Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The information economy has not only revolutionized businesses globally, it has also created significant challenges and opportunities for accounting businesses.

Challenges Accounting And Financial Firms Face Online

CPAs today must work harder than ever before to remain in business. Not only do they have to actively participate in the communities and industries their business serves, they must also maintain an active web presence. This includes having a website and figuring out better ways to grow your business services online.

In addition to spending money in offline marketing, you will probably find that in order to remain competitive, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be delegated towards developing and managing a website that attracts prospective clients, engages visitors, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and helps to increase your 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 the needs of your website will change in time and many areas will need to be frequently updated. This requires implementing well-planned web and content management strategy.

Another difficult challenge that accounting businesses (and other businesses) face online, is that they have only around thirty seconds or less to help users find the information they need or they will go away.

“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 Accountants

As well as facing many new challenges, there are also many online opportunities available to accounting companies that can evolve to meet the challenges of the digital economy and who can think progressively about improving their online marketing skills.

This guide will help you uncover new opportunities to attract more visitors and improve your business presence online.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using WordPress to power your accounting or financial services business website.

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

• How A Poorly Designed Website Can Lose You Potential Clients
• The Small Business Owner’s Guide To Using WordPress

Useful Tips For Improving Your Accounting Or Financial Services Site

This section looks at how to improve your website and get better results online. We show you what pages your site needs, what content works best for accounting websites, navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, read this detailed step-by-step guide: A Comprehensive Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Essential Web Pages

Professional websites require several basic web pages. Let’s go over the pages your  need to have and how to set up your website for best results.

Services

You need to include a page that explains your products and services.

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

• Business accounting – planning, formation, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, bookkeeping, forecasting, financing, budgeting, strategic planning, consulting, 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 businesses, asset transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about what your services do and why they should book an appointment.

About Us

This page needs to describe your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, philanthropical activities, etc.

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

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

Team Profile

Are you searching for cost-effective ways to sell more products online? Then help your visitors get to know you and your business better.

Prospects need to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team members. It should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors won’t be familiar with accounting terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. This page should even include social buttons so your prospective clients can follow your staff members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to outline your employee’s expertise, 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 to prospective new clients. Screenshot image sourced from: deepsky.com)

If you need help how to add an updatable list of staff or team members to your web site with no coding skills required, see this tutorial: How To Easily Add A Staff Directory In WordPress: Tutorial

We’re Hiring

List any career opportunities within the organization. This page can include training, benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. You can also include stories of trainees who have risen within your company and information such as the job outlook and additional 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 this page, subscribe to your announcements list, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials And Case Studies

Case studies and testimonials are a great way to show prospective clients what kind of solutions you can implement to help them solve their problems. Adding a page with client reviews and case studies also provides visitors social proof.

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

If you want to learn more about using testimonials, case studies and user reviews, refer to this article: How To Convert More Visitors Into Qualified Leads Using Standout Client Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A contact page is crucial.

Your contact page should provide visitors with some or all of the following:

• Company Name
• Address
• Telephone number
• Fax
• Contact email
• Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media networks
• Interactive chat feature (optional feature)

If you operate out of several locations you want to make that clear when showing the address and contact information.

Consider also including links to commonly-asked questions, main pages, special offers, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Blog

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs are built around a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using content such as news and events, updates, useful information, opinions and discussions, promotional videos, media presentations, etc.

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

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

Very few businesses know that WordPress can become an automated traffic-generation machine that can instantly begin attracting new visitors to your site, simply by adding regular content to your web site.

(WordPress can generate new visitors automatically to your website)

To learn more about this go here: Web Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Create An Automated Traffic-Getting Machine

Legal Information Pages

It’s very important for accounting and financial services businesses to ensure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online, 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 contravened wherever your do business in.

Depending on what services and products you provide, adding the following legal pages to your website will help you stay 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 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

Go here if you want to learn more adding legal pages to your site: Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Tips For Improving Your Web Content

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

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

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

• How balance sheets work
• Understanding profit & loss statements
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• Presenting accounts for fundraising activities
• Business cashflow planning
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Risk protection
• 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 understand accounting services, such as finance accounting, tax accounting, using office accounting software, reducing debt, understanding accounting concepts, etc.

Remember to include keywords and terms in your content that readers will be searching for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, 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 100% FREE!

Ways Of Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving website user experience (known as UX) helps to keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you ways you can improve your visitor engagement and UX.

Adding RSS Feeds

Using RSS feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and UX in a number of different ways.

If you provide useful content, 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 in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• It provides links back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides various ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. users can read your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits to adding syndicated content to your website from other websites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

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

Here are a few RSS feeds you may want to 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

(Add RSS feeds to provide your visitors with a better UX.)

Adding Downloadable Forms

Checklists and forms are a great way to increase user engagement and add value to your readers. Checklists and forms can provide visitors with useful step-by-step instructions and resources to complete a task. They can also be great business planning tools.

Forms and checklists can address areas such as:

• How To Set Up A Company
• Negative Gearing Checklist
• Fundraising Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Sole Trader Tax Checklist
• Self Managed Super Fund Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Other Tools

Providing unique tools and applications for businesses can help increase visitor engagement and add value to your potential clients. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are useful tools for accounting websites. Other tools would include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.

In part 2, we discuss a several WordPress-based tools you can add to your accounting or financial services site that improve your search engine optimization, increase user engagement and drive more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

To continue, click here:

• How To Build And Grow Your Accounting Business Online Successfully With WordPress – Part Two

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