Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The digital economy has not only transformed the way business is done worldwide, it has also created significant challenges and opportunities for the accounting and financial services industry.

Challenges Professional Accountants Face Online

Now, more than ever, accountancy firms must work harder to stand out from the crowd, find new business, and keep their current clients. Not only do you have to become more involved in the communities and industries your business serves, you must also develop an active presence online. This includes having an effective web presence and searching for better ways to grow your business services online.

In addition to investing dollars in offline marketing activities, businesses in the accounting industry are now finding that they need to assign a greater amount of their budget to develop and manage a website that can drive prospective clients, engage visitors, outrank the competition in search engines and help to increase their reach online.

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

Another difficult challenge that accounting organizations face online, as most professions do for that matter, is that you have only about thirty seconds to help visitors find what they are looking for or they will look 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 In The Web Economy

As well as facing a number of significant challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available for accounting firms that can evolve to meet digital challenges and think progressively about improving their online marketing skills.

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

As well as providing practical tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your accounting business online, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) to power your accounting or financial services website.

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

• Why A Poorly Designed Web Site Can Cost You Potential Clients And What To Do About It
• Everything You Need To Know About Growing Your Business Using A WordPress Site

Useful Tips For Improving Your Website

We’ll start first by reviewing the basic stuff. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your website and get better results. We will look at what web pages you need, what type of content you need, layout and navigation, etc.

If you need additional information about website planning, check out the article we have written here: Planning Your Business Web Site - A Cost-Saving Primer For Non-Technical Business Owners

Ways To Improve Your Website Pages

Professional business websites need a number of essential pages. Let’s discuss the pages your  need to have and how to set up your accounting website for best results.

Your Services And Products

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

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

• Business accounting – business planning, incorporation of companies, accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, book keeping, financing, budgeting, forecasting, strategic planning, consulting services, 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, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using these services and why they should choose you.

About Us

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, philanthropy, etc.

It’s important to also list any awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote the company and position it above your competitors.

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

Meet The Team

If you are looking for quicker and easier ideas to sell more products or services online or get people to interact more on your site, then make it easier for prospects to get to know, like and trust you and your business better.

Potential clients need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team members. It should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors won’t be familiar with accounting terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. This page should also include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients to follow selected staff members on their social networks.

In this page, make sure to highlight each staff member’s experience, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a staff page. Image source: deepsky.com)

To learn more about how to easily add an easy-to-maintain list of staff or team members in your WordPress site using a free plugin, go here: How To Add A Simple Employee List On Your WordPress Site

Work With Us

List any career opportunities available within your company. It would include type of training provided, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, social aspects of working with your firm, etc. You should also include stories of recruits who have worked their way up in your company and information such as the job outlook and additional career opportunities in the accounting and financial services industry.

Maintain a positions available section in this page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to this page, subscribe to your newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials

Case studies and reviews from clients are a great way to show potential clients what it’s like to do business with your firm. By adding a page with case studies and reviews from clients, you will also help to provide potential clients with social proof.

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

We have written extensively about using testimonials, case studies and client reviews get better results online. Go here to learn more about this: How To Get Better Results Online Using Compelling Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a functional contact page is essential.

Your contact page should provide:

• Business Name
• Your physical location
• Telephone number
• Fax number
• Email
• Google Map
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media profiles
• Live Chat/Skype (optional feature)

If your business operates from several locations you should make that clear when showing the address and contact information.

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

Add A Blog

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs are built around a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to easily promote your business by publishing timely content like company events, updates, useful articles and tutorials, opinions on current topics, videos, infographics, etc.

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

If you don’t have a website yet, or your existing website is hard to manage or not delivering you the results you want, then WordPress can serve both as your website and your blog.

Something not many people know about, is that WordPress can become an automated traffic machine that can instantly begin driving an ongoing stream of targeted traffic to your website, simply by adding new content on a consistent basis to your website.

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

Go here to learn more about this: WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Getting More Traffic Automatically With WordPress

Legal Information

It’s important for accounting and financial services companies to ensure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online, not just for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being contravened wherever your business is located.

Adding the following legal pages to your site will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:

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

We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to your site. Go here to learn more about this: How To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

Tips For Improving The Content On Your Website

In today’s globally competitive economy, the practice of content marketing has become one of the key differentiators for businesses that sell similar products or provide similar services.

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

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

• How balance sheets work
• Profit and loss statements
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• Presenting accounts for fundraising activities
• Business cashflow planning advice
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Protecting revenues
• Tips on structuring your self-managed retirement fund
• Things to look for when … (e.g. purchasing insurance, claiming business expenses, etc.)

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your readers understand your accounting services, such as forensic accounting, small business accounting, business budgeting, reducing debt, understanding accounting conventions, etc.

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

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating useful content for your visitors and grow your business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Tips For Improving User Experience

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

RSS Feeds

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

If you provide useful content, 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 kept in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• A feed provides links back to your site
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are a number of ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. users can view your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to adding syndicated content to your site from other sites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

To find RSS feeds with loads of useful content for your website, search online for tax-related government departments or well-known industry bodies.

For example, here are a few feeds you may want to add to your accounting 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

(Use RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to provide your visitors with a better UX.)

Adding Online Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a great way to increase user engagement, add value to your visitors and provide something unique. They can give them step-by-step instructions and resources to get necessary tasks done. Forms and checklists are great business planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Business
• Rental Property Worksheet
• Non-Profit Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Sole Trader Tax Checklist
• Trust Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Adding Other Tools

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

In part two, we discuss a number of WordPress plugins you can add to your accounting or financial services site that can help to improve seo, improve user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of part 1.

To continue reading, click here:

• A Practical Step-By-Step Guide To Building And Growing Your Accounting Or Financial Services Website – Part 2

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