Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The information economy has not only transformed businesses around the world, it has also created growing challenges and opportunities for accounting businesses.

Online Challenges For The Accounting & Financial Services Profession

Accountants today must work harder than ever before to remain competitive. Not only do they have to become actively involved in the communities and industries they serve, they must also maintain a strong digital presence. This includes having a dynamic web presence and learning how to better market your business services online.

In addition to spending dollars in offline marketing activities like advertising on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and television spots, etc., businesses in the accounting industry are now finding that they need to invest a greater part of their budget towards the development and maintenance of a website that attracts new prospective clients, engages visitors, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and helps give them wider exposure online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and your website layout has to 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 the implementation of a well-planned web and content management strategy.

One other challenge that accountancy firms face (and other professions for that matter), is that you have only around 30 seconds or less 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 Accountants In The Digital Economy

As well as facing significant business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available to accounting companies that are willing to evolve to meet digital economy demands and think outside the box in terms of improving their online business marketing skills.

This guide will help you uncover ways to attract and engage more visitors and build more online credibility for your accounting or financial services business.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using WordPress to power your accounting website or blog.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS), go here:

• Discover Why A Poorly Designed Website Can Cost You Money
• WordPress – The Small Business Owner’s Guide

Useful Tips For Improving Your Accounting Or Financial Services Site

We’ll start first by reviewing some basics. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your website and get better results. We show you what web pages you need, what content works best for accounting and financial services websites, layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, go here: A Practical Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Basic Pages

All business websites need several basic pages. Let’s go over the pages your  need to have and how to set up your accounting or financial services website for best results.

Services Description Page

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

This page will include services such as:

• Business – planning, company structures, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, bookkeeping, budgeting, financing, forecasting, strategic planning, consulting, 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

List all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using these services and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

Who We Are

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and explain to visitors what your business stands for, its unique approach, community involvement, etc.

It’s important to list any industry awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote the company and set it above other competitors.

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

Team Profile Page

Are you searching for inexpensive ideas to sell more products or services online and get prospective clients to stay longer on your site? Then make it easier for visitors to get to know you, your team and your organization better.

Potential clients need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be familiar with accounting terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. It should also include social buttons so your visitors can follow individual team 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 outline each employee’s experience, why they are an invaluable asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a ‘meet the team’ page. Image source: deepsky.com)

We have written a detailed tutorial about how to easily create and add an updatable list of staff members in your site using a free plugin here: Adding A Staff List Directory To WordPress: Plugin Tutorial

Work For Us

This is a listing of career opportunities available within your firm. This page should include training provided, benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. You should also include information such as the job outlook and upcoming 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, subscribe to your announcements list, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies And Testimonials

Client reviews and case studies are a great way to show potential clients the benefits of doing business with your company. Adding a page with case studies and testimonials also provides social proof.

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

We have created a detailed article on using testimonials and reviews to grow your business online here: Discover How To Turn More Visitors Into Qualified Leads With Captivating Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a contact page is absolutely necessary.

It should include some or all of the following information about your firm:

• Name
• Location
• Telephone
• Fax
• Email address
• Google Map and directions
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Request for more information – who to contact
• Links to social media profiles
• Chat/Skype

If you have several locations you should make that clear when showing your address and contact info.

Consider also including a few links for commonly-asked questions, frequently-visited pages, special offers, support page, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Or Financial Services Blog Section

A blog is a powerful marketing tool. Blogs typically include a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content such as industry news, updates, useful articles and tutorials, opinions on current topics, how-to videos, media presentations, etc.

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

If you don’t have a website yet, or your existing website is hard to keep updated or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can serve both as your business website and blog.

Very few people know that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic-generation machine that can help deliver a stream of new targeted traffic to your site, simply by adding regular content to your website.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can generate new visitors automatically to your website)

For more details, go here: Web Traffic Blueprint – How To Create An Automated Web Traffic Generation Machine With WordPress

Legal Pages

It’s very important to make sure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online, not just for establishing trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that no laws and regulations are being contravened wherever your do business in.

Depending on what services you provide, adding some or all of the legal pages below to your accounting website will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats or 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.

Go here to learn more about adding legal pages to your site: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

Ways To Improve The Content On Your Website

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

Providing great content with useful information and tips will get your readers to share your web pages and come back for more. Publishing content is a great way to inform and educate site visitors and prospects about your business and about doing business with your organization.

For example, topics for an accounting business can cover:

• How balance sheets work
• Understanding profit & loss statements
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• How to present accounts for fundraising activities
• Cashflow planning
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Protecting revenues
• Tips on structuring 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 educational articles that will help your readers gain a better understanding of your accounting or financial services, such as finance accounting, tax accounting, tax planning for small business, reducing business debt, understanding financial concepts, etc.

Remember to use keywords and terminology in your content that your readers will be searching for online.

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

Tips For Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving user experience (known 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.

RSS Feeds – Content Syndication

RSS feeds provide plenty of benefits for your site.

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

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

• All of your updates are kept in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared
• RSS feeds allow users to subscribe
• It provides links back to your site
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• RSS provides various ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. users can read your content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits when it comes to providing information on 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 searching online for finance and tax-related government departments and key industry bodies.

Below we have listed some exaples of RSS feeds you may want to consider adding to your accounting website:

• 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 improve your website’s UX.)

Checklists & Forms

Checklists and forms are a fantastic way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your audience and provide something unique. Forms and checklists can provide users with useful step-by-step instructions and resources to complete a task. Forms and checklists are great planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Business
• Rental Property Worksheet
• Non-Profit Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Requirements
• Sole Trader Tax Checklist
• Self Managed Super Fund Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Adding Other Tools

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

In part two, we will be discussing a number of online tools you can add to your website using WordPress plugins and themes that can help to improve search engine optimization, improve user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section 1 of this article on ways to build your accounting business web presence.

Click here to view the rest of this guide:

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

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