Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The digital business age has not only revolutionized business worldwide, it has also created a growing number of challenges and opportunities for accountants.

Online Challenges For Accountants

Accounting businesses today must work harder than ever before to remain competitive. Not only do they have to participate in the communities and industries they serve, they must also develop and maintain a strong web presence. This includes having an effective web presence and figuring out better ways to grow your business online.

In addition to spending money in offline marketing activities like advertising on local newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv, etc., you will probably find that in order to compete, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be allocated to developing and maintaining a website that attracts clients, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and helps to increase your marketing exposure online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and 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 frequently. This requires having a well-developed website and content management strategy.

One other problem that accounting organizations (and most businesses) face with their websites, is that they have only around 30 seconds to provide users what they need 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

Online Opportunities For Accounting Businesses

As well as facing many new business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available for businesses in the accounting profession that are willing to evolve to meet online economy demands and think outside the box in terms of improving their online business marketing skills.

This article will help you uncover ways and opportunities to drive more web traffic and improve your business presence online.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider 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 the WordPress Content Management System (CMS), see the articles below:

• How A Poorly Constructed Website Can Cost You Customers
• Mastering WordPress – The Small Business Owner’s Guide

Useful Tips To Improve Your Accounting Or Financial Services Site

We’ll start first by going over some basics. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your accounting website and get better results. We will look at what pages a financial services site needs, what content works best for accounting and financial services websites, your layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need help with website planning, check out the detailed step-by-step guide we have written here: Planning Your Small Business Website: A Comprehensive Guide For Non-Technical Business Owners

Ways To Improve Your Web Pages

All websites need some basic pages. Let’s discuss these.

Services

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

Your page will include all the services you offer, such as:

• Business – planning, company formation, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, book keeping, budgeting, financing, forecasting, 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, 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.

About Us Page

The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, philanthropical activities, etc.

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

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

Team Profile Page

Are you searching for quicker and easier ways to grow your business online? Then make it easier for your prospective clients to get to know, like and trust you, your team and your organization better.

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

In this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline each person’s expertise and qualifications, how they add value to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a staff page. Image source: deepsky.com)

If you need help how to easily create and add an easy-to-update simple team members directory to your web site using a free plugin, go here: How To Add A Simple Employee Directory On Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Recruitment Page

List any career opportunities within your firm. It could include training, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, social aspects of working with your firm, etc. You can include stories of recruits who have risen within your company and information such as the job outlook and new 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 the page, join your newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies

Case studies and client reviews are a great way to show potential clients what it’s like to do business with your firm. Adding a page with testimonials from previous clients and case studies also establishes social proof.

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

To learn more about using testimonials and client reviews, see this article: Learn How To Improve Your Conversions Using Captivating Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a contact page is absolutely necessary.

Your contact page should provide visitors with the following:

• Business Name
• Your physical location
• Telephone
• Fax number
• Contact email address
• Map and directions
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media pages
• Online chat feature (optional)

If your business operates out of different areas you should make that clear when displaying the address and contact info.

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

Add A Blog

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to promote your business using content like announcements, product releases, educational articles and tutorials, informative posts, promotional videos, media presentations, etc.

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

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 serve both as your website and business blog.

Not many people know this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic system that will begin driving web traffic to your web site, simply by adding content on a consistent basis to your website.

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

Learn more here: Web Traffic Blueprint – How To Turn Your WordPress Site Into An Automated Web Traffic Machine

Legal Info Pages

As a professional business, ensuring that you have a website that complies will all legal requirements online is very important, not just for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaking any local, regional and federal laws and regulations wherever your business is located.

Depending on what services you provide, adding the legal pages below 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 legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Page
• Privacy Policy
• 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 detailed article about adding legal pages to your website. If you would like to learn more here: How To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

How To Improve Your Content

In today’s ultra competitive online economy, being generous with content has become one of the key success differentiators for businesses selling similar products or providing similar services.

By committing to providing great content with information and tips, you will get your readers sharing your content and coming back for more information. Publishing content is a great way to inform and teach site visitors and prospects about your business and about doing business with your company.

For example, topics for an accounting business can include:

• How balance sheets work
• Understanding profit and loss statements
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• Presenting accounts for non-profit activities
• Business cashflow planning tips
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Risk protection
• 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 your readers understand your accounting services, such as forensic accounting, tax accounting, tax planning for small business, reducing debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to include the same keywords and terms in your content that your readers 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 you how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating high-quality content for your visitors and grow your business online using content marketing. 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 website user experience (generally referred to as UX) helps you keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you different ways to improve your visitor engagement and UX.

Use RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and UX in a number of different ways.

If you provide useful content, other sites will want to syndicate your content to their visitors.

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

• All of your content updates are kept in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• A feed provides a way for links to point back to your content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides a number of ways for your readers to 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 to providing great information 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 for your website, visit sites of finance-related government departments and well-known industry bodies.

For example, here are examples of RSS feeds 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 (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your website’s user experience.)

Checklists & Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your readers. Forms and checklists can give them step-by-step instructions and resources to perform tasks. Checklists and forms are great business planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Company
• Rental Property Checklist
• Fundraising Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Partnership Tax Checklist
• Self Managed Super Fund Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Provide Online Tools

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

In part 2 of this detailed article, we look at a several online tools you can add to your accounting or financial services site using WordPress plugins that can help to improve your search engine optimization, improve user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one.

To view the rest of this article, click here:

• How To Grow An Accounting Or Financial Services Business Online – Part Two

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