Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accounting professionals face many challenges in the digital economy, especially when it comes to growing their presence online.

Challenges Certified Public Accountants Face Online

Accounting businesses must work harder than ever to remain in business. Not only do you have to become more involved in the communities and industries you serve, you must also develop an active digital presence. This includes having a dynamic website and figuring out better ways to grow your business services online.

As well as investing dollars in offline marketing, businesses in the accounting industry are now finding that they need to invest a bigger amount of their budget towards developing and maintaining a website that drives leads, engages visitors, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and increases their marketing reach online.

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

Another challenge that CPAs face with their websites (as most other businesses do for that matter), is that your site has only around thirty seconds to give visitors the information they need 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 Certified Public Accountants

As well as facing many new business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for accounting companies that are willing to adapt to meet online economy demands and who can think strategically about improving their online business marketing skills.

In this comprehensive guide, you will learn about ways and opportunities to attract new visitors and establish online credibility for your business.

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

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

• Why A Poorly Constructed Website Can Lose You Customers And What To Do About It
• An Online Guide To Growing A Successful Business Using A WordPress Site

Practical Tips For Improving Your Accounting Site

In this section we’ll show you how to improve your accounting website and get better results. We show you what pages a financial services website needs, what content works best for accounting and financial services sites, navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, read this detailed step-by-step guide we have written: Planning Your Small Business Website: A Practical Blueprint For Business Owners

Your Website Pages

All websites need a number of essential pages. Let’s review these.

Services And Products Page

It’s essential to include a page that describes your products or services.

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

• Business accounting – business planning, company structures, accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, bookkeeping, forecasting, budgeting, financing, strategic planning, consulting services, 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, asset transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

Make sure to list all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about what your services do and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

Who We Are

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, philanthropical programs, etc.

It should also include any business awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that could be used to promote the company and position it above the competition.

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

Staff

Are you looking for simple ways to sell more products or services online or get prospective clients to stay longer on your site? Then something you can do, is make it easier for visitors to get to know you and your business better.

Your business needs to be relatable. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team members. It should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be very well-versed in accounting terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. This page should also include social buttons that will allow your visitors to follow individual 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 your employee’s expertise and qualifications, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add an employee page. Screenshot source: deepsky.com)

We have created a detailed tutorial on how to easily create and add a list of employees in WordPress using free plugins here: Adding An Employee List Directory: Step-By-Step Tutorial

Work For Us

This is a listing of career opportunities within the company. It should include type of training provided, benefits, professional development, etc. You should also include case studies of recruits who have risen within your firm and information about 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.

Testimonials And Case Studies

Testimonials from past clients and case studies are a great way to show potential clients them minimize tax, increase profitability, or grow strategically. Adding a web page with testimonials from past clients and case studies also helps to provide potential clients with social proof.

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

For a detailed article about using testimonials and client reviews go here: How To Create Better Results Online Using Meaningful Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a contact page is absolutely necessary.

Your contact page should provide some or all of the following information about your company:

• Name Of Your Organization
• Address
• Phone number
• Facsimile
• Contact email address
• Google Map
• Web address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media links
• Online Chat/Skype (optional feature)

If your business operates out of different locations you will want to make that clear when showing your address and contact info.

Consider also including links to commonly-asked questions, main pages, special offers, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Blog Section

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs are built around a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content such as news and events, updates, training articles and tutorials, opinions on current topics, videos, infographics, etc.

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

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

Very few people know that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic-generation system that will deliver targeted traffic to your website, simply by publishing new content on a consistent basis to your website.

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

To learn more about this go here: Web Site Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Automatically Drive More Website Visitors For Your Business With WordPress

Legal Info Pages

Having a compliant website is vitally important, not just for building trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being contravened wherever you provide services to.

Adding the following legal pages 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 Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms And Conditions Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your website. To learn more about this go here: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Ways To Improve Your Content

In today’s highly competitive online economy, the practice of content marketing has become one of the key differentiators for businesses.

You will want to provide great content with useful advice and tips that will get your visitors sharing your web pages and coming back for more. Using content is a great way to inform and educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business and about using your products and services.

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

• How balance sheets work
• Profit and loss statements
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• How to present accounts for fundraising activities
• Cashflow planning advice
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Protecting revenues
• How to structure a 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 readers understand your services, such as forensic accounting, tax accounting, tax planning for small business, reducing debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to use relevant keywords in your articles that prospective clients will be searching for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, 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 completely FREE!

Ways Of Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Content Syndication – RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds provide plenty of benefits for your website.

If you provide information that adds value to others, other businesses will want to syndicate your content to their visitors.

Some of the benefits of having other businesses syndicate your content, include:

• All of your updates are in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• An RSS feed provides a way for external links to point back to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• There are a number of ways readers can receive your content (e.g. subscribers can view your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits to adding syndicated content to your site from other sites, 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 or industry bodies.

Below we have listed a few useful RSS feeds you may want to 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

(Adding RSS feeds can help to improve your accounting website’s UX.)

Provide Downloadable Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your readers. Checklists and forms can provide useful instructions and resources to complete necessary tasks. Checklists and forms can also be great business planning tools.

You can provide forms and checklists covering a range of topics such as:

• How To Set Up A Company
• Rental Property Worksheet
• Not-For-Profit Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Requirements
• Partnership Tax Checklist
• Capital Gains Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Adding Online Tools

Providing useful 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 useful tools to add to accounting websites. Others can include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.

In part two, we will be discussing a number of WordPress-based tools you can use in your website that can help improve your seo, increase user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

***

This is the end of section one of this comprehensive article on ways to build your accounting business presence online.

Click here to continue:

• Grow Your Accounting Website – Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Generate More Web Traffic Using WordPress Plugins

Subscribe To WPCompendium.org And Get Notified When New WordPress Tutorials Get Published!

***

***

***