Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The digital economy has not only transformed the way business is done globally, it has also created increasingly difficult challenges and opportunities for the accounting and financial services sector.

Challenges Accountants Face Online

Today, more than ever, CPAs must work hard and find smarter ways to stand out from the competition, obtain new business, and retain current clients. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the communities and industries you serve, you must also maintain a strong presence online. This includes having a dynamic web presence and learning smarter ways to market your business services online.

In addition to spending dollars advertising offline on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and television, etc., you will probably find that in order to compete, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be directed to develop and manage a website that will attract new prospective clients, engage visitors, outperform the competition in search engines and help you gain a wider amount of marketing exposure online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, load fast, and your website layout has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that the needs of your website may change over time and some areas may need to be updated often. This requires implementing sound website and content management strategy.

One other difficult challenge that accounting firms face online, as do other businesses for that matter, is that you have around 30 seconds to give visitors what they are looking 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 The Accounting Profession In The Online Economy

As well as facing a number of business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available to accounting companies that are willing to adapt to meet online challenges and who can think progressively about marketing their services better online.

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

As well as providing practical tips and information on ways to improve your business online, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress platform to power your accounting website or blog.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform, go here:

• Why A Poorly Designed Website Can Cost You Money
• How To Grow Your Business With WordPress

How To Improve Your Website

We’ll start first by going over the basics. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your website and get better results. We show you what pages your site needs, what content works best, layout and navigation, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your accounting website, go here: A Basic Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Your Website Pages

Professional websites require some essential web pages. Let’s discuss the pages your  need and how to set up your accounting website for best results.

Services

You need to include a page that lists your products or services.

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

• Business – planning, company structures, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, book keeping, budgeting, forecasting, financing, strategic planning, consulting, etc.
• Taxation – preparing, planning, reviewing, auditing, advice, 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, asset transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

Make sure to list all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using these services and why they should choose you.

About Us Page

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

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

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

Meet Our Team

Are you searching for simple ways to sell more products or services online and get prospects to engage more on your site? Then one of the things you can do, is make it easier for prospective clients to get to know, like and trust you, your team and your business better.

You want your business to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff. It should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors won’t be that well-versed in accounting terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. It should also include social buttons that will allow your visitors to follow individual staff members on their social pages.

In this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight each person’s experience, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a page that introduces your staff or team members to prospective new clients. Screenshot image source: deepsky.com)

For a detailed tutorial about how to create and add an easy-to-manage simple team members directory in your WordPress site without coding skills, go here: How To Easily Create A Simple Employee List For Your WordPress Site

Work With Us

This is a listing of career opportunities available within your company. It should include type of training provided, benefits, opportunities for advancement, social activities sponsored by your firm, etc. You should also include information such as the job outlook and new career opportunities in the accounting and financial services industry.

Maintain 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 newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies & Testimonials

Testimonials and case studies are a great way to show potential clients them minimise tax, increase profitability, or grow strategically. Adding a page with client reviews and case studies also helps your accounting or financial services website to provide social proof online.

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

We have written extensively about using case studies, testimonials and reviews improve your business online. Go here to learn more: Learn How To Convert More Visitors Into Prospects With Highly Effective Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a functional contact page is crucial.

Your contact page should provide visitors with the following information:

• Company Name
• Physical address
• Telephone
• Fax
• Contact email
• Map
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Request for more information – contact details
• Social media web addresses
• Live chat feature (optional)

If you operate from multiple locations you will want to make that clear when displaying your address and contact info.

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

Add A Blog Section

A blog is a powerful business marketing tool. Blogs are built around a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to promote your business by publishing timely content like company announcements, updates, educational articles and tutorials, informative posts, how-to videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an accounting or financial services website, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to promote your business.

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

You may not have been told about this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic system that will help drive targeted visitors to your website, simply by publishing regular content to your web site.

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

For more details: Website Traffic Blueprint – How To Turn Your Website Into An Automated Traffic Machine

Legal Pages

It’s essential to make sure they have a compliant website, not just for establishing trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not breaking any local, regional and federal laws or regulations wherever your business is located.

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

To learn more about adding legal pages to your site, see this article: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Improve Your Web Content

In today’s fiercely competitive global economy, the earlier you begin to publish great content on your site, the faster you will begin to differentiate yourself from competing businesses.

By committing to providing great content with useful advice and tips, you will get your visitors to share your content and come back for more. Content marketing is a great way to inform and educate your visitors and prospective clients about your business and about doing business with your company.

For example, for an accounting business, topics can include the following:

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Profit & 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
• 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 gain a better understanding of your accounting or financial services, such as forensic accounting, tax accounting, business budgeting, reducing business debt, understanding accounting concepts, 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 website, save money creating high-quality content for your site 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 100% FREE!

Ways Of Improving User Experience

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

Syndicating Content Using RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and UX in many ways.

If you provide useful information, 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
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• A feed provides a way for external links to point back to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are various ways readers can receive your content (e.g. read the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is 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 tax-related government departments and industry bodies.

For example, here are examples of RSS feeds you may want to add to your accounting 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

(Add RSS feeds to improve your website’s UX.)

Checklists & Forms

Checklists and forms are a great way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your audience and set yourself apart from the competition. Forms and checklists can give them useful step-by-step instructions and resources to get necessary tasks performed. They are also great business planning tools.

Checklists and forms can include topics such as:

• How To Set Up A Company
• Negative Gearing Worksheet
• Fundraising Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Company Tax Checklist
• Capital Gains Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Add Unique Tools

Providing useful online tools, gadgets and applications for businesses on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your potential clients. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are great tools to add to accounting websites. Other tools could include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

In part 2 of this detailed guide, we discuss a several online tools you can use in your site using WordPress plugins that can help to improve your seo, improve user engagement and drive more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of part 1.

Click on this link to read Part Two:

• Tips For CPAs – Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation With WordPress Plugins And Themes

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