Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accounting professionals face many new challenges in today’s web economy, especially in terms of growing a business online.

Online Challenges For Certified Public Accountants

Accountants today must work harder than ever to remain in business. Not only do they have to maintain an active presence in the communities and industries they serve, they must also develop and maintain an active presence online. This includes having a website and figuring out smarter ways to promote your business services online.

In addition to investing money in offline marketing, businesses in the accounting industry are also finding that they will need to delegate a larger part of their marketing budget towards the development and maintenance of a website that attracts new prospective clients, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and helps to create wider marketing exposure online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, load fast, and your website 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 having a sound web and content management strategy.

One other challenge that accountancy firms (and all other businesses) face online, is that they have an average of thirty seconds to provide visitors what they are looking 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 Online Economy

As well as facing many challenges, there are also many online opportunities available to businesses in the accounting industry that are willing to evolve to meet the challenges of the online economy and can think strategically when it comes to marketing their business services better online.

This guide will help you uncover opportunities to attract new visitors and build more online credibility for your accounting or financial services business.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also emphasize the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to power your accounting or financial services business website.

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

• Discover Why A Poorly Built Web Site Can Cost You Money
• The Business Owner’s Guide To Understanding WordPress

Tips To Improve Your Website

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

If you need website planning assistance, visit this page: Planning Your Website - A Comprehensive Guide For Business Owners

Your Website Pages

Professional websites require several basic web pages. Let’s review these.

Your Services

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

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

• Business accounting – business planning, formation, general accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, bookkeeping, forecasting, financing, budgeting, strategic planning, consulting, 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 a business, transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

Make sure to list all of the services you provide. 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, community donations, etc.

It’s important to list any industry awards, certifications, recognitions, accreditations, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote the company and set it above the competition.

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

Your Team

If you are searching for simple ideas to grow your business online or get people to stay longer on your site, then something you can do, is help your prospects get to know you and your organization better.

You want potential clients to relate to your business. A 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 are probably not well-versed in accounting terms your 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 so your site visitors can follow some of your staff members on their social pages.

In this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight your 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 an employee page. Screenshot image source: deepsky.com)

To learn more about how to easily add an easy-to-maintain simple team members directory to WordPress without editing code, refer to this tutorial: How To Easily Create A Simple Staff List In Your WordPress Site

Career Opportunities

List any career opportunities available within your organization. This page should include type of training provided, benefits, professional development, social activities promoted by your firm, etc. It should include case studies of graduates who have established a solid career path thanks to your firm and information about additional career opportunities in the accounting and financial services 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 newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials & Case Studies

Case studies and client reviews are a great way to show potential clients businesses minimise tax, increase profitability, or grow strategically. By adding a page with case studies and testimonials from past clients, you will also help to provide social proof.

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

We have written extensively on using testimonials, case studies and client reviews to improve your business results online. Go here to learn more about this: How To Improve Your Visitor-To-Lead Conversions With Profit-Boosting User Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a contact page is crucial.

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

• Name
• Location
• Phone number
• Fax
• Email
• Google Map
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Request for information – who to contact
• Social media URLs
• Interactive chat

If you operate in different locations you should make that clear when showing the address and contact information.

Consider also including links to an FAQ page, useful pages, special offers, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Blog Section

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool. Blogs typically include a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using timely content like company news, product releases, useful information, informative posts, promotional videos, media presentations, etc.

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

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

Not many businesses know this, but WordPress can turn into an automated traffic-generation system that can help begin attracting a stream of targeted traffic to your website, simply by publishing regular content to your web site.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

For more info, see this article: Web Site Traffic Blueprint – How To Automatically Grow Your Traffic For Your Business With WordPress

Legal Pages

It’s important for accounting and financial services firms to have a compliant website, not just for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaching any local, regional and federal laws or regulations wherever your do business in.

Depending on what products and services you provide, adding the legal pages below to your accounting website will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Google), and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms And Conditions
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your site. To learn more about this go here: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

How To Improve The Content On Your Website

In today’s highly competitive digital economy, the earlier you begin engaging in the practice of content marketing, the faster you will begin to differentiate yourself from your competitors.

You want to provide great content with information and tips that will get your readers to share your web pages with others online and come back for more. Content marketing is a great way to educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business.

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

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Profit & loss statements
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• Presenting accounts for fundraising activities
• Cashflow planning tips
• Business insurance
• Risk protection
• Tips on structuring a self-managed retirement fund
• Things to look for when … (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 accounting or financial services, such as finance accounting, small business accounting, tax planning for small business, reducing debt, understanding financial conventions, etc.

Remember to include the same keywords and terminology in your articles that readers 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 teach you how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your visitors and grow your business online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Ways Of Improving User Experience

Improving your website’s user experience (often 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 your visitor engagement and user experience.

Content Syndication – RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide many benefits for your site.

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

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

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

There are also benefits when it comes 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 by searching online for tax-related government departments and industry bodies.

Below we have listed examples of feeds containing useful information that you may want to consider adding to your accounting 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 (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to improve your accounting website’s user experience.)

Checklists & Forms

Checklists and forms are a great way to help increase user engagement and add value to your readers. Forms and checklists can provide visitors with step-by-step instructions and resources to complete necessary tasks. Checklists and forms can also be great planning tools.

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

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

Adding Online Tools

Providing unique online tools and applications for businesses (or links to these tools) on your website is a great way to 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. Others would include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

In part 2 of this guide, we take a look at a several WordPress-based tools you can add to your website that can improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and drive more visitors to your business.

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

To continue, click here:

• Your Accounting Website – WordPress Plugins & Themes For Improving SEO, Better User Engagement And Web Traffic Generation

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