Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The digital age has not only revolutionised business globally, it has also created new challenges and great opportunities for businesses offering accounting services.

Challenges Certified Public Accountants Face Online

CPAs today must work harder than ever to remain in business. Not only do you have to become actively involved in the communities and industries you serve, you must also maintain an active presence online. This includes having a dynamic web presence and searching for smarter ways to market your business services online.

In addition to investing dollars in offline marketing activities such as advertising on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and television, etc., you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to compete, increasingly larger amounts of their budget will need to be assigned to developing and maintaining a website that will drive leads, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and help you create a wider degree of reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, your pages have to load fast, and your site layout has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that the needs of the website will change over time and sections may need to be frequently updated. This requires a sound website and content management strategy in place.

One other difficult challenge that CPAs (and most other businesses) face, is that your site has around thirty seconds or less to give visitors the information they are looking for or they will leave your site.

“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 Professional Accountants

As well as facing a number of business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available to accounting firms that can adapt to meet the challenges of the digital economy and think outside the box when it comes to improving their online business marketing skills.

The guide below will help you uncover new ways to find more clientele and improve your accounting and financial business presence online.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress content management system (CMS) to power your accounting website or blog.

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

• Learn How A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Lose You Business
• Everything You Need To Know To Grow A Successful Small Business Online With WordPress

Useful Tips For Improving Your Website

This section explains how to improve your website and get better results online. We will look at what web pages you need, what content works best, ways to improve your navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, read this detailed guide we have written: The Website Planning Process Explained: A Basic Blueprint For Business Owners

Your Website Pages

Professional websites need a number of basic web pages. Let’s take a look at the pages your  need to have and how to set up your accounting or financial services website for best results.

Products And Services Page

It’s essential to include a page that explains your services or products.

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

• Business accounting – business planning, company formation, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, bookkeeping, financing, budgeting, forecasting, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
• Taxation – preparation, 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, 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 direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

About Us

The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, supported community programs, etc.

It’s important to also include any awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote the company and set it above the competition.

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

Team Profile

If you are looking for quicker, simpler and cheaper ideas to sell more products or services online, then something you can do, is make it easier for visitors to get to know your organization better.

You want your business to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff members. It should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be that well-versed in accounting terms it 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 visitors can follow some of your team members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to highlight each person’s experience, how they contribute to the success of 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 to prospective new clients. Screenshot image source: deepsky.com)

If you need help how to easily add a simple and easy-to-manage simple employee directory to your site using free plugins, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: How To Easily Add An Employee List Directory In WordPress: Plugin Tutorial

We’re Hiring

This is a listing of career opportunities within your company. This page should include training provided, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, social aspects of working for your firm, etc. You can include information about career opportunities in the accounting industry.

Maintain a positions available section in your page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to the page, join your announcements list, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials & Case Studies

Case studies and testimonials from past clients are a great way to show potential clients what type of solutions you will implement to help them solve their problems. Adding a web page with case studies and client reviews also helps your accounting or financial services website to establish social proof.

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

We have created a detailed article about using testimonials and user reviews improve your business online. Go here to learn more: Discover How To Turn More Visitors Into Prospects Using Meaningful Customer Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A contact page is crucial.

Your contact page should provide:

• Business Name
• Location
• Telephone number
• Fax
• Contact email address
• Google Map and directions
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media web addresses
• Live Chat/Skype (optional feature)

If you operate in multiple areas you want to make this clear when displaying the address and contact info.

Consider also including links to an FAQ page, main pages, special offers, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Blog Section

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool for your business. Most blogging platforms typically include a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content such as company announcements, company updates, educational articles and tutorials, informative posts, how-to videos, webinars, etc.

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

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

You are probably not aware of this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic-generation system that will help attract new visitors to your business, simply by adding content to your website on a consistent basis.

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

For more info, see this article: Web Traffic Blueprint – How To Automatically Generate More Website Visitors For Your Business

Legal Info Pages

As a professional accountant, having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is important, not just for building credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not contravening any local, regional and federal laws or regulations wherever you provide services to.

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

• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms 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 website. Go here to learn more about this: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Ways To Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s globally competitive economy, being generous with content that educates and informs visitors has become one of the key differentiators for businesses selling similar products or services.

Providing great content with useful advice and tips will get your visitors to share your web pages with others online and come back for more information. Content marketing is the most effective way to educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business and about using your services.

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

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• How to present accounts for non-profit activities
• Business cashflow planning
• Business insurance
• Risk prevention
• How to structure your 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 educational articles that will help your your readers understand your accounting or financial services, such as forensic accounting, small business accounting, tax planning for small business, reducing business debt, understanding financial concepts, etc.

Remember to include the same keywords in your content that your prospective clients would search for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your web 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 To Improve Visitor Engagement And User 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 different ways to improve visitor engagement and UX.

Syndicate Content Using RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide lots of benefits for your accounting business.

If you provide valuable information, other businesses will want to syndicate your content to their visitors.

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

• All of your updates are kept in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Your feed can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• An RSS feed provides a way for external links to point back to your content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are multiple ways readers can receive your content (e.g. users can read the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• 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.

You can find many useful RSS feeds for your website by visiting sites of finance and tax-related government departments and industry bodies.

Here are a few RSS feeds containing useful information that you could add 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

(RSS feeds can help to improve your site’s UX.)

Provide Online Checklists

Checklists and forms are a great way to increase user engagement, add value to your audience and provide something unique. Checklists and forms can provide users with useful step-by-step instructions and resources to complete a task. Forms and checklists are also great planning tools.

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

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

Unique Tools

Providing useful online tools, gadgets and applications for businesses on your website can help increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your target audience. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are useful tools to add to accounting websites. Other tools can include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

In part two, we will be discussing a number of online tools you can add to your website using WordPress plugins and themes that can help to improve your search engine optimization, improve user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

To continue reading, click this link:

• How To Successfully Grow An Accounting Or Financial Services Business Online – Part 2

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