Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The digital economy has not only transformed businesses globally, it has also created difficult challenges and opportunities for accounting and financial services businesses.

Online Challenges For CPAs

Today, more than ever, accounting firms must work harder to stand out from the competition, obtain new business, and keep their current clientele. Not only do they have to participate in the communities and industries they serve, they must also develop a strong web presence. This includes having a website and learning how to better promote your business services online.

As well as spending dollars in offline marketing activities like advertising on local newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and television spots, etc., businesses in the accounting industry are now finding that increasingly larger amounts of their budget need to be delegated towards the development and management of a website that will drive new prospects, engage visitors, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and give their business a wider amount of reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that your site’s needs may change over time and sections will need to be updated frequently. This requires having a well-planned web and content management strategy in place.

One other challenge that accounting organizations (and most professions) face online, is that they have only around 30 seconds or less to give visitors what they need or they will find what they are looking for elsewhere.

“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

As well as facing significant challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available to businesses in the accounting sector that are willing to adapt to meet the demands of the online economy and who can think outside the box in terms of improving their online business marketing skills.

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

As well as providing tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your accounting business online, we also place special emphasis on the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to power your accounting or financial services website or blog.

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

• Discover How A Poorly Designed Website Can Lose You Money
• Using WordPress – A Business Owner’s Guide

Tips To Improve Your Accounting Website

We’ll start first by covering some basic stuff. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your website and get better results online. We show you what pages a financial services website needs, what type of content works best for accounting websites, tips for improving navigation structure, etc.

If you need help with website planning, visit this page: The Website Planning Process - A Practical Blueprint For Business Owners

Ways To Improve Your Web Pages

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

Your Services And Products

You need a page that explains your products and services.

Your page should include services such as:

• Business accounting – business planning, company formation, general accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, bookkeeping, financing, budgeting, forecasting, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
• Taxation – preparing, planning, reviewing, auditing, advising, 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 businesses, 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 book an appointment with you.

About Us Page

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, causes supported, etc.

This page should also list any awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote your company and set it above other competitors.

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

Staff Page

Are you searching for quicker, simpler and cheaper ideas to sell more products or services online or get prospective clients to stay longer on your site? Then something you can do, is make it easier for your prospects to get to know your organization better.

Your business needs to be relatable. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team members. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be well-versed in accounting terms your descriptions 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 so your site visitors can follow your 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 outline your person’s expertise and qualifications, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

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

We have created a detailed tutorial on how to easily create and add an updatable simple staff directory to your web site using a free plugin here: How To Easily Create A Simple Staff List For Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Job Opportunities Page

This is a listing of career opportunities available within your organization. It could include type of training provided, benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. You can include information such as the job outlook and additional career opportunities in the accounting industry.

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

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

We have created a comprehensive article about using client testimonials and client reviews to improve your business results online. For more info, see this article: How To Achieve Better Results Online With Highly Effective User Testimonials

Contact Us

A clean contact page is absolutely necessary.

It should provide visitors with some or all of the following:

• Name Of Your Organization
• Your physical address
• Telephone
• Fax
• Email
• Google Map and directions
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media networks
• Online chat feature (optional feature)

If your business services several areas you will want to make that clear when showing your address and contact info.

Consider also including links to commonly-asked questions, frequently-visited pages, special offers, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Blog

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool. Most blogging platforms are built around a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to promote your business using timely content like industry announcements, updates, educational articles and tutorials, opinions and discussions, how-to videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an established site, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to promote your company.

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

Not many people know this, but WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation system that can instantly begin delivering an ongoing stream of web traffic to your site, simply by publishing regular content to your web site.

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

For more details: Web Site Traffic Blueprint – How To Get More Website Visitors For Your Business

Legal Information

Having a compliant website is very important, not just for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional or federal laws and regulations are being breached wherever your do business in.

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

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

We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your website. For more details, go here: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Improving The Content On Your Site

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

By committing to providing great content with useful information and tips, you will get your readers to share your web pages and come back for more. Content marketing is the most effective way to inform and educate your visitors and prospective clients about your business.

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

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• Presenting accounts for non-profit activities
• Business cashflow planning
• Business insurance
• Protecting revenues
• Tips on structuring your self-managed retirement fund
• Things to look for when … (e.g. purchasing vs leasing, claiming business expenses, 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, business accounting, business budgeting, reducing debt, understanding financial conventions, etc.

Remember to use keywords and terms in your articles that 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 actionable information that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to 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 completely FREE!

Tips For Improving User Experience

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

RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide plenty of benefits for your site.

If you provide useful information, other sites 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 content updates are kept in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• RSS feeds allow users to subscribe
• It provides links back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• RSS provides multiple ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can view the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is 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.

You can find RSS feeds with loads of useful content by visiting sites of relevant government departments or respected industry bodies.

Below we have listed examples of useful RSS feeds you could consider adding 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 feeds to improve your accounting website’s UX.)

Checklists & Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a great way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your readers and set yourself apart from the competition. Checklists and forms can provide users with useful step-by-step instructions and resources to get necessary tasks done. Checklists and forms are also great planning tools.

Checklists and forms could address subjects such as:

• How To Set Up A Company
• Rental Property Worksheet
• Not-For-Profit Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Sole Trader 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 add value to your potential clients. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are useful tools you can add to accounting websites. Other tools would include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

In the next section of this guide, we will look at a number of online tools you can add to your site using WordPress plugins and themes that improve your seo, increase user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

***

This is the end of section one.

To continue reading, click this link:

• A Practical Step-By-Step Guide On How To Build And Grow An Accounting Online Presence Successfully With WordPress – Part Two

Get Notified When New Tutorials Are Published – Subscribe Using The Form Below!

***

***

***