Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accountants today are facing an ever increasing number challenges brought about by the web economy.

Challenges Accountants Face Online

Now, more than ever, certified public accountants must work hard and find smarter ways to remain competitive, obtain new clients, and retain current clientele. Not only do they have to actively participate in the communities and industries their business serves, they must also maintain an active digital presence. This includes having an effective website and learning better ways to promote your business services online.

In addition to investing money in offline marketing activities like advertising on local newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv, etc., you will probably find that in order to compete, you will need to allocate a bigger portion of your marketing budget to develop and maintain a website that brings new prospects, engages visitors, outperforms the competition in search engines and gives you wider marketing exposure online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, your pages have to be fast-loading, and your site layout has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that your site’s needs may change over time and many areas will need to be updated frequently. This requires implementing sound website and content management strategy.

Another problem that accounting businesses face online (as do most businesses for that matter), is that your site has only about thirty seconds to help visitors find what they need or they will go elsewhere to get their needs met.

“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 In The Digital Economy

As well as facing a number of significant business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for businesses in the accounting sector that are willing to evolve to meet the challenges of the online economy and can think progressively about improving their online business marketing skills.

In this article, you will learn about ways to drive more traffic and improve your business online.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also emphasize 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 CMS platform, go here:

• How A Poorly Designed Website Can Lose You Money
• Everything You Need To Know To Grow Your Business Online Using A WordPress Blog

Useful Tips For Improving Your Accounting Or Financial Services Site

In this section we will show you ways to improve your accounting website and get better results online. We show you what pages you need, what type of content you need, your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, read this article we have written: Planning A Web Site - A Basic Blueprint For Business Owners

How To Improve Your Website Pages

All business websites need a number of basic web pages. Let’s discuss the pages your  need to have and how to set up your website for best results.

Description Of Products And Services

You need a page that explains your products and services.

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

• Business – planning, incorporation of companies, accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, bookkeeping, forecasting, financing, budgeting, 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, asset transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

Make sure to 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 these services do and why they should choose you.

About Us

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

Remember to list any awards, certifications, recognitions, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that can be used to promote your company and position it above the competition.

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

Meet The Team

Are you searching for quicker, simpler and cheaper ways to sell more products online? Then something you can do, is make it easier for your prospective clients to get to know your business better.

People need to relate to your business. A 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 are probably not well-versed in accounting terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. This page should even include social buttons so your prospective clients can follow individual team members on their social networks.

In this page, make sure to outline each person’s qualifications, how their skills 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 a staff description page. Screenshot image source: deepsky.com)

We have created a detailed tutorial about how to easily add a simple and easy-to-maintain simple team members directory in your website with no coding skills required here: How To Create A Simple Employee Directory In Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills

Recruitment

List any career opportunities within your organization. This page would include training provided, benefits, professional development, social aspects of working for your organization, etc. You can include information about new career opportunities in the accounting and financial services 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, subscribe to your announcements list, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies

Case studies and client reviews are a great way to show prospective clients what it’s like to do business with your company. By adding a page with case studies and testimonials, you are also helping to provide visitors social proof online.

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

If you want to learn more about using testimonials and client reviews, refer to this article: Create Better Results Online With Captivating Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a contact page is essential.

Your contact page should provide visitors with some or all of the following information:

• Name Of Your Organization
• Address
• Phone
• Fax
• Contact email address
• Google Map
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Request for more information – who to contact
• Social media web addresses
• Chat/Skype (optional feature)

If your business operates in multiple locations you should make this clear when showing your address and contact info.

Consider also including a few links for the most commonly asked questions, useful pages, special offers, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Blog

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Many blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content such as industry events, product updates, useful information, informative posts, videos, infographics, etc.

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

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

Very few people know that WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic system that will help begin to attract targeted visitors to your web site, simply by adding new content to your website on a regular basis.

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

Go here to learn more about this: Web Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Turn Your WordPress Site Into A Web Traffic Machine

Legal Info Pages

Having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is crucial, not just for establishing credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional and federal laws and regulations are being contravened wherever your business services clients.

Depending on what products and services you provide, adding some or all of the legal pages below to your accounting or financial services site will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:

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

Go here to learn more about adding legal pages to your website: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

How To Improve The Content On Your Site

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

Providing great content with useful advice and tips will get your visitors to share your content and come back for more information. Publishing content is the most effective way to inform and teach your visitors and prospects about your business and about doing business with your firm.

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

• How balance sheets work
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• Presenting accounts for non-profit activities
• Cashflow planning tips
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Protecting revenues
• Tips on structuring a self-managed retirement fund
• Things to look for when … (e.g. purchasing vs leasing, setting up payroll systems, etc.)

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

Remember to include keywords and terms 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 that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to 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 User Experience

Improving your user experience (known 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.

RSS Feeds

An RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed provides plenty of benefits for your business.

If you provide valuable information, 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 updates are kept in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared online
• Allows users to subscribe
• An RSS feed provides a way for links to point back to your site
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides several ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. users can view your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• 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 by visiting sites of relevant government departments or well-known industry bodies.

Below we have listed examples of 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

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

Checklists & Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a fantastic way to help increase user engagement, add value to your visitors and provide something unique. They can provide users with step-by-step instructions and resources to perform necessary tasks. Checklists and forms are also great business planning tools.

Checklists and forms could cover topics such as:

• How To Set Up A Company
• Negative Gearing Worksheet
• Non-Profit Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Requirements
• Individual Tax Checklist
• Capital Gains Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Provide Other Tools

Providing unique online tools, gadgets and applications for businesses (or links to these tools) can help increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to users. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are useful tools for accounting websites. Others can include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.

In the next section, we take a look at a number of WordPress-based tools you can use in your accounting or financial services website that improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part 1.

To view Part 2, click here:

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

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