Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The online economy has not only revolutionised businesses globally, it has also created a number of difficult challenges and great opportunities for accountants.

Online Challenges For Accounting & Financial Firms

Now, more than ever, accounting firms must find smarter ways to stand out from the competition, obtain new clients, and retain current clientele. Not only do you have to participate in the communities and industries you serve, you must also develop and maintain an active presence online. This includes having a dynamic web presence and learning how to better market your business services online.

As well as spending money in offline marketing activities, businesses in the accounting industry are now finding that they need to allocate a bigger amount of their budget to developing and maintaining a website that attracts new leads, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and gives their business a wider marketing exposure 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 will change in time and some areas will need to be frequently updated. This requires having a well-planned web and content management strategy in place.

Another challenge that accounting businesses face online, as most other businesses do for that matter, is that you have around 30 seconds to provide users with what they are searching for or they will go elsewhere to find what they need.

“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 In The Web Economy

As well as facing a number of significant business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for accounting businesses that can evolve to meet the challenges of the digital economy and can think strategically when it comes to improving their online business marketing skills.

This guide will help you uncover ways to drive more traffic and establish stronger online credibility for your accounting or financial services business.

As well as providing tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your accounting website, we also recommend that you consider using WordPress to power your accounting business website.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS), see the articles below:

• How A Poorly Designed Website Can Lose You Potential Buyers And What To Do About It
• Everything You Need To Know About Growing Your Business With WordPress

Practical Tips To Improve Your Accounting Site

In this section we will show you how to improve your accounting website and get better results. We show you what pages you need, what content works best for accounting and financial services sites, layout and navigation, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, check out the detailed guide we have written here: A Basic Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Ways To Improve Your Website Pages

All websites need a number of essential pages. Let’s review the pages your  need and how to set up your accounting or financial services website for best results.

Your Services And Products

It’s essential to have a page that lists your services and products.

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

• Business accounting – business planning, incorporation of companies, general accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, book keeping, budgeting, financing, forecasting, strategic planning, consulting, etc.
• Taxation – preparing, planning, reviewing, auditing, advising, 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 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 the benefits of using these services and why they should choose you.

Who We Are

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 include any awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote your company and set it above your competitors.

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

Our Team

If you are searching for inexpensive ways to sell more products or services online or get people to interact more with your site, then something you can do, is help prospects get to know, like and trust you and your organization better.

You want prospects to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your people. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors will not tend to 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 visitors to follow your staff members on their social networks.

In this page, make sure to highlight each staff member’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.

(Add a staff description page. Screenshot image sourced from: deepsky.com)

We have created a detailed tutorial about how to easily create and add a simple staff directory in your site using a free WordPress plugin here: Adding A Staff Directory: WordPress Plugin Tutorial

Career Opportunities

List any career opportunities available within your firm. It could include type of training provided, benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. You should also include stories of recruits who have established a solid career path thanks to your firm and information such as the job outlook and new 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, subscribe to your newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials

Case studies and reviews from clients are a great way to show prospective clients the benefits of doing business with your organization. Adding a page with testimonials from previous clients and case studies also establishes social proof online.

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

We have written extensively on using testimonials and user reviews get better results online. Go here to learn more: Learn How To Improve Your Visitor-To-Lead Conversions Using Engaging Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a contact page is absolutely necessary.

Your contact page should include:

• Name Of Your Organization
• Your address
• Telephone number
• Fax
• Contact email address
• Google Map
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media URLs
• Chat

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

You should also include links to commonly-asked questions, main pages, special offers, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Blog Section

A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs are built around a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business by publishing content such as industry news, company updates, useful information, opinions on current topics, promotional videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an accounting or financial services website, then consider adding a WordPress-driven 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 keep updated with new content or not delivering you the results you want, then WordPress can be used as both your website and business blog.

Not many businesses know this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic-generation system that can attract a stream of new targeted traffic to your website, simply by adding regular content to your site.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more: WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Attract More Website Traffic For Your Business Using WordPress

Legal Pages

As a professional accountant or financial services provider, having a compliant website is crucially important, not just for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional and federal laws or regulations are being breached in whichever area you do business in.

Adding some or all of the following legal pages to your website will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats and 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/Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your site here: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

Improve The Content On Your Website

In today’s globally competitive economy, the earlier you begin to publish great content on your site, the quicker you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from the competition.

Providing great content with useful advice and tips will get your readers to share your content and come back for more information. Content marketing is a great way to inform and teach your visitors and prospective clients about your business and about doing business with you.

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

• How balance sheets work
• Understanding profit & loss statements
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• How to present accounts for fundraising activities
• Cashflow planning
• Business insurance
• Risk prevention
• Tips on structuring your 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 your readers understand your services, such as forensic accounting, tax accounting, tax planning for small business, reducing business debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to use specific keywords 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 actionable information and practical tips that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating high-quality content for 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 To Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Use RSS Feeds

An RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed provides many benefits for your accounting business.

If you provide valuable content, other sites may want to syndicate your content.

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

• All of your updates are in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• An RSS feed provides links back to your site
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• There are various ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. users can read the content on their mobile device using different applications)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also 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.

To find useful RSS feeds just visit sites of relevant government departments or respected industry bodies.

For example, here are some RSS 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 accounting site’s user experience.)

Checklists And Forms

Checklists and forms are a great way to increase user engagement, add value to your readers and provide something unique. They can provide useful instructions and resources to get necessary tasks done. Forms and checklists can also be great business planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Company
• Rental Property Checklist
• Non-Profit Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Requirements
• Sole Trader Tax Checklist
• Trust Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Unique Tools

Providing unique online tools, gadgets and applications for businesses (or links to these tools) on your website can help 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 could include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.

In part two of this guide, we take a look at a several WordPress plugins you can add to your accounting website that improve your seo, increase user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

Click on this link to keep reading:

• The Step-By-Step Guide To Building And Growing An Accounting Business Online Successfully With WordPress – Part Two

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