Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accounting professionals face many challenges in today’s digital economy, especially in terms of growing a business presence online.

Challenges Certified Public Accountants Face Online

Today, more than ever, certified public accountants must work hard to stand out from the competition, source new business, and keep their current clients. Not only do they have to become actively involved in the communities and industries their business serves, they must also develop and maintain an active presence online. This includes having a website and learning how to better market your business services online.

As well as spending dollars marketing offline, you will probably find that in order to compete, you will need to allocate a greater amount of your budget to develop and manage a website that can bring new prospective clients, engage visitors, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and help you create wider exposure online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, your pages have to be fast-loading, and your website has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs will change over time and sections will need to be updated often. This requires having a well-developed website and content management strategy in place.

Another challenge that accounting organizations face (as most other professions do for that matter), is that they have an average of 30 seconds to help users find the information they need or they will leave and 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

Opportunities For Certified Public Accountants

As well as facing many business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available for accounting businesses that are willing to evolve to meet the challenges of the online economy and who can think progressively when it comes to marketing their business better online.

In this detailed guide, you will learn about new ways and opportunities to find new potential clients and build more online credibility for your business.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress content management system to power your accounting business website.

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

• How A Poorly Built Website Can Cost You Potential Clients And What To Do About It
• Using A WordPress Site To Grow Your Business Online

Ways To Improve Your Accounting Or Financial Services Website

This section looks at ways to improve your accounting website and get better results. We will look at what pages your site needs, what content you need, layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, check out the detailed guide we have written here: Planning Your Small Business Web Site - A Basic Guide For Business Owners

Improve Your Website Pages

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

Description Of Products And Services

You need to include a page that explains your services and products.

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

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

Make sure to list all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using these services and why they should book an appointment with you.

Who We Are

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

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

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

Staff Page

Are you looking for quicker and easier ways to grow your business online? Then make it easier for prospective clients to get to know your organization better.

You want potential clients to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team. It should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors won’t be that well-versed in accounting terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. It should also include social buttons so your site visitors can follow some of your staff members on their social pages.

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

(Add an employee description page. Screenshot source: deepsky.com)

We have created a detailed tutorial on how to create and add an easy-to-manage simple team members directory to WordPress using free WP plugins here: How To Add A Staff List Directory In WordPress

Job Opportunities

This is a listing of career opportunities within your organization. It can include training offered, benefits, professional development, etc. You can also include information such as the job outlook and new career opportunities in the accounting 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, join your newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies

Case studies and testimonials from previous clients are a great way to show prospective clients them minimise tax, increase profitability, or grow strategically. Adding a page with testimonials and case studies also provides social proof.

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

We have written a comprehensive article on using case studies, testimonials and reviews to improve your business results online. For more info, see this article: All You Need To Know To Start Getting Better Results Online Using Effective Customer Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A functional contact page is absolutely necessary.

It should include:

• Name Of Your Organization
• Physical address
• Telephone number
• Fax
• Contact email
• Map and directions
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Request for information – contact details
• Social media web addresses
• Chat feature (optional)

If you have multiple areas you want to make that clear when displaying the address and contact information.

Consider also including links to an FAQ page, useful pages, special offers, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Blog Section

A blog can be a very powerful business marketing tool. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to easily promote your business by publishing timely content such as company announcements, updates, educational information, opinions and discussions, promotional videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an existing website, 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 very hard to manage or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can become both your business website and your blog.

Not many businesses know this, but WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation system that can attract targeted traffic to your business, simply by publishing content to your website on a consistent basis.

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

For more details, go here: Website Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Increasing Your Web Traffic Automatically

Legal Pages

As a professional accountant or financial services provider, ensuring that you have a website that complies will all legal requirements online is crucially important, not just for building trust with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaking local, regional and federal laws and regulations wherever you provide services to.

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

• Contact Page
• Privacy Policy
• Terms And Conditions
• 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

If you want to learn more about adding legal pages to your website, see this article: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

How To Improve The Content On Your Website

In today’s fiercely competitive online economy, having a content marketing strategy has become one of the key differentiators for businesses selling similar products or services.

Providing great content with advice and tips will get your readers to share your web pages and come back for more information. Using content is a great way to inform and educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business.

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

• How balance sheets work
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• Presenting accounts for fundraising activities
• Business cashflow planning tips
• Business insurance
• Risk protection
• Tips on structuring a self-managed retirement fund
• Dos and don’ts of … (e.g. purchasing vs leasing, claiming business expenses, etc.)

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your your readers understand your accounting or financial services, such as forensic accounting, small business accounting, tax planning for small business, reducing debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to use the same keywords and terms in your content that your readers will be searching for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, 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 completely FREE!

Ways To Improve Visitor Experience

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

Adding RSS Feeds

RSS feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and UX in several ways.

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

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

• All of your content updates are in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feed can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• A feed provides a way for external links to point back to your site
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• There are various ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. read your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits 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 many useful RSS feeds by visiting sites of relevant government departments and key industry bodies.

For example, here are some exaples of feeds you could consider adding 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

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

Checklists And Forms

Checklists and forms are a fantastic way to increase user engagement, add value to your visitors and set yourself apart from the competition. Checklists and forms can provide users with step-by-step instructions and resources to get necessary tasks done. They are also great business planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Company
• Negative Gearing Checklist
• Not-For-Profit Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Partnership Tax Checklist
• Trust Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Other Tools

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

In the next section of this detailed article, we will be discussing a several WordPress plugins you can add to your site 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 section one of this guide on ways to grow your accounting business web presence.

To continue reading, click this link:

• The Complete Guide On How To Grow Your Accounting Online Presence – Part Two

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