Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accounting professionals today face significant challenges.

Online Challenges For Accountants

Now, more than ever, certified public accountants must find smarter ways to stand out from the competition, source new clients, and keep their current clientele. Not only do you have to become more involved in the communities and industries your business serves, you must also maintain an active digital presence. This includes having a dynamic website and learning better ways to market your business services online.

In addition to investing dollars in offline marketing activities like advertising on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and television spots, etc., businesses in the accounting industry are now finding that they will need to invest a more significant amount of their marketing budget to develop and maintain a website that will bring new clients, engage visitors, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and help create a wider degree of exposure online.

This means that your site 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 may change in time and sections will need to be updated often. This requires implementing sound web and content management strategy.

Another difficult challenge that accountants face, as most businesses do for that matter, is that your site has only about thirty seconds to help users find what they need or they will go elsewhere to get their needs met.

“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 Certified Public Accountants

As well as facing many business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available to accounting companies that can evolve to meet online economy demands and can think strategically about marketing their services better online.

In this article, you will learn new ways to attract and engage new visitors 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 content management system to power your accounting business website.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform, see the articles below:

• How A Poorly Built Website Can Cost You Money And What To Do About It
• An Online Guide To Building Your Successful Business Using WordPress

Practical Tips To Improve Your Website

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

If you need website planning assistance, visit this page: The Website Planning Process Explained: A Money-Saving Primer For Business Owners

Improve Your Web Pages

Professional business websites require some basic pages. Let’s take a look at the pages your  need to have and how to structure your website for best results.

Description Of Products And Services

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

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

• Business accounting – business planning, formation, general accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, bookkeeping, 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 businesses, 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 your services do and why they should book an appointment with you.

About Us

The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what your business stands for, its unique approach, supported community programs, etc.

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

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

Team Profile Page

If you are searching for inexpensive ways to grow your business online and get people to stay longer on your site, then something you can do, is make it easier for your prospective clients to get to know, like and trust you and your organization better.

People need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be familiar with 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 individual team members on their social networks.

On 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 each person’s expertise and qualifications, how their skills add value or contribute to the success of your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

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

If you need help how to easily add an easy-to-update simple team members directory in your web site using a free plugin, go here: How To Create A Simple Staff List In Your WordPress Site

Job Opportunities

This is a listing of career opportunities available within the organization. This page should include training offered, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. It should include stories of trainees who have established a solid career path thanks to your company and information about upcoming 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 this page, join your updates list, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies And Testimonials

Reviews from clients and case studies are a great way to show prospective clients what type of solutions you are capable of implementing to help solve their problems. By adding a page with client reviews and case studies, you are also helping to are also providing visitors social proof online.

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

If you want to learn more about using case studies, testimonials and reviews, see this article: How To Get Better Results Online With Engaging Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A functional contact page is essential.

Your contact page should provide:

• Name Of Your Organization
• Street address of office
• Telephone
• Facsimile
• Contact email
• Google Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media web addresses
• Live chat feature

If you have different locations you want to make that clear when displaying your address and contact info.

Consider also including links to an FAQ page, main pages, special offers, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Blog Section

A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically include a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using content such as company events, updates, educational articles and tutorials, opinions and discussions, how-to videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an existing site, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to promote your company.

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

Not many businesses know this, but WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation system that will begin driving an ongoing stream of targeted visitors to your site, simply by publishing regular content to your web site.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

For more details, go here: Website Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Growing Your Web Visitors Automatically With WordPress

Legal Pages

It’s important to have a compliant website, not just for establishing credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws and regulations are being breached wherever your business is located.

Depending on what services and products you provide, adding some or all of the legal pages below to your site will help keep you out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:

• Contact Page
• Privacy Policy
• Terms 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

We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your site. To learn more about this go here: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

Improving Your Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, having a sound content marketing strategy has become one of the key business differentiators.

You will want to provide great content with information and tips that will get your readers to share your content and come back for more. Using content is the most effective way to inform and educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business and about doing business with you.

For example, topics for an accounting business could include:

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Understanding profit & loss statements
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• Presenting accounts for non-profit activities
• Cashflow planning advice
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Protecting revenues
• 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 educational articles that will help your your readers gain a better understanding of your accounting or financial services, such as forensic accounting, tax accounting, business auditing, reducing debt, understanding financial conventions, etc.

Remember to include the same keywords and terminology in your content that your readers 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 exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to 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 completely FREE!

Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Syndicate Content With RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds provide lots of benefits for your website.

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

Some of the benefits of having other businesses syndicate your content, include:

• All of your content updates are in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• An RSS feed provides a way for external links to point back to your site
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• RSS provides multiple ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits to providing valuable content on your site from other websites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

To find RSS feeds with useful content just visit sites of relevant government departments and key industry bodies.

For example, here are a few RSS feeds containing useful information that you could consider adding 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 site’s UX.)

Adding Online Checklists

Checklists and forms are a great way to help increase user engagement, add value to your readers and set yourself apart from the competition. Forms and checklists can provide users with useful instructions and resources to complete tasks. They can also be great planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Company
• Rental Property Worksheet
• Not-For-Profit Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Company Tax Checklist
• Capital Gains Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Adding Online Tools

Providing useful online tools, gadgets and applications for businesses (or links to these tools) can help increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your target audience. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are useful tools for accounting websites. Others could include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

In part two, we will look at a several WordPress plugins and themes you can use in your accounting website that improve your seo, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part 1 of this guide on ways to build your accounting business presence online.

Click on this link to continue:

• How To Build And Grow Your Accounting Or Financial Services Web Presence Using WordPress – Part Two

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