Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The online economy has not only transformed the way business is done around the world, it has also created a number of challenges and great opportunities for accountants.

Challenges Accountants Face Online

Accountants today must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do they have to be fully involved in the communities and industries they serve, they must also develop a strong web presence. This includes having a website and learning how to better promote your business online.

As well as spending dollars in offline marketing activities like advertising on local newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv spots, etc., you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to remain competitive, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be allocated towards the development and maintenance of a website that can drive new clients, engage visitors, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and help to increase your marketing reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, your pages have to load fast, and your site layout has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs may change in time and many areas may need to be updated often. This requires a well-developed web and content management strategy in place.

One other difficult challenge that accounting organizations (and other businesses) face online, is that your site has around 30 seconds to help visitors find 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 Certified Public Accountants

As well as facing a number of significant challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available for accounting firms that are willing to evolve to meet online demands and can think strategically about marketing their business better online.

This article will help you uncover new ways and opportunities to find more clientele and build more 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 Content Management System (CMS) to power your accounting or financial services business website.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS), see the articles below:

• Learn Why A Poorly Designed Website Can Lose You Business And What To Do About It
• WordPress For Small Business – An Online Guide To Building A Successful Business Using A WordPress Blog

How To Improve Your Accounting Site

In this section we’ll show you how to improve your website and get better results. We will look at what pages a financial services website needs, what type of content works best, suggestions for improving your site’s layout and navigation, etc.

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

Your Web Pages

Professional business websites require several essential pages. Let’s take a look at these.

Products And Services Description Page

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

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

• Business accounting – business planning, company formation, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, book keeping, budgeting, financing, forecasting, strategic planning, consulting, etc.
• Taxation – preparing, 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 a business, transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

List all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using your services and direct them to your appointment booking page.

Who We Are

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

It’s important to include any awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote the company and position it above your competitors.

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

Team Profile Page

Are you looking for cost-effective ways to grow your business online or get people to stay longer on your site? Then make it easier for your prospects to get to know you and your business better.

You want people to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff members. It should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors won’t be that 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 site visitors can follow some of your staff 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 highlight each person’s qualifications, why they are an invaluable asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a page that introduces your employees or team members to prospective new clients. Image source: deepsky.com)

To learn more about how to easily create and add an easy-to-maintain list of employees in WordPress with no coding skills required, go here: Plugin Tutorial: How To Add An Employee List Directory To Your WordPress Site

Career Opportunities Page

This is a listing of career opportunities within the company. This page can include training, benefits, opportunities for advancement, social aspects of working with your organization, etc. It should include information such as the job outlook and career opportunities in the accounting industry.

Also include a positions available section in your page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to this page, subscribe to your contact list, 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 organization. Adding a page with testimonials and case studies also provides social proof online.

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

To learn more about using testimonials, case studies and reviews get better results online, go here: How To Improve Your Visitor-To-Sales Conversions With More Effective Customer Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a functional contact page is essential.

It should provide:

• Company Name
• Physical location
• Phone number
• Facsimile
• Contact email address
• Map
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media links
• Chat/Skype

If you operate out of multiple areas you should make this clear when showing your address and contact info.

Consider also including links to commonly-asked questions, useful pages, special offers, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Blog Section

A blog is a powerful marketing tool. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to promote your business using timely content such as news, company updates, useful information, discussions on current topics, videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an existing accounting or financial services website, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to promote your firm.

If you don’t have a website yet, or your existing accounting or financial services website is hard to manage or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can become both your website and business blog.

Very few people know that WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation system that can begin to drive targeted traffic to your web site, simply by adding content on a regular basis to your website.

(WordPress can generate web traffic automatically to your website)

Go here to learn more: Web Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Automatically Generate More Website Visitors For Your Business Using WordPress

Legal Pages

It’s vitally important for accounting and financial services businesses to have a website that complies will all legal requirements online, not just for building trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that no laws and regulations are being breached wherever your do business in.

Adding some or all of the following legal pages to your website will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential sources of legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• Terms Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your site. Go here to learn more: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

How To Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s globally competitive economy, being generous with content that educates and informs readers has become one of the key differentiators for businesses selling similar products or services.

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

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

• How balance sheets work
• Understanding profit & loss statements
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• Presenting accounts for non-profit activities
• Cashflow planning
• Business insurance
• Protecting revenues
• Structuring 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 informative articles that will help your prospective clients gain a better understanding of your services, such as finance accounting, small business accounting, business auditing, reducing business debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to use the same keywords and terminology in your articles 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 teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating useful content for your site 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 100% FREE!

Ways Of Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Adding RSS Feeds

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

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

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

• All of your 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 a way for external links to point back to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides various ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits to adding syndicated content to your website from other websites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

You can find RSS feeds with loads of useful content for your website by visiting sites of relevant government departments or well-known industry bodies.

For example, here are some exaples of feeds you could add to your 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

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

Provide Checklists & Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a fantastic way to help increase visitor engagement and add value to your visitors. Checklists and forms can provide useful instructions and resources to perform necessary tasks. Forms and checklists can also be great planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Business
• Negative Gearing Checklist
• Non-Profit Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Requirements
• Individual Tax Checklist
• Capital Gains Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Adding Other Tools

Providing unique tools, gadgets and applications for businesses can help increase visitor engagement and add value to potential clients. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are some of the most popular tools for accounting websites. Others would include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.

In part 2, we take a look at a several online tools you can add to your site using WordPress plugins and themes that can help to improve your seo, increase user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one.

Click here to read the rest of this article:

• How To Successfully Build And Grow An Accounting Website With WordPress – Part Two

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