Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accounting professionals face many challenges in the web economy, especially when it comes to growing a successful presence online.

Challenges Certified Public Accountants Face Online

Today, more than ever, accounting organizations must work hard and find smarter ways to remain competitive, source new business, and retain current clients. Not only do you have to become actively involved in the communities and industries your business serves, you must also develop and maintain an active presence online. This includes having an effective web presence and learning how to better promote your business services online.

As well as spending money advertising offline, businesses in the accounting industry are now also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their budget will need to be delegated towards developing and managing a website that can attract prospective clients, engage users, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and increase their marketing reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, your web pages have to load fast, and your site has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs may change over time and sections will need to be updated frequently. This requires a sound website and content management strategy.

Another difficult challenge that accounting businesses face, and all other businesses for that matter, is that they have around thirty seconds or less to give users 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

Opportunities For Accounting Businesses In The Online Economy

As well as facing significant challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available for businesses in the accounting industry that are willing to adapt to meet the demands of the online economy and think outside the box in terms of marketing their business better online.

In this comprehensive guide, you will learn opportunities to attract new potential clients and improve your business online.

As well as providing practical tips and information on ways to improve your web presence, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress content management system to power your accounting website or blog.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System, go here:

• Discover Why A Poorly Constructed Website Can Lose You Business And What To Do About It
• WordPress In Business – The Complete Guide To Growing Your Successful Small Business Using WordPress

Tips To Improve Your Accounting Or Financial Services Website

Let’s start by covering the basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your accounting website and get better results online. We will look at what web pages you need, what type of content works best, navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your accounting website, check out the detailed guide we have written here: The Website Planning Process - A Practical Primer For Non-Technical Business Owners

Essential Website Pages

Professional business websites require some essential pages. Let’s go over these.

Services And Products

You need to include a page that lists your services and any products that you offer.

This page should include all the services you offer, such as:

• Business accounting – business planning, incorporation of companies, general accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, book keeping, budgeting, financing, forecasting, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
• Taxation – preparing, planning, reviewing, auditing, advising, problem resolution
• Investment strategies
• Corporate finance
• 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. Educate your visitors about what these services do and direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us

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

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

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

Team

Are you looking for quicker, easier and cost-effective ways to grow your business online? Then make it easier for prospects to get to know, like and trust you and your business better.

Potential clients 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 brief biography. Since most visitors won’t be well-versed in 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 even include social buttons so your site visitors can follow selected team members on their social pages.

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

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

To learn more about how to easily add an updatable simple employee directory in your website without touching code, see this tutorial: How To Add A Simple Staff List On Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills

Recruitment Page

This is a listing of career opportunities within the organization. This page could include training provided, benefits, opportunities for advancement, social aspects of working for your firm, etc. You can also include information about upcoming career opportunities in the accounting industry.

Maintain 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 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 firm. By adding a page with case studies and client reviews, you are also helping to will also be providing potential clients with social proof.

(Add a page to your site with case studies and reviews from clients. Screenshot image source: pcg-services.com)

We have written a comprehensive article on using testimonials and reviews get better results online. Go here to learn more: How To Achieve Better Results Online With Engaging Customer Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a contact page is essential.

It should include the following information:

• Name
• Your address
• Phone
• Fax
• Contact email address
• Google Map and directions
• Website address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media links
• Online chat feature

If your business operates from several locations you will want to make that clear when showing your address and contact information.

You could also include links to an FAQ page, frequently-visited pages, special offers, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.

Blog Section

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool. Most blogging platforms are built around a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content such as company announcements, updates, training articles, opinions on current topics, promotional videos, webinars, etc.

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

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

Not many people know this, but WordPress can become an automated traffic machine that can attract targeted visitors to your website, simply by adding content on a regular basis to your website.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can drive traffic automatically to your website)

For more info, see this article: Web Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Turn Your WordPress Blog Into An Automated Traffic Generation Machine

Legal Info Pages

It’s essential to have a website that complies will all legal requirements online, not just for building credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that no local, regional or federal laws and regulations are being breached wherever you provide services to.

Depending on what services you provide, adding the legal pages below to your accounting site will help you stay 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 And Conditions
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

If you want to learn more about adding legal pages to your website, see this article: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Tips On How To Improve Your Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, being generous with content that educates and informs visitors has become one of the key differentiators for businesses selling similar products or services.

By committing to providing great content with useful advice and tips, you will get your visitors sharing your web pages online and coming back for more. This 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 or financial services business can include the following:

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Profit and loss statements
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• How to present accounts for non-profit activities
• Business cashflow planning tips
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Risk prevention
• Structuring a self-managed retirement fund
• Do’s and don’ts of … (e.g. purchasing vs leasing, setting up payroll systems, etc.)

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your prospective clients understand your accounting services, such as software accounting, tax accounting, business auditing, reducing debt, understanding financial conventions, etc.

Remember to use relevant keywords and terms in your articles that your prospective clients would search 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 show exactly how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating useful content for your site visitors and grow your business online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

RSS Feeds

An RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed provides lots of benefits for your business.

If you provide valuable information, other businesses may 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 in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• An RSS feed provides links back to your content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides various ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can view the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also 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 for your website, search online for relevant government departments or respected industry bodies.

Below we have listed examples of 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

(RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your accounting site’s UX.)

Add Online Forms And Checklists

Checklists and forms are a great way to help increase user engagement and add value to your readers. Checklists and forms can provide useful instructions and resources to perform a necessary task. Checklists and forms are also great business planning tools.

Checklists and forms can address subjects such as:

• How To Set Up A Business
• Negative Gearing Checklist
• Non-Profit Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Sole Trader Tax Checklist
• Capital Gains Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Unique Tools

Providing unique tools, gadgets and applications for businesses on your website 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. Other tools would include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

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

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

To view the rest of this article, click here:

• A Practical Guide On How To Successfully Build And Grow Your Accounting Web Presence – Part 2

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