Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accounting professionals today face significant challenges.

Challenges Certified Public Accountants Face Online

Today, more than ever, accountants must work harder and find smarter ways to remain competitive, find new clients, and retain current clients. Not only do they have to be fully involved in the communities and industries they serve, they must also develop and maintain a strong presence online. This includes having a dynamic website and learning how to better market your business online.

In addition to investing money in offline marketing activities such as advertising on local newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv, etc., businesses in the accounting industry are now also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be assigned towards developing and maintaining a website that attracts new clients, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and gives their business wider reach online.

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

One other difficult challenge that CPAs face online (as other businesses do for that matter), is that your site has only about thirty seconds or less to give visitors what they are searching for or they will go away.

“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 Accountants

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

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

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system to power your accounting or financial services website.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress platform, go here:

• How A Poorly Built Website Can Cost You Prospective Buyers
• WordPress – A Small Business Owner’s Guide

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

In this section we will show you how to improve your accounting website and get better results. We show you what pages a financial services site needs, what content you need, navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, see this detailed step-by-step guide we have written: Planning A Web Site - A Practical Primer For Business Owners

Basic Web Pages

Professional business websites need a number of basic pages. Let’s review these.

Services And Products

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

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

• Business accounting – planning, company formation, general accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, bookkeeping, budgeting, financing, forecasting, strategic planning, consulting, etc.
• Taxation – preparing, 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

List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what your services do and direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us Page

This page should give a description of your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, sponsored community programs, etc.

This page should also mention any awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote the company and position it above other competitors.

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

Meet Our Team

Are you searching for inexpensive ideas to grow your business online and increase user interaction with your site? Then help your prospects 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 employees. It should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors are probably not familiar with accounting terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. This page should even include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients to follow some of your staff members on their social networks.

On this page, make sure to outline your staff member’s experience, how their skills and knowledge add value or contribute to the success of your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add an employee page. Screenshot source: deepsky.com)

If you need help how to easily add an easy-to-manage simple team directory to your site without coding skills, see this tutorial: Adding A Staff Directory To WordPress

Recruitment Page

List any career opportunities available within the firm. It could include type of training provided, benefits, professional development, social aspects of working with your firm, etc. It should include case studies of trainees who have worked their way up in your organization and information about upcoming career opportunities in the accounting and financial services industry.

Include also a positions available section in this page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to the page, join your contact list, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies And Testimonials

Client reviews and case studies are a great way to show potential clients businesses minimize tax, increase profitability, or grow strategically. By adding a page with case studies and testimonials from previous clients, you are also helping to provide potential clients with social proof.

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

We have written extensively on using testimonials and reviews get better results online here: How To Convert More Visitors Into Prospects With Profit-Boosting Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a contact page is essential.

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

• Name
• Address
• Telephone
• Fax
• Email
• Map
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media profiles
• Live chat feature

If your business operates out of multiple areas you will want to make that clear when showing your address and contact information.

Consider also including links to commonly-asked questions, useful pages, special offers, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Blog

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool. Blogs typically include a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to promote your business by publishing content such as announcements, product updates, educational articles and tutorials, informative posts, how-to videos, media presentations, etc.

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

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

You may not have been told about this, but WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation system that can instantly deliver new visitors to your web site, simply by publishing content to your website on a consistent basis.

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

For more details, go here: Web Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Automatically Drive More Web Visitors For Your Business With WordPress

Legal Pages

It’s really important to have a website that complies will all legal requirements online, not just for building trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws and regulations are being breached wherever you provide services to.

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

• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Financial/Health Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

We have written a detailed article on adding legal pages to your site. Go here to learn more about this: How To Add Legal Pages To Your Website

Improving Your Web Content

In today’s ultra competitive online economy, being generous with content that educates and informs readers has become one of the key success differentiators for businesses.

Providing great content with information and tips will get your visitors sharing your content online with others and coming back for more information. Using content is the most effective way to inform and educate site visitors and prospects about your business.

For example, for an accounting or financial services business, topics can cover:

• How balance sheets work
• Understanding profit and loss statements
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• How to present accounts for non-profit activities
• Business cashflow planning
• Business insurance
• Risk protection
• How to structure your self-managed retirement fund
• Do’s and don’ts of … (e.g. purchasing insurance, claiming business expenses, etc.)

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your readers understand your accounting or financial services, such as forensic accounting, business accounting, business budgeting, reducing business debt, understanding financial concepts, etc.

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

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality content for your 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!

Ways Of Improving Visitor Experience

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

Syndicate Content Using RSS Feeds

An RSS feed provides plenty of benefits for your accounting business.

If you provide content that adds value to others, 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 kept in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• An RSS feed provides a way for links to point back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• There are multiple ways readers can receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read your content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• 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.

To find RSS feeds with loads of useful content just search online for finance-related government departments and well-known industry bodies.

Here are some exaples of feeds you could 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

(Use RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to provide your visitors with a better user experience.)

Checklists & Forms

Checklists and forms are a fantastic way to help increase user engagement, add value to your readers and set yourself apart from the competition. Checklists and forms can give them useful step-by-step instructions and resources to complete a task. Forms and checklists are also great planning tools.

Checklists and forms could cover subjects such as:

• How To Set Up A Business
• Negative Gearing Worksheet
• Fundraising Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Requirements
• Sole Trader Tax Checklist
• Trust Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Adding Unique Tools

Providing useful tools, gadgets and applications for businesses (or links to these tools) can help increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your target audience. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are some of the most popular tools for accounting websites. Others could include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

In the next section, we will be discussing a several WordPress plugins you can use in your site that can help to improve search engine optimization, improve user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of section one of this guide on ways to improve your accounting business web presence.

Click here to access Part Two:

• Your Accounting Website – How To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation Using Plugins & Themes

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