Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The digital information age has not only revolutionised the way business is done globally, it has also created a number of difficult challenges and great opportunities for CPAs.

Challenges Certified Public Accountants Face Online

Accountants today must work harder than ever to remain in business. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the communities and industries your business serves, you must also maintain an active presence online. This includes having an effective web presence and learning how to better promote your business online.

As well as investing money in offline marketing activities, businesses in the accounting industry are now finding that they need to allocate a greater share of their marketing budget to develop and manage a website that attracts prospects, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and social media, and helps create wider marketing reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, your web pages have to load fast, and be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that the needs of your website may change in time and some areas may need to be updated often. This requires having a well-developed website and content management strategy.

One other problem that accounting organizations (and other businesses) face online, is that they have only about 30 seconds to give users the information they need or they will go elsewhere to find what they need.

“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 CPAs In The Digital Economy

As well as facing significant business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available for businesses in the accounting profession that can adapt to meet online economy challenges and can think strategically when it comes to improving their online marketing skills.

The guide below will help you uncover a number of ways to drive more web traffic and improve your accounting and financial business presence online.

As well as providing practical tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your website, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) to power your accounting website.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS), see the articles below:

Practical Tips For Improving Your Accounting Or Financial Services Site

In this section we will start with the basics and show you ways to improve your website and get better results. We will look at what pages you need, what content you need, useful tips for improving layout and navigation, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, visit this page: A Practical Guide To Website Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Your Website Pages

All websites require several essential web pages. Let’s take a look at the pages your need to have and how to set up your accounting website for best results.

Services Description Page

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

Your page should include all the services you offer, such as:

Business – business planning, company formation, accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, book keeping, 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. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using these services and why they should choose you.

About Us

This page needs to describe your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, sponsored community projects, etc.

It should also mention any awards, certifications, recognitions, accreditations, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote the company and position it above the competition.

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

Staff

If you are searching for ways to grow your business online, then something you can do, is help prospects get to know your business better.

Your business needs to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team members. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be 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 even include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow individual team members on their social pages.

In this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight your employee’s expertise and qualifications, how their skills add value or contribute to the success of your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a page that introduces your staff members to prospective new clients. Screenshot image sourced from: deepsky.com)

If you need help how to easily add a simple team directory to WordPress without touching code, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: How To Easily Add A Simple Employee Directory On Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills

Career Opportunities

This is a listing of career opportunities within the company. It could include training offered, employee benefits, professional development, social aspects of working for your organization, etc. It should include stories of graduates who have worked their way up in your organization and information about career opportunities in the accounting and financial services industry.

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

Case Studies & Testimonials

Case studies and client reviews are a great way to show prospective clients what kind of solutions you will implement to help solve their problems. Adding a page with case studies and testimonials also provides social proof.

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

If you want to learn more using client case studies and client reviews get better results online, go here: Learn How To Improve Your Sales Conversions With Powerful Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A contact page is absolutely necessary.

Your contact page should provide the following information:

Company Name
Physical location
Phone number
Fax
Contact email
Map and directions
Website URL
Contact form
Request for more information – who to contact
Social media links
Chat (optional)

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

Consider also including links to an FAQ section, main pages, special offers, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Or Financial Services Blog

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool. Most blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using content like industry announcements, company updates, educational articles, informative posts, promotional videos, media presentations, 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 accounting site is very hard to add new content to or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can become both your business website and business blog.

Something few businesses know about, is that WordPress can become an automated traffic-generation system that can begin attracting web traffic to your website, simply by adding new content to your website on a regular basis.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can generate traffic automatically to your site)

For more info, see this article: Website Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Growing Your Website Traffic Automatically With WordPress

Legal Info Pages

It’s vitally important for accounting firms to ensure they have a compliant website, not just for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional and federal laws or regulations are being broken in whichever location you do business in.

Adding some or all of the following legal pages to your accounting or financial services 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 legal threats and inconveniences:

Contact Page
Privacy Policy
Terms Of Use
Website Disclaimer
Affiliate Agreement
Anti-Spam Policy
Compensation Disclosure
DMCA Notice
Earnings Disclaimer
External Linking Policy
Health/Financial Disclaimers
Refund Policy
Video/Audio Terms
etc.

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your site. For more info, see this article: Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

Ways To Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s globally competitive economy, being generous with content that educates and informs visitors has become one of the key differentiators for businesses selling similar products or services.

By committing to providing great content with information and tips, you will get your visitors sharing your content with others and coming back for more. Publishing content is the most effective 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
Cashflow planning
Business insurance
Protecting revenues
How to structure 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 educational articles that will help your prospective clients understand accounting services, such as software accounting, tax accounting, using office accounting software, reducing debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to include the same keywords in your articles that readers would search for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with actionable information that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating high-quality 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 100% FREE!

Tips For Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving your site’s user experience (known 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 can help to improve your visitor engagement and UX in many ways.

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

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

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

There are also a number of benefits to providing great content on 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 for your website, search online for tax-related government departments and industry bodies.

Below we have listed some exaples of feeds containing useful information that 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

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

Adding Checklists & Forms

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

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

How To Set Up A Company
Rental Property Worksheet
Not-For-Profit Activity Checklist
Disclosure Checklists
Company Tax Checklist
Self Managed Super Fund Tax Checklist
Income Tax Variation Forms

Other Tools

Providing unique tools, gadgets and applications for businesses is a great way to increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to users. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are useful tools for accounting websites. Others can include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.

In part 2, we will be discussing a number of WordPress-based tools you can add to your site that can help to improve your seo, improve user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

Click here to continue reading:

How To Grow An Accounting Business Online – Part Two

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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)

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