Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The digital information age has not only transformed businesses globally, it has also created increasingly difficult challenges and opportunities for certified public accountants and financial service providers.

Online Challenges For Accountants

Now, more than ever, accounting firms must work harder and find smarter ways to stand out from the competition, find new business, and retain current clients. Not only do they have to become more involved in the communities and industries their business serves, they must also develop a strong digital presence. This includes having an effective website and learning how to better promote your business online.

In addition to spending money advertising offline, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to remain competitive, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget will need to be directed to developing and maintaining a website that can drive new prospective clients, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and help you create a wider amount of reach online.

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

One other challenge that accountants (and most other professions) face with their websites, is that your site has around 30 seconds to provide users with what they are searching for or they will look 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 In The Online Economy

As well as facing a number of challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available to businesses in the accounting sector that are willing to evolve to meet the demands of the online economy and can think strategically in terms of improving their online business marketing skills.

This detailed guide will help you uncover opportunities to attract new visitors and establish stronger online credibility for your business.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also emphasize the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress platform to power your accounting or financial services business website.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform, see the articles below:

• How A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Lose You Money And What To Do About It
• A Complete Guide To Building A Successful Business With A WordPress Blog

Ways To Improve Your Accounting Website

This section looks at ways to improve your accounting website and get better results online. We will look at what web pages you need, what content works best for accounting and financial services sites, layout and navigation, etc.

If you need specific help with website planning, go here: A Basic Guide To Website Planning For Business Owners

Improve Your Web Pages

Professional business websites need some essential pages. Let’s review the pages your  should have and how to structure your accounting website for best results.

Services Description Page

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

Your page should include services such as:

• Business – business planning, company structures, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, book keeping, budgeting, forecasting, financing, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
• Taxation – preparation, planning, reviewing, auditing, advising, 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 what your services do and why they should book an appointment with you.

About Us Page

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, sponsored community projects, etc.

Remember to include any industry awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote your company and position it above your competitors.

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

Team

Are you searching for simple ways to sell more products or services online? Then help your visitors get to know you and your business better.

You want prospective clients to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees or team members. This page should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be that well-versed in accounting terms your 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 individual staff members on their social pages.

In this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight your employee’s expertise and qualifications, how their skills 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 team to prospective new clients. Screenshot image source: deepsky.com)

To learn more about how to create and add an updatable list of employees to your web site using a free WordPress plugin, see this step-by-step tutorial: Adding A Staff List Directory To Your Site

Work For Us

List any career opportunities available within your organization. It could include training provided, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. You can include stories of graduates who have risen within your organization and information about upcoming career opportunities in the accounting industry.

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

Testimonials & Case Studies

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

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

We have written extensively on using client testimonials and reviews improve your business online here: Improve Your Sales Conversions Using Highly Effective Customer Testimonials

Contact Page

A clean contact page is absolutely necessary.

Your contact page should provide:

• Name
• Physical location
• Phone number
• Facsimile
• Email address
• Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Request for more information – who to contact
• Links to social media networks
• Interactive chat feature

If your business services several areas you want to make that clear when showing the address and contact info.

Consider also including a few links for the most commonly asked questions, useful pages, special offers, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Blog Section

A blog can be a powerful business marketing tool. Blogs typically include a content management system that allows you to promote your business using content such as news and events, updates, educational information, informative posts, videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an established website, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to promote your organization.

If you don’t have a website yet, or your existing site is very hard to add new content to or not delivering you the results you want, then WordPress can be used both as your website and your blog.

You may not have been told about this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation machine that can instantly begin delivering new targeted traffic to your website, simply by adding regular content to your site.

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

Go here to learn more about this: Web Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Create An Automated Traffic-Getting Machine

Legal Pages

It’s really important for professional firms to ensure they have a compliant website, not just for establishing credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that no laws and regulations are being broken in whatever area you service.

Depending on the products and services you provide, adding some or all of the following legal pages to your site will help keep you 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 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

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your website. Go here to learn more about this: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

Ways To Improve Your Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you begin to publish great content on your site, the faster you will begin to differentiate yourself from competing businesses.

Providing great content with advice and tips will get your visitors sharing your web pages with others online and coming back for more. Using content is the most effective way to educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business and about doing business with your firm.

For example, topics for an accounting business could include:

• 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
• Do’s and don’ts of … (e.g. purchasing insurance, setting up payroll systems, etc.)

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your your prospective clients understand accounting services, such as forensic accounting, small business accounting, tax planning for small business, reducing debt, understanding accounting conventions, etc.

Remember to include keywords in your content that readers would search for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, 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 Of Improving Visitor Experience

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

Content Syndication – RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and UX in a number of different ways.

If you provide valuable content, other sites may 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 kept in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• A feed provides a way for external links to point back to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are multiple ways readers can receive your content (e.g. users can read the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to adding syndicated content to your website from other sites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

To find RSS feeds with useful content for your website, visit sites of relevant government departments or key industry bodies.

Here are a few RSS feeds containing useful information that you may want to add 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 feeds to improve your website’s user experience.)

Checklists & Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a great way to increase user engagement, add value to your audience and set yourself apart from the competition. They can give them step-by-step instructions and resources to get necessary tasks done. They are great planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Business
• Negative Gearing Checklist
• Not-For-Profit Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Requirements
• Individual Tax Checklist
• Trust Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Provide Unique Tools

Providing useful tools, gadgets and applications for businesses (or links to these tools) is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your target audience. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are some of the most popular tools for accounting websites. Other applications could include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

In part 2 of this guide, we discuss a several WordPress plugins and themes you can add to your accounting site that can help to improve seo, improve user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section 1.

Click on this link to continue reading:

• Online Business Tips For Accountants – How To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation With Plugins

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