Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The digital economy has not only transformed business worldwide, it has also created a growing number of challenges and great opportunities for accountants.

Online Challenges For The Accounting & Financial Services Profession

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

In addition to investing dollars advertising offline, you will probably find that in order to compete with other accounting businesses, you will need to invest a larger amount of your marketing budget to developing and managing a website that will attract new leads, engage users, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and help to increase your marketing reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, your pages have to be fast-loading, and your website has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of your website may change in time and sections will need to be updated often. This requires a sound web and content management strategy.

One other difficult challenge that CPAs face (as do all other professions for that matter), is that your site has only about thirty seconds to help users find what they need or they will leave and go 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 The Accounting Profession In The Web Economy

As well as facing many new business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available to accounting firms that are willing to evolve to meet the challenges of the digital economy and can think outside the box about marketing themselves better online.

In this comprehensive guide, you will learn ways to attract new potential clients and establish online credibility for your accounting or financial services business.

As well as providing practical tips and information on ways to improve your accounting website, we also emphasize the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform to power your accounting or financial services website or blog.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress platform, see the articles below:

• Why A Poorly Designed Web Site Can Lose You Business
• The Business Owner’s Guide To Understanding WordPress

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

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

If you need website planning assistance, see this detailed guide: A Money-Saving Guide To Website Planning For Business Owners

Ways To Improve Your Web Pages

Professional business websites need a number of essential web pages. Let’s review the pages your  should have and how to structure your accounting or financial services website for best results.

Description Of Products And Services

You need to include a page that lists your services and any products that you offer.

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

• Business – planning, formation, general accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, bookkeeping, budgeting, financing, forecasting, strategic planning, consulting, 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 a business, 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 your 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, philanthropical activities, etc.

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

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

Your Staff Page

If you are searching for ways to sell more products or services online, then help your prospective clients get to know, like and trust you, your team and your business better.

You want prospective clients to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. It should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be that 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. It should also include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow some of your staff members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to highlight your employee’s expertise and qualifications, how their skills and knowledge 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 ‘meet the team’ page. Image source: deepsky.com)

We have written a detailed tutorial about how to easily add an easy-to-maintain simple team directory to your website without coding skills here: How To Add A Staff Directory

Recruitment

List any career opportunities available within your organization. It should include training provided, employee benefits, professional development, etc. It should include stories of graduates who have worked their way up in your firm and information such as the job outlook and career opportunities in the accounting and financial services industry.

Also include a positions available section in your page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to the page, subscribe to your newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials

Testimonials from previous clients and case studies are a great way to show potential clients what kind of solutions you can implement to help them solve problems. Adding a page with reviews from clients and case studies also helps to establish social proof online.

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

We have created a comprehensive article on using case studies, testimonials and reviews to improve your business results online. To learn more about this go here: Learn How To Turn More Visitors Into Qualified Leads With Captivating Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a contact page is crucial.

Your contact page should include the following information about your firm:

• Name
• Physical location
• Telephone number
• Fax
• Contact email
• Map
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media pages
• Online Chat/Skype

If your business services several areas you want to make that clear when displaying your address and contact information.

Consider also including a few links for commonly-asked questions, frequently-visited pages, special offers, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Blog

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Many blogging platforms are built around a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing timely content like announcements, product releases, training articles, opinions on current topics, how-to videos, infographics, etc.

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

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

Not many people know this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can turn your web presence into an automated traffic machine that will help drive targeted traffic to your website, simply by adding new content to your website on a consistent basis.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can drive new visitors automatically to your site)

Go here to learn more about this: Website Traffic Blueprint – How To Turn Your WordPress Website Into A Traffic Generation Machine

Legal Info Pages

Having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is vitally important, not just for establishing credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws and regulations are being broken wherever you service clients.

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

• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions
• 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 site. If you are interested in learning more about this here: Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

Tips For Improving Your Content

In today’s highly competitive online economy, being generous with content that educates and informs readers has become one of the key differentiators for businesses.

You will want to provide great content with advice and tips that will get your readers to share your content and come back for more. Content marketing is the most effective way to inform and educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business.

For example, for an accounting business, topics could include:

• How balance sheets work
• Profit & loss statements
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• How to present accounts for fundraising activities
• Business cashflow planning tips
• Business insurance
• Protecting revenues
• Tips on structuring a self-managed retirement fund
• Do’s and don’ts of … (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 gain a better understanding of accounting services, such as finance accounting, small business accounting, tax planning for small business, reducing business debt, understanding financial conventions, etc.

Remember to use keywords and terminology in your articles that prospective clients will be searching for online.

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 web site, 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!

Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Add RSS Feeds

An RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed provides lots of benefits for your website.

If you provide content that adds value to others, other sites may 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
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• An RSS feed provides a way for external links to point back to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• There are multiple ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. users can view the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to providing content on your website from other websites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

To find RSS feeds with useful content for your website, search online for relevant government departments and industry bodies.

Here are some 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

(RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your accounting site’s UX.)

Provide Checklists And Forms

Checklists and forms are a fantastic way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your visitors. Forms and checklists can provide useful instructions and resources to complete tasks. Checklists and forms are great business planning tools.

You can provide forms and checklists covering a range of subjects such as:

• How To Set Up A Business
• Negative Gearing Checklist
• Not-For-Profit Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Requirements
• Company Tax Checklist
• Capital Gains Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Online Tools

Providing unique online tools, gadgets and applications for businesses on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your target audience. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are some of the most popular tools for accounting websites. Other applications could include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.

In the next section of this detailed guide, we will be discussing a several WordPress-based tools you can use in your site that can help to improve your search engine optimization, improve user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section 1 of this article on ways to improve your accounting business presence online.

To view the rest of this guide, click here:

• A Complete Guide On How To Build And Grow Your Accounting Or Financial Services Web Presence Successfully With WordPress – Part 2

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