Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accounting professionals today face growing challenges.

Challenges Accountants Face Online

Now, more than ever, certified public accountants must work harder to remain competitive, source new business, and keep their current clientele. Not only do you have to actively participate in the communities and industries your business serves, you must also develop a strong web presence. This includes having a website and learning how to better promote your business online.

As well as investing dollars advertising offline, businesses in the accounting industry are also finding that they will need to assign a greater amount of their budget to develop and manage a website that can attract new clients, engage visitors, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and increase their marketing exposure online.

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

One other difficult challenge that accounting firms face online, as do other businesses for that matter, is that they have only about 30 seconds to provide users what they need 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

Online Opportunities For Professional Accountants

As well as facing a number of business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available for accounting companies that can adapt to meet digital demands and think progressively when it comes to marketing their services better online.

The article below will help you uncover opportunities to find more potential clients and establish stronger online credibility for your business.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform to power your accounting or financial services business website.

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

• Why A Poorly Designed Website Can Lose You Money
• Everything You Need To Know About Growing Your Business Online Using WordPress

Practical Tips To Improve Your Website

In this section we’ll start with the basics and show you how to improve your accounting website and get better results online. We will look at what pages you need, what content you need, ways of improving layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your accounting or financial services website, see this detailed guide: A Money-Saving Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Ways To Improve Your Website Pages

Professional websites require several essential pages. Let’s discuss these.

Your Services

It’s essential to include a page that explains your products and services.

This page will include all the services and products you offer, such as:

• Business accounting – business planning, company formation, accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, bookkeeping, forecasting, financing, budgeting, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
• Taxation – preparation, planning, reviewing, auditing, advice, 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 businesses, asset transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

Make sure to list all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about what your services do and direct them to your appointment booking page.

Who We Are

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

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

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

Meet The Team

If you are searching for ideas to sell more products or services online, then one of the things you can do, is help your visitors get to know your organization better.

You want people to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. This page should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be that well-versed in accounting terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. This page should even include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients to follow some of your staff members on their social pages.

In this page, make sure to outline your person’s qualifications, how their skills and knowledge add value or contribute to the success of your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a page that introduces your staff to prospective new clients. Image source: deepsky.com)

If you need help how to create and add an easy-to-maintain list directory of employees to your site with no coding skills required, go here: Adding A Staff List Directory To Your WordPress Site

Job Opportunities Page

List any career opportunities within the company. This page could include training offered, benefits, opportunities for advancement, social aspects of working with your organization, etc. You can include case studies of recruits who have worked their way up in your organization and information about additional career opportunities in the accounting industry.

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

Testimonials And Case Studies

Case studies and testimonials from past clients are a great way to show prospective clients what type of financial solutions you can implement to help solve their problems. Adding a web page with case studies and client reviews also provides visitors social proof online.

(Add a page with reviews from clients and case studies. Image source: pcg-services.com)

We have written a comprehensive article on using case studies, testimonials and client reviews get better results online here: Learn How To Improve Your Conversions Using Engaging Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a clean contact page is essential.

It should include the following information about your firm:

• Name Of Your Organization
• Your physical address
• Phone
• Facsimile
• Email
• Map and directions
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media profiles
• Interactive chat feature (optional feature)

If your business operates out of different areas you want to make this clear when showing the address and contact info.

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

Add A Blog

A blog can be a very powerful business marketing tool. Many blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to promote your business by publishing timely content such as company news, product releases, training information, discussions on current topics, videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an established accounting site, 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 add new content to or not delivering you the results you want, then WordPress can serve as both your website and business blog.

Something not many people know about, is that WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic machine that can instantly drive web traffic to your website, simply by publishing regular content to your website.

(WordPress can generate traffic automatically to your site)

Go here to learn more about this: WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint – How To Turn Your WordPress Website Into A Traffic Generation Machine

Legal Pages

It’s very important to make sure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online, not just for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not contravening any local, regional or federal laws or regulations wherever you service clients.

Depending on what services and products you provide, adding some or all of the following legal pages to your accounting website will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Google), and other potential sources of legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions
• 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 website. To learn more about this go here: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

How To Improve Your Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, being generous with content that educates and informs visitors has become one of the key business differentiators.

Providing great content with useful advice and tips will get your readers to share your content with others and come back for more information. This is a great way to educate your visitors and prospects about your business and about doing business with your firm.

For example, topics for an accounting business could include the following:

• How balance sheets work
• Profit and loss statements
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• How to present accounts for fundraising activities
• Business cashflow planning
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Risk protection
• How to structure your self-managed retirement fund
• Dos and don’ts of … (e.g. purchasing vs leasing, setting up payroll systems, etc.)

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your readers gain a better understanding of accounting services, such as forensic accounting, tax accounting, tips on using business accounting software, reducing business debt, understanding accounting concepts, etc.

Remember to include the same keywords and terminology in your content that your readers will be searching for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, 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 completely FREE!

Ways To Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Syndicate Content Using RSS Feeds

Adding RSS feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and user experience in a number of different ways.

If you provide valuable information, other sites may want to syndicate your content.

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

• All of your updates are kept in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• A feed provides links to your site
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• There are a number of ways readers can receive your content (e.g. users can read your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• 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.

To find RSS feeds with loads of useful content for your website, visit sites of relevant government departments or respected industry bodies.

Here are some exaples of feeds you could consider adding 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

(Add RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to improve your website’s user experience.)

Add Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a fantastic way to increase visitor engagement, add value to your audience and provide something unique. Forms and checklists can give them useful step-by-step instructions and resources to complete a task. Forms and checklists are great business planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Business
• Rental Property Worksheet
• Not-For-Profit Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Individual Tax Checklist
• Trust Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Other Tools

Providing useful online tools and applications for businesses on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to potential clients. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are useful tools to add to accounting websites. Other applications would include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

In part two of this detailed article, we discuss a number of WordPress plugins you can use in your site that improve your search engine optimization, improve user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of section 1 of this comprehensive article on ways to grow your accounting web presence.

Click here to keep reading:

• Online Business Tips For Accountants – Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Drive More Web Traffic With WordPress Plugins

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