RSS provides various ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. users can view your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• It’s built into WordPress

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

You can find many useful RSS feeds for your website by searching online for finance-related government departments and respected industry bodies.

Below we have listed a few RSS feeds you may want to add to your accounting 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

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

Provide Online Checklists

Checklists and forms are a great way to help increase user engagement and add value to your readers. They can provide useful step-by-step instructions and resources to complete a necessary task. Forms and checklists can also be great planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Business
• Rental Property Checklist
• Non-Profit Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Company Tax Checklist
• Self Managed Super Fund Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Other Tools

Providing useful online tools and applications for businesses (or links to these tools) can help increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your potential clients. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are useful tools to add to accounting websites. Others could include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

In the next section of this guide, we look at a several WordPress plugins you can use in your website that can help to improve seo, improve user engagement and drive more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of section one of this comprehensive guide on ways to grow your accounting business web presence.

Click here to continue:

• How To Build And Grow An Accounting Business Online – Part 2

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