Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The digital information age has not only revolutionized businesses globally, it has also created new challenges and great opportunities for accountants.

Online Challenges For The Accounting Profession

Today, more than ever, certified public accountants must work hard to remain competitive, obtain new business, and keep their current business. Not only do you have to become actively involved in the communities and industries your business serves, you must also develop an active web presence. This includes having an effective web presence and learning how to better promote your business services online.

As well as spending dollars advertising offline, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to compete with other accounting businesses, you will need to designate a bigger share of your marketing budget to develop and manage a website that will bring in prospects, engage visitors, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and help give your business a wider degree of marketing exposure online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, 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 the needs of the website may change in time and some areas will need to be updated often. This requires having a sound web and content management strategy in place.

Another problem that CPAs (and most other professions) face with their websites, is that they have only around thirty seconds to provide visitors what they are searching for or they will look 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 significant challenges, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for businesses in the accounting industry that are willing to adapt to meet digital challenges and who can think progressively in terms of improving their online marketing skills.

This comprehensive guide will help you uncover a number of ways to attract and engage new visitors and establish online credibility for your accounting or financial services business.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress content management system to power your accounting or financial services website.

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

• How A Poorly Built Web Site Can Cost You Money And What To Do About It
• Using WordPress To Grow Your Small Business Online

Practical Tips To Improve Your Website

We’ll start first by reviewing some basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your website and get better results. We show you what pages you need, what type of content works best for accounting websites, layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need additional information about website planning, visit this page: The Website Planning Process Explained: A Useful Blueprint For Non-Technical Business Owners

Basic Web Pages

Professional websites require some basic pages. Let’s review these.

Products And Services Description Page

You need a page that lists your services and products.

Your page will include all the products and services you offer, such as:

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

List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using these services and direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us

The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what your business stands for, its unique approach, philanthropical programs, etc.

Remember to also list any industry awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote the company and position it above your competitors.

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

Our Team

If you are looking for quicker, easier and cost-effective ideas to grow your business online and get people to stay longer on your site, then something you can do, is make it easier for your prospects to get to know, like and trust you, your team and your business better.

You want prospects to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff or team members. It should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors won’t be that 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 even include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients to follow some of your staff members on their social networks.

In this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline each person’s expertise, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a page that introduces your staff members to prospective new clients. Image sourced from: deepsky.com)

We have created a detailed tutorial on how to create and add a directory of employees or team members to your WordPress site with no coding skills required here: Tutorial: How To Easily Add A Staff Directory To Your Site

Recruitment

List any career opportunities within the organization. It should include training offered, employee benefits, professional development, etc. It should include stories of recruits who have risen within your company and information such as the job outlook and 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 this page, join your updates list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies

Case studies and reviews from clients are a great way to show prospective clients the benefits of doing business with your firm. Adding a web page with client reviews and case studies also helps to establish social proof.

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

We have written extensively about using client case studies and client reviews to improve your business results online. Go here to learn more: Turn More Visitors Into Prospects With Compelling Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a contact page is essential.

It should include:

• Name Of Your Organization
• Your address
• Telephone number
• Fax number
• Email address
• Map
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media URLs
• Live chat feature (optional)

If your business services different locations you want to make this clear when showing your address and contact information.

Consider also including links to an FAQ section, frequently-visited pages, special offers, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Blog

A blog can be a powerful business marketing tool. Blogs typically include a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to easily promote your business by publishing timely content like company news, company updates, training information, opinions on current topics, how-to videos, media presentations, etc.

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

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

You may not have been told about this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic-generation machine that can instantly begin to attract targeted traffic to your site, simply by adding new content on a consistent basis to your website.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

You can learn more here: Web Traffic Blueprint – How To Drive More Web Traffic For Your Business

Legal Information

Having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is vital, not just for building trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not contravening any laws or regulations in whichever area or location you provide services to.

Adding the legal pages below to your accounting website will help keep you out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Google), and other potential sources of threats and legal inconveniences:

• Contact Page
• Privacy Policy
• Terms And Conditions
• 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 comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your website here: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Tips For Improving The Content On Your Site

In today’s fiercely competitive digital economy, the ability to deliver valuable content free of charge has become one of the key business differentiators.

You will want to provide great content with useful advice and tips that will get your readers sharing your web pages and coming back for more. Content marketing is a great way to inform and educate your visitors and prospects about your business and about doing business with your firm.

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

• How balance sheets work
• Profit & loss statements
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• Presenting accounts for fundraising activities
• Cashflow planning
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Protecting revenues
• How to structure a self-managed retirement fund
• Things to look for when … (e.g. purchasing insurance, claiming business expenses, etc.)

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your prospective clients gain a better understanding of your services, such as finance accounting, small business accounting, using office accounting software, reducing business debt, understanding accounting conventions, etc.

Remember to include keywords and terms in your content that your prospective clients will be searching for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with actionable information that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating useful content that will add value to your site 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!

Improving Visitor Experience

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

Syndicating Content With RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and user experience in a number of different ways.

If you provide useful content, other businesses may want to syndicate your content to their visitors.

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

• All of your content updates are kept in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared
• RSS feeds allow users to subscribe
• It provides links back to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides various ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. users can view the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits 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.

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

For example, here are some exaples of feeds you could consider adding 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

(RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your website’s user experience.)

Provide Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a great way to help increase visitor engagement and add value to your readers. Checklists and forms can provide users with useful step-by-step instructions and resources to perform a task. Forms and checklists are great business planning tools.

You can provide a range of forms and checklists (or links to these) covering subjects such as:

• How To Set Up A Business
• Negative Gearing Worksheet
• Non-Profit Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Partnership Tax Checklist
• Self Managed Super Fund Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Online Tools

Providing useful online tools, gadgets and applications for businesses 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. Others could include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

In the next section, we look at a several WordPress plugins you can use in your site that can 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 improve your accounting business web presence.

Click on this link to continue:

• Tips For CPAs – Improve SEO, Improve User Engagement And Drive More Traffic Using WordPress Plugins And Themes

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