Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accountants today are facing significant and difficult challenges thanks to the web economy.

Challenges Accounting Professionals Face Online

Today, more than ever, accountants must find smarter ways to remain competitive, obtain new business, and keep their current clientele. Not only do you have to maintain an active presence in the communities and industries you serve, you must also develop and maintain a strong presence online. This includes having a dynamic website and learning how to better market your business services online.

In addition to spending money in offline marketing activities such as advertising on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv spots, etc., you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to compete with other web-marketing savvy accounting businesses, increasingly larger amounts of their budget need to be allocated to develop and maintain a website that brings new prospective clients, engages users, outranks the competition in search engines and helps to give your business wider marketing reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and your website layout has to 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 a well-planned web and content management strategy.

Another challenge that accountants face, as all other businesses do for that matter, is that you have an average of 30 seconds or less to provide users with what they are looking for 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 Accountants

As well as facing many new business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available for businesses in the accounting sector that are willing to adapt to meet online economy demands and think strategically in terms of marketing their services better online.

In this article, you will discover new ways to attract more visitors and build more online credibility for your business.

As well as providing practical tips and information on ways to improve your web presence, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress CMS platform to power your accounting business website.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS), see the articles below:

• Learn Why A Poorly Designed Website Can Cost You Money And What To Do About It
• Learn How To Grow Your Business With WordPress

Practical Tips For Improving Your Accounting Website

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

If you need additional information about website planning, see this article: A Cost-Saving Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Improve Your Web Pages

All websites need a number of essential pages. Let’s take a look at these.

Services Page

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

Your page should include services such as:

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

About Us Page

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

It’s important to also list any awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote the company and position it above your 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 quicker, easier and cost-effective ideas to sell more products or services online or get people to engage more with your site, then something you can do, is help prospects get to know, like and trust you, your team and your organization better.

Your business needs 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 brief biography. 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. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. This page should even include social buttons so your visitors can follow selected team members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to highlight your employee’s expertise, how their skills and knowledge add value to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add an employee description page. Screenshot image source: deepsky.com)

We have written a detailed tutorial about how to create and add a simple and easy-to-manage simple team directory in your site here: How To Easily Add An Employee List Directory To WordPress: Step-By-Step Tutorial

Recruitment Page

List any career opportunities available within the organization. It can include training offered, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. You can also include stories of recruits who have established a solid career path thanks to your organization and information such as the job outlook and additional career opportunities in the accounting and financial services 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 newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials

Testimonials and case studies are a great way to show potential clients the benefits of doing business with your organization. Adding a page with testimonials and case studies also helps your accounting site to establish social proof online.

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

If you want to learn more about using client case studies and client reviews, see this article: How To Improve Your Sales Conversions Using Captivating Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a clean contact page is absolutely necessary.

Your contact page should provide:

• Name Of Your Organization
• Your physical address
• Telephone number
• Facsimile
• Email
• Map and directions
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media links
• Online Chat/Skype

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

You can also include links to commonly-asked questions, useful pages, special offers, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Blog Section

A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically include a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to easily promote your business using content like industry news, company updates, useful articles, discussions on current topics, promotional videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an established website, then consider adding a WordPress blog to promote your business.

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

Not many businesses know this, but WordPress can turn into an automated traffic-generation machine that can deliver web traffic to your web site, simply by adding regular content to your site.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more about this: WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Automatically Drive More Web Traffic For Your Business

Legal Information

Having a compliant website is crucial, not just for establishing credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws and regulations are being broken wherever your business is located.

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

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

If you want to learn more about adding legal pages to your site, see this article: Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s highly competitive global economy, the sooner you begin to publish great content on your site, the sooner you will begin to differentiate yourself from the competition.

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

For example, for an accounting or financial services business, topics can cover:

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• Presenting accounts for fundraising activities
• Business cashflow planning
• Business insurance
• Risk protection
• Structuring 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 gain a better understanding of your services, such as software accounting, business accounting, office accounting software, reducing debt, understanding accounting conventions, etc.

Remember to use the same keywords and terms in your content that prospective clients 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 site, save money creating useful content for 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 100% FREE!

Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Syndicate Content With RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds provide many benefits for your business.

If you provide information that adds value to others, other sites will want to syndicate your content.

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

• All of your content updates are in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• It provides links 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. read the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to adding syndicated content to your site 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 searching online for finance and tax-related government departments or respected industry bodies.

For example, here are some feeds you may want to 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 feeds can help to improve your accounting site’s UX.)

Checklists And Forms

Checklists and forms are a fantastic way to help increase user engagement and add value to your visitors. They can provide visitors with step-by-step instructions and resources to perform necessary tasks. Forms and checklists are also great business planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Company
• Rental Property Worksheet
• Not-For-Profit Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Sole Trader Tax Checklist
• Self Managed Super Fund Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Other Tools

Providing unique online tools, gadgets and applications for businesses (or links to these tools) can help increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your target audience. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are useful tools to 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 WordPress-based tools you can use in your website that improve seo, increase user engagement and drive more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

To view the rest of this article, click here:

• Grow Your Accounting Website – Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation Using WordPress Plugins & Themes

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