Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accounting professionals today face a number of challenges.

Challenges Certified Public Accountants Face Online

Accounting businesses today must work harder than ever to remain in business. Not only do you have to actively participate in the communities and industries you serve, you must also maintain a strong presence online. This includes having an effective website and learning how to better market your business services online.

In addition to investing money in offline marketing activities, you will probably find that in order to compete, you will need to designate a larger portion of your marketing budget to develop and manage a website that will attract new leads, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and help to give your business wider reach online.

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

One other problem that CPAs face, and other professions for that matter, is that your site has only around thirty seconds to provide visitors what 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 CPAs In The Digital Economy

As well as facing a number of significant business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available to businesses in the accounting sector that can adapt to meet the demands of the digital economy and think outside the box when it comes to improving their online business marketing skills.

This detailed guide will help you uncover ways to attract new visitors and create significant improvements in your business results online.

As well as providing tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your accounting web presence, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress Content Management System to power your accounting website.

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

• Why A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Lose You Potential Customers
• Understanding WordPress – The Business Owner’s Guide

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

Let’s start by reviewing some basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your website and get better results. We will look at what pages your website needs, what content works best, suggestions for improving layout and navigation, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your accounting website, go here: A Basic Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Ways To Improve Your Website Pages

All websites need several basic pages. Let’s go over these.

Description Of Products And Services

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

It should include services such as:

• Business – planning, formation, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, bookkeeping, budgeting, forecasting, financing, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
• Taxation – preparation, planning, reviewing, auditing, advising, 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 a business, transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using your services and direct them to your appointment booking page.

Who We Are

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

It’s important to list any business awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote the company and set it above your competitors.

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

Meet Your Staff

Are you searching for quicker and simpler ideas to sell more products or services online and get prospective clients to stay longer on your site? Then one of the things you can do, is help your prospects get to know you, your team and your organization better.

Your business needs to be relatable. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff or team members. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be familiar with accounting terms your bio descriptions 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 visitors to follow individual staff members on their social pages.

In this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight each staff member’s expertise and qualifications, 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 source: deepsky.com)

If you need help how to easily add an easy-to-manage list of employees to your website with no coding skills required, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: WordPress Plugin Tutorial: Adding A Staff Directory To Your WordPress Site

Career Opportunities

List any career opportunities within your firm. This page could include training provided, benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. You should also include case studies of recruits who have risen within your company and information such as the job outlook and new career opportunities in the accounting and financial services industry.

Also include a positions available section in your 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.

Testimonials

Testimonials from previous clients and case studies are a great way to show potential clients minimise tax, increase profitability, or grow strategically. By adding a page with case studies and reviews from clients, you will also help to provide social proof.

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

We have created a comprehensive article on using testimonials, case studies and reviews improve your business online. For more details: How To Achieve Better Results Online With Compelling Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A clean contact page is absolutely necessary.

It should provide the following information about your firm:

• Name Of Your Organization
• Physical location
• Phone
• Fax number
• Contact email
• Google Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media profiles
• Online Chat/Skype

If your business services multiple locations you will want to make that clear when showing your address and contact info.

Consider also including a few links for commonly-asked questions, main pages, special offers, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Blog Section

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs are built around a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content such as company news, updates, useful articles, discussions on current topics, promotional videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an existing website, then consider adding a WordPress blog to promote your firm.

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

Something few people know about, is that WordPress can become an automated traffic-generation system that will begin to attract targeted traffic to your web site, simply by adding content to your website on a regular basis.

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

For more info, see this article: Web Site Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Create An Automated Traffic Generation Machine

Legal Pages

It’s very important to make sure they have a compliant website, not just for building trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaching any local, regional or federal laws or regulations wherever you service clients.

Adding some or all of the legal pages below to your accounting or financial services site 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 Links Policy
• Health/Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your site here: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

Improve Your Content

In today’s fiercely competitive online economy, the sooner you begin engaging in the practice of content marketing, the sooner you will begin to differentiate yourself from the competition.

By committing to providing great content with useful advice and tips, you will get your visitors to share your content and come back for more. Using content is a great way to inform and teach your visitors and prospective clients about your business and about using your products and services.

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

• How balance sheets work
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• How to present accounts for non-profit activities
• Cashflow planning advice
• Business insurance
• Protecting revenues
• How to structure a self-managed retirement fund
• Things to look for when … (e.g. purchasing insurance, setting up payroll systems, etc.)

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your prospective clients gain a better understanding of your accounting or financial services, such as software accounting, small business accounting, business auditing, reducing debt, understanding financial concepts, etc.

Remember to use the same keywords and terminology in your articles 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 easy-to-digest information that will show you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful content for your 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 100% FREE!

Improve Visitor Experience

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

Syndicating Content Using RSS Feeds

RSS feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and user experience in many ways.

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

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

• All of your content updates are kept in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feed can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• It provides links to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides various ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. view the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits 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 or key industry bodies.

For example, here are a few RSS feeds 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

(Use RSS feeds to provide your visitors with a better UX.)

Adding Downloadable Checklists

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a fantastic way to increase user engagement and add value to your visitors. They can provide users with useful instructions and resources to complete tasks. Checklists and forms are also great business planning tools.

You can provide checklists and forms covering a range of areas such as:

• How To Set Up A Company
• Negative Gearing Worksheet
• Not-For-Profit Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Sole Trader Tax Checklist
• Capital Gains Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Provide Other Tools

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

In part two of this detailed guide, we look at a number of WordPress-based tools you can use in your accounting site that can improve your seo, increase user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

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

Click on this link to continue:

• How To Grow Your Accounting Or Financial Services Business Online Successfully – Part 2

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