Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The digital information age has not only transformed businesses around the world, it has also created growing challenges and opportunities for businesses offering accounting services.

Challenges Professional Accountants Face Online

Today, more than ever, accounting firms must work harder and find smarter ways to stand out from the competition, obtain new business, and retain current clientele. Not only do they have to become more involved in the communities and industries they serve, they must also develop a strong presence online. This includes having a dynamic web presence and learning better ways to promote your business online.

As well as spending dollars marketing offline, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to compete, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be allocated to developing and maintaining a website that can bring new prospective clients, engage visitors, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and help increase your marketing exposure online.

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

Another difficult challenge that certified public accountants face online, as other businesses do for that matter, is that they have only around thirty seconds to provide visitors with what 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

Online Opportunities For Accounting Professionals

As well as facing a number of challenges, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for businesses in the accounting profession that can adapt to meet digital economy challenges and who can think progressively in terms of improving their online marketing skills.

In this guide, you will learn new ways to drive more web traffic and establish stronger online credibility for your accounting or financial services business.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress CMS platform to power your accounting website or blog.

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

• Why A Poorly Constructed Website Can Cost You Business And What To Do About It
• The Business Owner’s Guide To Using WordPress

How To Improve Your Website

Let’s start by going over 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 an accounting site needs, what content works best for accounting and financial services sites, layout and navigation, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your accounting or financial services website, go here: A Practical Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Essential Website Pages

All business websites require several essential web pages. Let’s discuss these.

Description Of Services

It’s essential to include a page that lists your services and any products that you offer.

This page should include all the services you offer, such as:

• Business accounting – planning, company structures, accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, book keeping, financing, forecasting, budgeting, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
• Taxation – preparation, planning, reviewing, auditing, advice, 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, asset transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

Make sure to list all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what these services do and direct them to your appointment booking page.

Who We Are

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

It’s important to also mention any awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that could be used to promote the company and position it above the competition.

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

Meet The Team

If you are searching for simple ideas to sell more products or services online, then one of the things you can do, is help your prospects get to know, like and trust 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 team. This page should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be well-versed in accounting terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. It should even include social buttons so your visitors can follow your team members on their social pages.

On this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight your employee’s expertise, 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 an employee page. Image sourced from: deepsky.com)

For a detailed tutorial on how to easily create and add an updatable list of employees to a WordPress site using a free plugin, go here: Step-By-Step Tutorial: How To Add A Staff List Directory To Your WordPress Site

Career Opportunities Page

This is a listing of career opportunities within the company. This page can include training, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, social activities sponsored by your organization, etc. You should also include case studies of recruits who have risen within your firm and information about new career opportunities in the accounting industry.

Also include a positions available section in this page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to the page, join your contact list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies

Case studies and reviews from clients are a great way to show potential clients the benefits of doing business with your company. By adding a page with case studies and testimonials, you are also helping to provide potential clients with social proof.

(Add a page to your site with case studies and testimonials. Image sourced from: pcg-services.com)

We have written a detailed article on using testimonials and reviews improve your business online. Learn more here: Discover How To Turn More Visitors Into Prospects With Awesome Testimonials

Contact Us

A functional contact page is crucial.

It should provide some or all of the following information:

• Company Name
• Your physical address
• Phone number
• Fax
• Contact email address
• Google Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Request for information – contact details
• Links to social media profiles
• Online Chat/Skype

If you operate from different locations you should make this clear when displaying your address and contact info.

You could also include links to an FAQ section, useful pages, special offers, support page, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Blog Section

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool. Blogs typically include a content management system that allows you to promote your business using content like industry announcements, product releases, useful articles and tutorials, opinions and discussions, videos, webinars, etc.

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

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

Not many people know this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic-generation system that can instantly begin to attract web traffic to your website, simply by publishing content to your website on a consistent basis.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more: Web Site Traffic Blueprint – How To Turn Your WordPress Site Into A Web Traffic Machine

Legal Information Pages

As a professional accountant or financial services provider, ensuring that you have a website that complies will all legal requirements online is really important, not just for building trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaking any laws and regulations wherever you provide services to.

Depending on the products and services you provide, adding the following legal pages to your accounting website 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 Page
• Privacy Policy
• Terms And Conditions Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Financial/Health Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your website. Go here to learn more about this: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Improving The Content On Your Site

In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you begin to engage in the practice of content marketing, the quicker you will begin to differentiate yourself from your competitors.

Providing great content with information and tips will get your visitors sharing your web pages with others and coming back for more. Content marketing is the most effective way to inform and teach site visitors and prospective clients about your business and about doing business with your organization.

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
• How to present accounts for fundraising activities
• Cashflow planning advice
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Risk prevention
• How to structure a 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 readers gain a better understanding of your accounting services, such as forensic accounting, tax accounting, tips on using office accounting software, reducing business debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to include keywords in your content that readers will be searching 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 site, save money creating useful content that will add value to your visitors and grow your business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Tips For Improving Visitor Experience

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

RSS Feeds – Content Syndication

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

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 businesses using RSS feeds, include:

• All of your content updates are kept in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feed can be shared
• Allows users to subscribe
• A feed provides links to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are multiple ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. view your content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits to providing content on 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 visiting sites of relevant government departments or industry bodies.

Below we have listed some feeds containing useful information that you could 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 feeds can help to improve your accounting website’s UX.)

Provide Downloadable Forms And Checklists

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

Checklists and forms could cover subjects such as:

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

Other Tools

Providing useful tools, gadgets and applications for businesses (or links to these tools) 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 great tools to add to accounting websites. Others could include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.

In part 2, we take a look at a several WordPress-based tools you can use in your website that can improve seo, improve user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one of this guide on ways to build your accounting business presence online.

To continue, click here:

• Online Business Tips For CPAs – WordPress Plugins For Improving SEO, Increasing User Engagement And Generating More Visitors

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