Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accounting professionals today face growing challenges.

Online Challenges For The Accounting Profession

Certified Public Accountants today must work harder than ever before to remain competitive. Not only do they have to actively participate in the communities and industries their business serves, they must also maintain an active presence online. This includes having a website and learning how to better market your business online.

As well as investing money advertising offline on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and television, etc., businesses in the accounting industry are also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their budget need to be allocated towards the development and maintenance of a website that will bring in leads, engage visitors, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and help create wider marketing reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, load fast, and be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs will change over time and many areas may need to be updated frequently. This requires implementing well-developed web and content management strategy.

Another difficult challenge that accounting businesses face online (as all other professions do for that matter), is that you have only about thirty seconds to help visitors find what they need 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 CPAs

As well as facing significant challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available for accounting companies that are willing to adapt to meet the challenges of the digital economy and think strategically in terms of improving their online marketing skills.

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

As well as providing practical tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your accounting business online, we also recommend that you consider using WordPress to power your accounting business website or blog.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System, see the articles below:

• How A Poorly Built Web Site Can Lose You Customers And What To Do About It
• Using WordPress To Grow Your Business Online

Practical Tips To Improve Your Website

We’ll start first by covering some basic stuff. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your website and get better results online. We will look at what pages your site needs, what type of content you need, ways to improve your site’s layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need additional information about website planning, see this detailed guide we have written: Planning Your Web Site - A Practical Primer For Business Owners

Basic Website Pages

All business websites require some essential web pages. Let’s go over the pages your  need and how to set up your accounting or financial services website for best results.

Description Of services And Products

You need a page that describes your products or services.

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

• Business – planning, incorporation of companies, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, bookkeeping, forecasting, budgeting, financing, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
• Taxation – preparing, 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 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 what these services do and why they should book an appointment with you.

Who We Are

This page needs to describe your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, causes supported, etc.

It should mention any CPA awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote the company and position it above your competitors.

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

Staff

Are you looking for quicker and easier ways to sell more products or services online or increase user interaction on your site? Then something you can do, is help your prospects get to know, like and trust you and your organization better.

People need to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your people. It should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be very 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 so your prospective clients can follow selected team members on their social pages.

In this page, make sure to highlight each team member’s qualifications, why they are an invaluable asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add an employee page. Screenshot source: deepsky.com)

If you need help how to easily create and add an easy-to-update directory of employees or team members in WordPress without messing with code, go here: How To Add A Simple Staff List On Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills

Work For Us

This is a listing of career opportunities within your company. This page should include training, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. You should also include stories of graduates who have worked their way up in your company and information such as the job outlook and career opportunities in the accounting and financial services industry.

Maintain 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 announcements list, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials

Customer reviews and case studies are a great way to show prospective clients the benefits of doing business with your firm. By adding a page with case studies and testimonials from previous clients, you are also helping to provide potential clients with social proof online.

(Add a web page with case studies and client reviews. Image sourced from: pcg-services.com)

We have written a detailed article on using testimonials and reviews to improve your business results online. Go here to learn more about this: Learn How To Achieve Better Results Online With More Effective Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a clean contact page is absolutely necessary.

It should provide visitors with the following:

• Name Of Your Organization
• Location
• Telephone number
• Fax
• Email
• Map and directions
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Request for information – who to contact
• Social media URLs
• Online chat feature (optional)

If your business operates out of different areas you want to make this clear when showing your address and contact info.

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

Blog

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs are built around a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content such as industry news, company updates, educational information, discussions on current topics, videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an established site, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to promote your business.

If you don’t have a website yet, or your existing accounting or financial services site is hard to manage or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can act both as your website and business blog.

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

(WordPress can drive new visitors automatically to your site)

If you are interested in learning more about this here: Web Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Attracting More Web Traffic For Your Business Automatically With WordPress

Legal Pages

Having a compliant website is very important, not just for building trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional and federal laws and regulations are being contravened wherever your business is located.

Adding the legal pages below to your website will help keep you out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential sources of threats and legal inconveniences:

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

We have written a detailed article on adding legal pages to your website. Go here to learn more: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

Tips For Improving The Content On Your Website

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

You will want to provide great content with advice and tips that will get your readers to share your web pages with others online and come back for more. Content marketing is the most effective way to inform and teach site visitors and prospective clients about your business and about doing business with your company.

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

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Profit & loss statements
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• How to present accounts for fundraising activities
• Business cashflow planning advice
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Risk protection
• Structuring your 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 readers gain a better understanding of your accounting services, such as forensic accounting, small business accounting, business auditing, reducing business debt, understanding financial conventions, etc.

Remember to include the same keywords and terminology in your articles that your prospective clients would search for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will show you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality content for 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 Engagement And User Experience

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

Syndicating Content - RSS Feeds

Using RSS feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and UX in several ways.

If you provide valuable information, 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
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Allows for subscribing
• An RSS feed provides links to your site
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• There are a number of ways readers can receive your content (e.g. users can view the content on their mobile device using different applications)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits 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 useful RSS feeds for your website, search online for finance and tax-related government departments and industry bodies.

For example, here are some feeds 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

(Add RSS feeds to improve your accounting site’s user experience.)

Add Online Checklists & Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a fantastic way to help increase user engagement and add value to your readers. They can provide users with useful step-by-step instructions and resources to perform tasks. Forms and checklists are also great business planning tools.

Forms and checklists could include subjects such as:

• How To Set Up A Business
• Negative Gearing Worksheet
• Not-For-Profit Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Requirements
• Sole Trader Tax Checklist
• Self Managed Super Fund Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Online Tools

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

In part 2, we take a look at a number of online tools you can add to your website using WordPress plugins that improve seo, improve user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one of this comprehensive article on ways to build your accounting business web presence.

To continue, click this link:

• How To Build And Grow An Accounting Website – Part 2

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