Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The digital economy has not only transformed the way business is done globally, it has also created difficult challenges and opportunities for accountants.

Online Challenges For The Accounting & Financial Services Profession

CPAs 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 develop and maintain a strong presence online. This includes having an effective web presence and searching for better ways to grow your business services online.

As well as spending dollars in offline marketing activities, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to remain competitive, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be allocated to develop and manage a website that drives new prospective clients, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and helps you create a wider amount of marketing exposure online.

This means that your website 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, the needs of your website may change in time and sections will need to be updated often. This requires having a well-developed web and content management strategy in place.

One other problem that accounting organizations face online (as other businesses do for that matter), is that your site has an average of thirty seconds or less to give visitors the information they are searching for or they will find what they are looking for 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 The Accounting Profession In The Web Economy

As well as facing many challenges, there are also many online opportunities available for businesses in the accounting profession that can adapt to meet digital challenges and who can think progressively in terms of improving their online business marketing skills.

This comprehensive article will help you uncover new opportunities to drive more web traffic and improve your business online.

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

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, see these articles:

• Why A Poorly Built Web Site Can Cost You Potential Buyers
• WordPress For Business Owners – An Online Guide To Building A Successful Business Using WordPress

Practical Tips For Improving Your Accounting Or Financial Services Website

We’ll start first by covering the basics. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your website and get better results. We show you what pages your website needs, what type of content you need, ways of improving your site’s layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, visit this page: A Comprehensive Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Improve Your Website Pages

Professional websites need some essential web pages. Let’s go over these.

Your Products And Services

You need a page that lists your services and products.

This page will include services such as:

• Business accounting – business planning, company structures, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, book keeping, forecasting, budgeting, financing, 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, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using your services and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

Who We Are

This page needs to describe your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, supported community activities, etc.

Remember to list any awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that could be used to promote your company and position it above the competition.

(List all of your industry awards recognitions, certifications, accreditations, publications, associations, etc. in your About Us page. Image sourced from: deloitte.com)

Staff

Are you searching for quicker and easier ways to sell more products or services online or increase user interaction on your site? Then one of the things you can do, is help your prospective clients get to know, like and trust you, your team and your business better.

You want your business to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team members. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors won’t be familiar with accounting terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. This page should also include social buttons so your prospective clients can follow some of your team members on their social networks.

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

(Make sure to add a staff page. Image sourced from: deepsky.com)

If you need help how to easily create and add a simple team members directory in your website using free plugins, see this step-by-step tutorial: How To Add A Simple Staff Directory On Your WordPress Site

We’re Hiring

This is a listing of career opportunities available within your firm. This page should include type of training provided, benefits, professional development, social aspects of working with your organization, etc. You can also include information such as the job outlook and new 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 contact list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies & Testimonials

Case studies and client reviews are a great way to show prospective clients the benefits of doing business with your company. Adding a page with reviews from clients and case studies also helps your accounting or financial services website to provide social proof online.

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

We have written extensively about using case studies, testimonials and reviews get better results online. Go here to learn more about this: Create Better Results Online With Highly Effective Client Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a contact page is absolutely necessary.

Your contact page should include some or all of the following information:

• Name Of Your Organization
• Location
• Telephone number
• Facsimile number
• Contact email address
• Google Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Request for information – contact details
• Social media links
• Chat feature

If your business services multiple locations you should make this clear when showing your address and contact information.

You should also include a few links for commonly-asked questions, frequently-visited pages, special offers, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Blog

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to promote your business using content like industry announcements, company updates, educational articles, informative posts, how-to videos, infographics, etc.

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

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

Something few businesses know about, is that WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation system that will help begin attracting a stream of web traffic to your website, simply by adding content to your website on a regular basis.

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

Go here to learn more: Website Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Turn Your WordPress Site Into A Traffic Generation Machine

Legal Info Pages

It’s vitally important to have a compliant website, not just for establishing credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws and regulations are being breached wherever you provide services to.

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

• Contact Us
• 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
• and others

We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to your site. To learn more about this go here: How To Add Legal Pages To Your Website

Tips For Improving Your Content

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

Providing great content with useful advice and tips will get your readers sharing your content and coming back for more. Using content is a great way to inform and educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business.

For example, for an accounting or financial services business, topics could cover:

• How balance sheets work
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• How to present accounts for non-profit activities
• Cashflow planning tips
• Business insurance
• Risk prevention
• 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 educational articles that will help your readers understand your accounting services, such as finance accounting, business accounting, tax planning for small business, reducing business debt, understanding accounting conventions, etc.

Remember to use keywords in your content that prospective clients would search for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating high-quality content for your 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!

Improve Visitor Experience

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

RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide lots of benefits for your accounting business.

If you provide content that adds value to others, other sites will want to syndicate your content.

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

• All of your updates are kept in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared
• Feeds allow for subscribing
• A feed provides links back to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• There are various ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits when it comes to providing valuable information on your site from other sites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

You can find RSS feeds with useful content by searching online for relevant government departments or key industry bodies.

Here are examples of useful RSS feeds you could add to your 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.)

Provide Forms And Checklists

Checklists and forms are a great way to increase visitor engagement, add value to your visitors and provide something unique. They can provide visitors with useful step-by-step instructions and resources to perform tasks. They are great planning tools.

You can provide online or downloadable forms and checklists covering a range of areas such as:

• How To Set Up A Business
• Negative Gearing Worksheet
• Not-For-Profit Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Partnership Tax Checklist
• Capital Gains Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Other Tools

Providing unique 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 useful tools you can add to accounting websites. Other tools could include time cards, and 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 and themes that can improve your seo, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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

To continue, click this link:

• Online Business Tips For Certified Public Accountants – How To Improve SEO, Improve User Engagement And Generate More Traffic Using WordPress Plugins And Themes

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