Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accounting professionals today face increasing challenges.

Online Challenges For CPAs

Now, more than ever, accountants must work hard to stand out from the competition, obtain new clients, and retain current clients. Not only do they have to participate in the communities and industries they serve, they must also develop a strong digital presence. This includes having an effective website and figuring out smarter ways to grow your business services online.

As well as spending money advertising offline, businesses in the accounting industry are also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their budget will need to be allocated towards developing and managing a website that drives clients, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and helps give their business wider marketing reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, load fast, and be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs will change over time and sections will need to be updated frequently. This requires the implementation of a well-planned website and content management strategy.

Another problem that accounting firms face with their websites, as most other professions do for that matter, is that your site has around 30 seconds or less to provide visitors with 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 CPAs

As well as facing significant challenges, there are also plenty of online opportunities available to businesses in the accounting industry that can evolve to meet digital challenges and think outside the box when it comes to marketing their business services better online.

In this comprehensive guide, you will discover new opportunities to increase web traffic and establish stronger online credibility for your business.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) to power your accounting or financial services business website.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS), see the articles below:

• Why A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Lose You Business And What To Do About It
• Everything You Need To Know To Grow A Successful Small Business With A WordPress Site

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

This section looks at how to improve your website and get better results online. We show you what pages a financial services site needs, what type of content works best for accounting websites, navigation structure, etc.

If you need help with website planning, read this guide: A Comprehensive Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Improve Your Website Pages

Professional websites need several basic pages. Let’s go over the pages your  should have and how to structure your accounting or financial services website for best results.

Description Of Services

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

This page should include services such as:

• Business accounting – planning, company formation, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, book keeping, budgeting, financing, forecasting, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
• Taxation – preparation, planning, reviewing, auditing, advice, 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, 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

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

Remember to also include any awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote the company and set it above your competitors.

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

Meet Your Staff

If you are looking for quicker and simpler ways to grow your business online, then something you can do, is help prospects get to know you, your team and your organization better.

You want potential clients to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff. It should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors won’t be familiar with accounting terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. It should also include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients to follow your staff 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 highlight your team member’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 ‘meet the team’ page. Image source: deepsky.com)

We have written a detailed tutorial on how to easily add an easy-to-maintain simple employee directory in your website using free plugins here: How To Add A Simple Employee Directory To Your WordPress Site Without Editing Code

Career Opportunities

This is a listing of career opportunities available within your organization. It can include type of training provided, employee benefits, professional development, social activities promoted by your firm, etc. You should also include case studies of recruits who have worked their way up in your organization and information such as the job outlook and new career opportunities in the accounting industry.

Include also 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 newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies & Testimonials

Testimonials from previous clients and case studies are a great way to show potential clients what kind of financial solutions you are capable of implementing to help solve their problems. By adding a page with testimonials from previous clients and case studies, you will also help to establish social proof online.

(Add a page with case studies and testimonials from past clients. Image sourced from: pcg-services.com)

We have written extensively about using testimonials and client reviews improve your business online. For more details, go here: Convert More Visitors Into Qualified Leads Using Meaningful Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A contact page is absolutely necessary.

Your contact page should include the following information:

• Name
• Your address
• Phone
• Facsimile number
• Email address
• Google Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media URLs
• Live Chat/Skype

If your business services multiple locations you will want to make that clear when displaying the address and contact info.

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

Add A Blog

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool. Blogs are built around a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to promote your business using content such as company events, company updates, useful information, opinions and discussions, how-to videos, media presentations, etc.

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

If you don’t have a website yet, or your existing accounting or financial services site is hard to keep updated with new content or not delivering you the results you want, then WordPress can be used as both your business website and blog.

Not many businesses know this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation system that can instantly begin delivering targeted visitors to your site, simply by adding regular content to your web site.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

For more details: Website Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Turn Your Website Into An Automated Web Traffic Machine

Legal Information Pages

It’s very important to make sure they have a compliant website, not just for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaching laws or regulations wherever you provide services to.

Depending on what services and products you provide, adding the following legal pages to your website 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 Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your website here: How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Tips For Improving The Content On Your Site

In today’s fiercely competitive online economy, being generous with content has become one of the key differentiators for businesses that sell similar products or provide similar services.

You will want to provide great content with useful advice and tips that will get your readers sharing your content online and coming back for more. Using content is a great way to inform and teach site visitors and prospective clients about your business.

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

• How balance sheets work
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• How to present accounts for non-profit activities
• Business cashflow planning tips
• Business insurance
• Risk prevention
• How to structure your self-managed retirement fund
• Dos and don’ts of … (e.g. purchasing insurance, setting up payroll systems, etc.)

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your your prospective clients understand your services, such as software accounting, business accounting, business auditing, reducing debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to use specific keywords and terms in your content 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 that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to 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!

Ways To Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving your user experience (generally referred to as UX) will help to keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you ways you can improve visitor engagement and UX.

Add RSS Feeds

RSS feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and UX in several ways.

If you provide information 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 content updates are in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared online
• RSS feeds allow users to subscribe
• It provides links back to your content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides multiple ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. view the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits to adding syndicated content to 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 respected industry bodies.

Here are some useful RSS feeds you may want to add 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 feeds to provide your visitors with a better user experience.)

Adding Forms And Checklists

Checklists and forms are a fantastic way to help increase user engagement, add value to your audience and set yourself apart from the competition. They can provide useful step-by-step instructions and resources to perform necessary tasks. Forms and checklists are also great business planning tools.

Checklists and forms could include topics such as:

• How To Set Up A Business
• Rental Property Worksheet
• Not-For-Profit Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Company Tax Checklist
• Trust Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Other Tools

Providing useful online tools and applications for businesses is a great way to increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your target audience. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are useful tools to add to accounting websites. Others could include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.

In part two, we look at a several WordPress-based tools you can add to your site that can improve your seo, increase user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

Click on this link to access the rest of this guide:

• A Complete Step-By-Step Guide On How To Successfully Build And Grow An Accounting Web Presence – Part 2

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