Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accountants today face increasing challenges.

Online Challenges For The Accounting Profession

Now, more than ever, accounting organizations must work harder to remain competitive, find new clients, and keep their current business. Not only do you have to maintain an active presence in the communities and industries your business serves, you must also develop and maintain a strong presence online. This includes having an effective web presence and learning how to better promote your services online.

In addition to investing money in offline marketing activities, you will probably find that in order to remain competitive, you will need to assign a greater amount of your marketing budget to develop and manage a website that can drive new prospects, engage users, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and help to increase your presence online.

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

One other problem that CPAs (and all other professions) face, is that your site has around 30 seconds to provide visitors with what they need or they will go away.

“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

Online Opportunities For Professional Accountants

As well as facing many challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available to businesses in the accounting sector that are willing to adapt to meet digital economy challenges and think strategically about improving their online business marketing skills.

This comprehensive guide will help you uncover new opportunities to find more accounts and establish online credibility for your accounting or financial services business.

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

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

• Why A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Cost You Prospective Buyers And What To Do About It
• Understanding WordPress – A Small Business Owner’s Guide

Practical Tips To Improve Your Website

We’ll start first by going over the basic stuff. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your accounting website and get better results online. We show you what pages you need, what type of content you need, your layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, read this article we have written: A Basic Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Your Web Pages

Professional websites need a number of basic pages. Let’s discuss the pages your  need and how to structure your accounting website for best results.

Products And Services Description Page

You need to include 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 – business planning, incorporation of companies, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, bookkeeping, budgeting, financing, forecasting, 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 a business, 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 your services do and why they should book an appointment with you.

Who We Are

This page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, sponsored community programs, etc.

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

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

Our Team

If you are searching for inexpensive ideas to sell more products or services online, then help visitors get to know, like and trust you, your team and your organization better.

Prospective clients need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees or team members. It should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be well-versed in accounting terms your bio descriptions 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 that will allow your site visitors to follow some of your team members on their social networks.

On this page, make sure to outline each employee’s experience, why they are an asset to 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 or team members to prospective new clients. Image sourced from: deepsky.com)

If you need help how to add an easy-to-manage list of staff members in a WordPress site without coding skills, go here: How To Easily Add A Simple Staff List On Your WordPress Site Without Editing Code

Job Opportunities Page

List any career opportunities within the firm. This page should include training, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, social activities sponsored by your firm, etc. You should also include information such as the job outlook and 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 this page, join your newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies & 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 them solve their problems. By adding a page with reviews from clients and case studies, you will also help to will also be establishing social proof.

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

If you want to learn more about using testimonials and reviews, see this article: Convert More Visitors Into Qualified Prospects With Standout Testimonials

Contact Us

A functional contact page is essential.

It should include the following information about your firm:

• Business Name
• Location
• Phone
• Fax
• Contact email address
• Map and directions
• Web address
• Contact form
• Request for more information – contact details
• Social media URLs
• Chat (optional)

If you operate in different locations you want to make this clear when displaying your address and contact information.

Consider also including links to the most commonly asked questions, frequently-visited pages, special offers, support page, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Or Financial Services Blog

A blog can be a very powerful business marketing tool. Most blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content such as industry events, company updates, training articles and tutorials, opinions on current topics, how-to videos, infographics, etc.

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

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

Very few people know that WordPress can become an automated traffic-generation machine that can help begin driving a stream of web traffic to your website, simply by adding content on a consistent basis to your website.

(WordPress can drive new visitors automatically to your site)

Go here to learn more about this: Website Traffic Blueprint – How To Turn Your Website Into A Traffic Generation Machine

Legal Pages

As a professional accountant, ensuring that you have a compliant website is crucially important, not just for building credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being breached wherever your business is located.

Adding some or all of the following legal pages to your website will help keep you out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential sources of legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• Terms Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

Go here for a detailed article about adding legal pages to your website: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

Improving The Content On Your Website

In today’s globally competitive economy, content generosity has become one of the key differentiators for businesses.

You want to provide great content with information and tips that will get your readers to share your web pages with others online and come back for more information. Content marketing is a great way to educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business and about using your products and services.

For example, for an accounting business, topics can cover:

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Profit and loss statements
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• Presenting accounts for non-profit activities
• Business cashflow planning tips
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Risk protection
• Structuring your 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 informative articles that will help your readers gain a better understanding of your services, such as forensic accounting, tax accounting, tax planning for small business, reducing debt, understanding accounting conventions, etc.

Remember to include the same keywords and terminology in your articles that prospective clients will be searching for.

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 teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, 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!

Tips For Improving Visitor Experience

Improving website 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 UX.

Add RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide many benefits for your website.

If you provide useful information, other sites may want to syndicate your content.

Some of the benefits of syndicating your content to other sites using RSS feeds, include:

• All of your content updates are in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• An RSS feed provides a way for external links to point back to your site
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• RSS provides a number of ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. users can read your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of 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 useful RSS feeds just search online for relevant government departments and industry bodies.

Here are some useful 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

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

Checklists And Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your visitors. They can provide useful instructions and resources to complete a necessary task. They can also be 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 Company
• Rental Property Worksheet
• Non-Profit Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Sole Trader Tax Checklist
• Trust Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Other Tools

Providing useful tools and applications for businesses (or links to these tools) on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your potential clients. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are great tools you can add to accounting websites. Other applications could include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

In the next section, we take a look at a number of WordPress plugins you can use in your website that can help to improve your seo, improve user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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

To view Part Two, click here:

• The Complete Guide On How To Successfully Grow An Accounting Or Financial Services Website – Part Two

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