Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress
Accountants today face an ever growing number of challenges brought about by the web economy.
Online Challenges For Accountants
Now, more than ever, accountants must find smarter ways to remain competitive, obtain new business, and keep their current clientele. Not only do you have to become actively involved in the communities and industries you serve, you must also maintain a strong digital presence. This includes having a dynamic web presence and learning how to better promote your services online.
In addition to spending money advertising offline, businesses in the accounting industry are now also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be assigned to develop and manage a website that can attract new prospective clients, engage visitors, outperform the competition in search engines and help to increase their presence online.
This means that your website not only has to look professional, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and your site has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that your site’s needs will change over time and some areas will need to be updated frequently. This requires a well-developed website and content management strategy in place.
Another difficult challenge that accounting organizations face, as other businesses do for that matter, is that your site has only around 30 seconds to give visitors what they are looking for or they will 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
Online Opportunities For Professional Accountants
As well as facing a number of significant business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for businesses in the accounting sector that are willing to adapt to meet online economy challenges and think strategically in terms of marketing their business better online.
In this article, you will discover a number of ways to find new business and establish stronger online credibility for your accounting or financial services business.
As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress platform to power your accounting or financial services website.
For more information about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, go here:
Useful Tips For Improving Your Accounting Website
This section will show you ways to improve your website and get better results online. We show you what web pages you need, what type of content works best for accounting and financial services sites, suggestions for improving your site’s navigation structure, etc.
If you need website planning assistance, visit this page: A Practical Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners
Essential Web Pages
Professional websites require some essential web pages. Let’s go over these.
Services Page
It’s essential to include a page that lists your services or products.
It will include all the services you offer, such as:
- Business – planning, incorporation of companies, accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, book keeping, financing, forecasting, budgeting, 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 businesses, 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 the benefits of using your services 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, philanthropy, etc.
It should mention any industry awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote the company and position it above other competitors.
(List all of your industry awards accreditations, certifications, recognitions, publications, associations, etc. in the About page. Screenshot image sourced from: deloitte.com)
Your Staff Page
Are you looking for simple ideas to sell more products or services online? Then one of the things you can do, is make it easier for visitors to get to know you, your team and your organization better.
You want your business to be relatable. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors are probably not familiar with accounting terms your 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 so your site visitors can follow selected staff members on their social networks.
In this page, make sure to highlight your employee’s qualifications, how their skills and knowledge add value or contribute to the success of your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.
(Add a staff page. Image sourced from: deepsky.com)
To learn more about how to easily add a list of staff members in WordPress using a free plugin, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: Adding A Staff Directory To Your WordPress Site
Job Opportunities Page
List any career opportunities available within your firm. This page would include training, 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 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 this page, subscribe to your updates list, follow you on social media, etc.
Testimonials And Case Studies
Testimonials from previous clients and case studies are a great way to show prospective clients what type of financial solutions you will implement to help solve their problems. Adding a page with case studies and client reviews also provides visitors social proof online.
(Add a web page with case studies and reviews from clients. Screenshot image source: pcg-services.com)
We have written a detailed article about using case studies, testimonials and reviews get better results online. Go here to learn more: Discover How To Convert More Visitors Into Prospects With Effective Testimonials
Contact Us
Having a functional contact page is crucial.
It should include some or all of the following information about your organization:
- Business Name
- Your physical address
- Phone number
- Fax
- Google Map and directions
- Website URL
- Contact form
- Contact name
- Links to social media pages
- Chat (optional)
If your business operates in several locations you want to make that clear when displaying the address and contact information.
Consider also including links to the most commonly asked questions, useful pages, special offers, support page, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.
Add A Blog
A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Most blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to promote your business by publishing content such as news and events, updates, educational articles, discussions on current topics, promotional videos, infographics, etc.
If you already have an accounting website, then consider adding a WordPress blog to promote your business.
If you don’t have a website yet, or your existing site is very hard to keep updated or not delivering you the results you want, then WordPress can be used both as your website and your blog.
You are probably not aware of this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can turn your web presence into an automated traffic system that can instantly begin to drive targeted traffic to your website, simply by publishing regular content to your web site.
(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)
Go here to learn more: Website Traffic Blueprint – How To Turn Your WordPress Website Into An Automated Traffic Machine
Legal Information Pages
Having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is extremely important, not just for building trust with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws and regulations are being broken wherever your business services clients.
Depending on the products and services you provide, adding some or all of the legal pages below to your accounting or financial services website will help keep you out of trouble 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
- Health/Financial Disclaimers
- Refund Policy
- Video/Audio Terms
- and others
Go here if you want to learn more adding legal pages to your site: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your Site
Ways To Improve Your Web Content
In today’s fiercely competitive online economy, being generous with content that educates and informs readers has become one of the key business differentiators.
You want to provide great content with information and tips that will get your readers sharing your content with others online and coming back for more information. Using content is a great way to inform and educate your visitors and prospects about your business.
For example, topics for an accounting business can cover:
- Explanations of balance sheets
- Profit & loss statements
- Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
- Presenting accounts for fundraising activities
- Cashflow planning advice
- Business insurance
- Risk protection
- How to structure your self-managed retirement fund
- Things to look for when … (e.g. purchasing vs leasing, claiming business expenses, etc.)
You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your your prospective clients understand your accounting services, such as software accounting, small business accounting, business budgeting, reducing business debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.
Remember to use relevant keywords in your articles that prospective clients would search for.
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 you how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating useful content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!
Ways To Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience
Improving website user experience (generally referred to as UX) will help keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you ways you can improve your visitor engagement and UX.
RSS Feeds
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and UX in many ways.
If you provide valuable information, other sites may want to syndicate your content.
Some of the benefits of having other businesses syndicate your content, include:
- All of your content updates are in one place
- your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
- Feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
- Allows users to subscribe
- An RSS feed provides a way for links to point back to your content
- Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
- There are several ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. users can read the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
- It’s built into WordPress
There are also a number of benefits to providing content 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 relevant government departments or industry bodies.
For example, here are a few RSS feeds you could 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
(Use RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to provide your visitors with a better UX.)
Checklists And Forms
Adding checklists and forms to your site is a great way to help increase user engagement, add value to your readers and provide something unique. They can provide users with useful instructions and resources to get necessary tasks done. Checklists and forms are great business planning tools.
You can provide a range of checklists and forms (or links to these) covering areas such as:
- How To Set Up A Business
- Negative Gearing Checklist
- Non-Profit Governance Checklist
- Disclosure Requirements
- Partnership Tax Checklist
- Capital Gains Tax Checklist
- Income Tax Variation Forms
Add Online Tools
Providing useful online tools and applications for businesses can help 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. Others could include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.
In part two, we take a look at a number of online tools you can use in your website using WordPress plugins and themes that can help to improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.
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This is the end of part 1.
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