Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accounting professionals today are facing significant challenges brought about by the online economy.

Online Challenges For CPAs

Today, more than ever, accountants must find smarter ways to remain competitive, obtain new clients, and keep their current business. Not only do you have to actively participate in the communities and industries you serve, you must also maintain an active presence online. This includes having a dynamic website and learning how to better market your business online.

In addition to investing money in offline marketing, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to compete with other web-marketing savvy accounting businesses, you will need to invest a more significant amount of your marketing budget to develop and maintain a website that brings new clients, engages users, outranks the competition in search engines and helps to increase your reach online.

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

Another difficult challenge that CPAs (and all other businesses) face with their websites, is that your site has only around thirty seconds or less to give visitors the information they need or they will find what they are looking for 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 Accountants In The Online Economy

As well as facing many new challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available to businesses in the accounting industry that are willing to evolve to meet digital demands and who can think outside the box in terms of improving their online marketing skills.

In this article, you will discover new ways to find new clients and create significant improvements in your accounting and financial business presence online.

As well as providing tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your accounting web presence, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS) to power your accounting or financial services business website.

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

• Why A Poorly Built Website Can Lose You Potential Customers And What To Do About It
• Everything You Need To Know About Growing A Successful Business Online With A WordPress Blog

Useful Tips To Improve Your Accounting Or Financial Services Website

Let’s start by going over some basic stuff. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your website and get better results online. We show you what web pages you need, what content you need, layout and navigation, etc.

If you need specific help with website planning, read this detailed step-by-step guide we have written: The Website Planning Process Explained - A Cost-Saving Primer For Business Owners

Improve Your Web Pages

All business websites require some basic web pages. Let’s discuss the pages your  need to have and how to set up your accounting website for best results.

Services And Products Page

You need a page that explains your services and any products that you offer.

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

• Business – planning, company formation, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, book keeping, forecasting, budgeting, financing, 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 businesses, asset transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

Make sure to list all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what these services do and why they should book an appointment.

About Us

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

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

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

Core Team

Are you searching for cost-effective ideas to sell more products online? Then make it easier for prospective clients to get to know, like and trust your business better.

Potential clients need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff or team members. It should include a photo and a brief 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. It should also explain what those specialties mean. This page should even include social buttons that will allow your visitors to follow your staff members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to outline your team member’s expertise, how their skills and knowledge contribute to the success of 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 to prospective new clients. Screenshot image source: deepsky.com)

If you need help how to easily add an easy-to-manage simple team directory to your website using free plugins, go here: How To Create A Simple Employee List In Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills

Job Opportunities

This is a listing of career opportunities available within the firm. It can include training provided, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, social activities sponsored by your firm, etc. You should also include information about new 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 And Testimonials

Case studies and reviews from clients are a great way to show prospective clients what kind of financial solutions you are capable of implementing to help solve their problems. Adding a page with case studies and reviews from clients also helps to provide visitors social proof online.

(Add a web page with case studies and client reviews. Screenshot image source: pcg-services.com)

For a detailed article on using client case studies and reviews improve your business online, go here: All You Need To Know To Achieve Better Results Online With Powerful Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a contact page is absolutely necessary.

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

• Company Name
• Location
• Phone number
• Facsimile
• Email
• Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media pages
• Online chat feature (optional feature)

If your business operates in several areas you will want to make this clear when displaying your address and contact information.

You should also include links to an FAQ section, useful pages, special offers, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Blog Section

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool. Blogs typically include a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using content such as company announcements, updates, educational information, informative posts, how-to videos, webinars, etc.

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

If you don’t have a website yet, or your existing accounting or financial services site is hard to keep updated or not delivering you the results you want, then WordPress can become both your website and blog.

Something not many businesses know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic-generation system that will begin delivering targeted traffic to your site, simply by adding new content to your website on a consistent basis.

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

For more details, go here: WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Automatically Drive More Traffic For Your Business With WordPress

Legal Information

It’s vital 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 no local, regional or federal laws or regulations are being contravened in whichever area or location you service.

Adding the following legal pages to your accounting or financial services site will help keep you out of trouble 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 Linking Policy
• Health/Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your website. To learn more about this go here: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Tips On How To Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s highly competitive online economy, the sooner you begin to publish great content on your site, the quicker you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from the competition.

By committing to providing great content with useful information and tips, you will get your visitors to share your content with others online and come back for more information. Publishing content is a great way to inform and teach site visitors and prospective clients about your business.

For example, topics for an accounting or financial services business could include:

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• Presenting accounts for non-profit activities
• Cashflow planning advice
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• 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 software accounting, tax accounting, office accounting software, reducing business debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to include keywords in your content that your readers 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 that will show you how to drive more traffic to your web 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 User Experience

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

Use RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and UX in several ways.

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

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

• All of your content updates are in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• An RSS feed provides a way for external links to point back to your site
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are various ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. users can view the 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 visiting sites of finance-related government departments and respected industry bodies.

For example, here are some RSS feeds containing useful information that you could 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

(Add RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to provide your visitors with a better UX.)

Adding Checklists

Checklists and forms are a great way to help increase user engagement, add value to your visitors and provide something unique. They can provide step-by-step instructions and resources to complete a necessary task. They can also be great business planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Company
• Rental Property Worksheet
• Fundraising Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Requirements
• Partnership Tax Checklist
• Trust Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Other Tools

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

In part two of this guide, we will be discussing a several online tools you can use in your website using WordPress plugins and themes that can help improve your search engine optimization, improve user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

To keep reading, click this link:

• Tips For CPAs – WordPress Plugins For Improving Search Engine Optimization, Increasing User Engagement And Traffic Generation

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