Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accounting professionals face many challenges in the web economy, especially when it comes to growing their business online.

Online Challenges For CPAs

Accountants today must work harder than ever before to remain competitive. Not only do they have to become actively involved in the communities and industries they serve, they must also develop a strong presence online. This includes having a dynamic web presence and learning better ways to grow your business online.

In addition to spending money advertising offline, businesses in the accounting industry are now also finding that they need to designate a bigger share of their marketing budget towards the development and management of a website that drives new prospects, engages users, outranks the competition in search engines and social media, and helps to give their business a wider reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, your web 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 may change over time and some aspects will need to be updated frequently. This requires a sound web and content management strategy in place.

Another problem that accountants (and most other professions) face with their websites, is that your site has around 30 seconds to help visitors find what they need or they will leave the 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 Businesses In The Digital Economy

As well as facing many new business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available to accounting businesses that can adapt to meet digital challenges and think strategically when it comes to marketing their business better online.

This comprehensive guide will help you uncover new ways and opportunities to find more accounts and create significant improvements in your business results online.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also place special emphasis on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS) to power your accounting business website.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, go here:

• Discover Why A Poorly Built Website Can Cost You Business
• Everything You Need To Know To Grow A Successful Business Online With A WordPress Blog

Tips To Improve Your Website

This section looks at ways to improve your website and get better results online. We show you what pages you need, what content you need, your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need specific help with website planning, read this detailed guide: A Cost-Saving Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Essential Pages

Professional business websites require some basic pages. Let’s review the pages your  should have and how to structure your accounting or financial services website for best results.

Products And Services Page

You need to include a page that describes your products or services.

This page will include all the services you offer, such as:

• Business – planning, company formation, general accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, bookkeeping, budgeting, financing, forecasting, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
• Taxation – preparation, planning, reviewing, auditing, advice, 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, not just the ones you specialize in. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using these services and why they should book an appointment.

About Us

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

Remember to list any awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote the company and set it above the competition.

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

Our Team

Are you searching for simple ways to sell more products online and increase user interaction with your site? Then one of the things you can do, is help prospective clients get to know, like and trust your business better.

Prospective clients need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team members. It should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors won’t be familiar with accounting terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. This page should even include social buttons so your prospective clients can follow selected team members on their social networks.

In this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight your employee’s expertise, 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 employees to prospective new clients. Screenshot image sourced from: deepsky.com)

If you need help how to easily add a simple and easy-to-maintain list directory of staff or team members to your site without coding skills, see this tutorial: Adding An Employee Directory To WordPress: Plugin Tutorial

Recruitment

This is a listing of career opportunities within your organization. This page can include training, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, social aspects of working with your firm, etc. You can include stories of graduates who have established a solid career path thanks to your organization and 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 updates list, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials And Case Studies

Case studies and client reviews are a great way to show prospective clients the benefits of doing business with your organization. By adding a page with case studies and client reviews, you will also help to provide visitors social proof.

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

If you want to learn more about using client case studies and client reviews, refer to this article: How To Turn More Visitors Into Qualified Leads With Knockout User Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a contact page is crucial.

Your contact page should include some or all of the following information about your company:

• Company Name
• Your physical location
• Phone number
• Facsimile number
• Contact email address
• Map and directions
• Website address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media networks
• Online chat feature (optional feature)

If you have several locations you want to make this clear when displaying the address and contact information.

Consider also including links to an FAQ section, main pages, special offers, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Blog

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Most blogging platforms are built around a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to easily promote your business by publishing timely content like industry news, product updates, educational information, informative posts, promotional videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an accounting or financial services website, 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 very hard to keep updated with new content or not delivering you the results you want, then WordPress can act both as your website and your blog.

Not many people know this, but WordPress can turn into an automated traffic-generation system that can begin delivering targeted visitors to your business, simply by publishing regular content to your web site.

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

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

Legal Information

It’s vital to make sure they have a compliant website, not just for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional or federal laws or regulations are being contravened wherever your do business in.

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

• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Financial/Health Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

Go here if you want to learn more adding legal pages to your site: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Tips For Improving The Content On Your Website

In today’s highly competitive digital economy, the earlier you begin engaging in the practice of content marketing, the faster you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from the competition.

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

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

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• Presenting accounts for fundraising activities
• Business cashflow planning advice
• Business insurance
• Risk prevention
• 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 your prospective clients gain a better understanding of accounting services, such as forensic accounting, tax accounting, tips on using business accounting software, reducing business debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to include keywords in your content that your prospective clients will be searching for online.

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 website or blog, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your site 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 completely FREE!

Improving Visitor Experience

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

Add RSS Feeds

An RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed provides lots of benefits for your accounting business.

If you provide content that adds value to others, other sites may 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 kept in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• It provides links back to your site
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• RSS provides multiple ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits to adding syndicated content to your site from other websites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

To find useful RSS feeds just visit sites of finance-related government departments or respected industry bodies.

For example, here are some exaples of feeds containing useful information that 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

(Using RSS feeds can help to improve your accounting site’s UX.)

Provide Checklists

Checklists and forms are a great way to increase user engagement, add value to your audience and provide something unique. They can provide users with useful step-by-step instructions and resources to perform a necessary task. Checklists and forms are great planning tools.

Checklists and forms could cover areas such as:

• How To Set Up A Business
• Rental Property Checklist
• Not-For-Profit Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Requirements
• Company Tax Checklist
• Trust Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Unique Tools

Providing useful online tools, gadgets and applications for businesses on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your target audience. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are useful tools to add to accounting websites. Other applications would include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

In the next section of this detailed guide, we look at a number of WordPress plugins and themes you can use in your site that can improve seo, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

To view the rest of this article, click here:

• Your Accounting Website – How To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation With WordPress Plugins And Themes

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