Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accountants face many new challenges in today’s digital economy, especially when it comes to growing their business presence online.

Challenges Professional Accountants Face Online

Now, more than ever, CPAs must work harder and find smarter ways to remain competitive, find new business, and retain current business. Not only do they have to become more involved in the communities and industries their business serves, they must also maintain a strong web presence. This includes having an effective website and figuring out better ways to grow your business online.

As well as investing money marketing offline, businesses in the accounting industry are also finding that they will need to designate a more significant portion of their marketing budget to developing and managing a website that attracts clients, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and social media, and increases their reach online.

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

Another difficult challenge that accountancy firms face (and all other professions for that matter), is that you have around 30 seconds or less to provide visitors what they are looking for or they will 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 CPAs In The Online Economy

As well as facing significant challenges, there are also many online opportunities available for businesses in the accounting sector that are willing to adapt to meet digital challenges and think strategically in terms of marketing their services better online.

This guide will help you uncover new opportunities to find new potential clients and establish stronger online credibility for your accounting or financial services business.

As well as providing tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your website, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress content management system (CMS) to power your accounting or financial services business website or blog.

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

• Why A Poorly Designed Website Can Lose You Business
• WordPress – The Small Business Owner’s Guide

Useful Tips For Improving Your Website

We’ll start first by covering the basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your website and get better results online. We show you what pages you need, what type of content works best for accounting websites, your navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your accounting website, read this detailed guide: How To Plan Your Business Website: A Useful Blueprint For Business Owners

How To Improve Your Web Pages

Professional business websites need several essential pages. Let’s take a look at these.

Description Of services And Products

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

It should include all the services you offer, such as:

• Business – business planning, company formation, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, book keeping, budgeting, financing, forecasting, 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 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 what these services do and why they should book an appointment.

About Us Page

This page needs to describe your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, community participation, etc.

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

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

Team

If you are searching for ideas to sell more products online, then something you can do, is help prospective clients get to know you and your organization better.

People need to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees or team members. It should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be familiar with 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 so your prospective clients can follow your team members on their social pages.

In this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight your employee’s experience, why they are an invaluable 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 staff or team members to prospective new clients. Image sourced from: deepsky.com)

To learn more about how to create and add a simple and easy-to-update simple employee directory to your site without coding skills, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: Tutorial: Adding A Staff Directory To Your WordPress Site

Job Opportunities Page

This is a listing of career opportunities within your firm. It could include training offered, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. You can also include information such as the job outlook and career opportunities in the accounting industry.

Include also 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 contact list, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials

Case studies and testimonials from past clients are a great way to show prospective clients what it’s like to do business with your company. Adding a web page with reviews from clients and case studies also establishes social proof.

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

To learn more about using client testimonials and user reviews to grow your business online, go here: Discover How To Convert More Visitors Into Qualified Prospects Using Compelling Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a contact page is essential.

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

• Company Name
• Your address
• Phone
• Facsimile
• Contact email
• Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Request for information – contact details
• Links to social media networks
• Live chat (optional)

If your business services multiple areas you want to make this clear when displaying the address and contact information.

Consider also including links to an FAQ page, main pages, special offers, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Or Financial Services Blog Section

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Many blogging platforms typically include a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using timely content such as industry news, product releases, useful information, opinions and discussions, how-to videos, webinars, etc.

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

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

You may not be aware of this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic-generation machine that can help begin to drive targeted traffic to your business, simply by publishing regular content to your website.

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

Go here to learn more: Web Traffic Blueprint – How To Create An Automated Traffic-Getting Machine

Legal Information

Having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is vitally important, not just for building trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional and federal laws and regulations are being contravened wherever your do business in.

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

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

We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your site. For more details, go here: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Tips For Improving Your Content

In today’s fiercely competitive online economy, the earlier you begin engaging in the practice of content marketing, the faster you will begin to differentiate yourself from competing businesses.

You want to provide great content with useful information and tips that will get your readers to share your web pages online with others and come back for more information. This is the most effective way to inform and teach your visitors and prospects about your business and about doing business with your company.

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 non-profit activities
• Business cashflow planning advice
• Business insurance
• Protecting revenues
• How to structure a self-managed retirement fund
• Things to look for when … (e.g. purchasing insurance, claiming business expenses, etc.)

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your readers gain a better understanding of accounting services, such as software accounting, tax accounting, business auditing, reducing business debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to include the same keywords in your content 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 easy-to-digest information that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful 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 completely FREE!

Ways Of Improving User Experience

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

Adding RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and user experience in several ways.

If you provide valuable 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 updates are kept in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared
• Feeds allow users to subscribe
• A feed provides a way for external links to point back to your site
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• There are a number of ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. users can view the content on their mobile device using different applications)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits when it comes 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 useful content for your website by searching online for relevant government departments or key industry bodies.

For example, here are a few RSS feeds containing useful information that you could add 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

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

Provide Checklists And Forms

Checklists and forms are a fantastic way to help increase user engagement, add value to your readers and provide something unique. Checklists and forms can give them useful step-by-step instructions and resources to complete tasks. They are great business planning tools.

You can provide a range of online or downloadable forms and checklists covering areas such as:

• How To Set Up A Company
• Rental Property Worksheet
• Non-Profit Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Company Tax Checklist
• Self Managed Super Fund Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Other Tools

Providing unique tools, gadgets and applications for businesses (or links to these tools) on your website can help increase visitor engagement and add value to users. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are useful tools for accounting websites. Other applications would include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.

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

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This is the end of part 1.

To keep reading, click here:

• The Step-By-Step Guide On How To Grow Your Accounting Or Financial Services Web Presence Successfully With WordPress – Part Two

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