Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accounting professionals face many new challenges in the online economy, especially when it comes to growing a successful presence online.

Online Challenges For The Accounting Profession

Certified Public Accountants today must work harder than ever before to remain in business. Not only do you have to become actively involved in the communities and industries your business serves, you must also develop an active presence online. This includes having a dynamic web presence and learning smarter ways to grow your business online.

In addition to investing dollars marketing offline, businesses in the accounting industry are now also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their budget will need to be allocated towards the development and management of a website that can bring new clients, engage visitors, outperform the competition in search engines and help to increase their marketing reach online.

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

Another difficult challenge that accountancy firms face with their websites (as other professions do for that matter), is that you have around thirty seconds or less to help visitors find the information they are looking for or they will go away.

“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 Professional Accountants

As well as facing a number of significant challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available to accounting companies that can evolve to meet online economy challenges and think strategically about improving their online business marketing skills.

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

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using WordPress to power your accounting business website or blog.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS), go here:

• How A Poorly Constructed Website Can Cost You Money And What To Do About It
• Everything You Need To Know To Grow Your Business Online With A WordPress Site

Useful Tips To Improve Your Accounting Or Financial Services Website

This section will show you ways to improve your website and get better results. We will look at what pages your site needs, what type of content works best for accounting websites, navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your accounting website, go here: A Basic Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Your Web Pages

Professional business websites need a number of basic web pages. Let’s go over these.

Services

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

Your page should include services such as:

• Business accounting – planning, formation, accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, bookkeeping, budgeting, financing, forecasting, strategic planning, consulting services, 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, asset transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

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

This page should give a description of your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, supported community projects, etc.

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

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

Meet The Team

Are you looking for quicker and simpler ideas to sell more products online? Then help your visitors get to know, like and trust you, your team and your organization better.

You want prospects to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team members. This page should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be well-versed in 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 some of your team members on their social networks.

On this page, make sure to outline your person’s experience, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

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

To learn more about how to add an updatable simple employee directory to your web site using free plugins, go here: How To Easily Create A Simple Employee Directory In Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Work With Us

This is a listing of career opportunities within the firm. It should include training, benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. You can also include stories of recruits who have established a solid career path thanks to your company and information such as the job outlook and new career opportunities in the accounting and financial services 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, subscribe to your newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials

Reviews from clients and case studies are a great way to show potential clients them minimise tax, increase profitability, or grow strategically. By adding a page with testimonials from previous clients and case studies, you will also help to establish social proof online.

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

We have written extensively about using case studies, testimonials and reviews to improve your business results online here: How To Achieve Better Results Online With Sales Boosting Client Testimonials

Contact Page

A contact page is absolutely necessary.

Your contact page should include:

• Company Name
• Physical address
• Phone
• Facsimile
• Email
• Map and directions
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media profiles
• Chat

If your business operates in different areas you will want to make that clear when displaying the address and contact information.

You can also include links to an FAQ page, frequently-visited pages, special offers, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Or Financial Services Blog Section

A blog is a powerful business marketing tool. Blogs typically include a content management system that allows you to promote your business using content like industry announcements, updates, educational information, discussions on current topics, videos, webinars, etc.

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

Something few businesses know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic machine that will help begin attracting an ongoing stream of targeted traffic to your website, simply by adding regular content to your website.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can automate your traffic generation)

For more info, see this article: WordPress Web Site Traffic Blueprint – How To Create A Web Traffic Generation Machine With WordPress

Legal Information Pages

It’s very important for accounting and financial services firms to ensure they have a compliant website, not just for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws and regulations are being broken wherever you service clients.

Depending on what services and products you provide, adding the following legal pages to your website will help keep you 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 And Conditions Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your website. For more info, see this article: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Improving Your Web Content

In today’s fiercely competitive digital economy, the sooner you begin to publish great content on your site, the quicker you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from your competitors.

You will want to provide great content with useful information and tips that will get your visitors sharing your content and coming back for more. Publishing content is the most effective way to educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business and about using your services and products.

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

• How balance sheets work
• Profit and loss statements
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• Presenting accounts for fundraising activities
• Business cashflow planning
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Protecting revenues
• Tips on structuring your self-managed retirement fund
• Do’s and don’ts of … (e.g. purchasing vs leasing, setting up payroll systems, etc.)

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your your prospective clients understand your services, such as software accounting, small business accounting, business budgeting, reducing business debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

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

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your web 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!

Improving User Experience

Improving website user experience (known as UX) will help keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you ways you can improve your visitor engagement and user experience.

Syndicating Content - RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and UX in many ways.

If you provide useful information, 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
• Doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• It provides a way for links to point back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are various ways readers can receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits when it comes to providing content on your website from other websites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

You can find many useful RSS feeds for your website by searching online for relevant government departments or well-known industry bodies.

Below we have listed some feeds you could 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

(RSS feeds can help to improve your accounting website’s user experience.)

Checklists And Forms

Checklists and forms are a fantastic way to increase visitor engagement, add value to your audience and set yourself apart from the competition. Checklists and forms can give them useful step-by-step instructions and resources to complete a task. They can also be great business planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Business
• Rental Property Checklist
• Fundraising Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Requirements
• Individual Tax Checklist
• Trust Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Unique Tools

Providing unique online tools and applications for businesses on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to potential clients. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are some of the most popular tools for accounting websites. Other tools could include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.

In part two of this guide, we take a look at a number of WordPress-based tools you can add to your accounting site that can help improve your seo, improve user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part 1.

Click on this link to continue:

• The Complete Step-By-Step Guide On How To Build And Grow An Accounting Business Online With WordPress – Part 2

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