Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accounting professionals today face growing challenges.

Online Challenges For CPAs

Now, more than ever, certified public accountants must find smarter ways to remain competitive, find new clients, and keep their current clients. Not only do you have to become actively involved in the communities and industries you serve, you must also maintain an active digital presence. This includes having a website and learning how to better promote your business online.

As well as investing dollars marketing offline, businesses in the accounting industry are now finding that they will need to assign a greater amount of their marketing budget to developing and managing a website that can drive prospective clients, engage users, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and help to increase their reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, load fast, and your website has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that the needs of the website may change in time and sections will need to be updated frequently. This requires having a sound web and content management strategy in place.

Another challenge that accounting firms (and most other businesses) face online, is that you have only about 30 seconds to help visitors find the information they are searching for 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

Opportunities For Certified Public Accountants In The Online Economy

As well as facing a number of significant challenges, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for accounting companies that can evolve to meet the challenges of the digital economy and who can think outside the box about marketing themselves better online.

This guide will help you uncover 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.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, go here:

• Why A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Lose You Money
• An Online Guide To Building A Successful Business With WordPress

Useful Tips For Improving Your Accounting Or Financial Services Website

This section covers how to improve your website and get better results. We show you what web pages you need, what content works best, ways of improving your layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your accounting website, see this detailed step-by-step guide: How To Plan Your Website: A Money-Saving Blueprint For Non-Technical Business Owners

Your Web Pages

All websites need a number of essential pages. Let’s discuss these.

Description Of Services

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

It will include services such as:

• Business accounting – planning, company formation, accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, book keeping, financing, forecasting, budgeting, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
• Taxation – preparation, planning, reviewing, auditing, advising, 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 a business, 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 the benefits of using your services and why they should choose you.

About Us

This page needs to describe your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, philanthropical activities, etc.

Remember to also mention any awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote the company and position it above other competitors.

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

Staff Page

Are you looking for quicker, easier and cheaper ideas to grow your business online? Then make it easier for prospects to get to know, like and trust your business better.

You want prospective clients 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 mini bio. Since most visitors won’t be well-versed in accounting terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. It should even include social buttons so your site visitors can follow selected 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 outline each team member’s expertise, why they are an invaluable asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a page that introduces your employees to prospective new clients. Screenshot image sourced from: deepsky.com)

We have written a detailed tutorial about how to add an updatable simple staff directory to your website here: Tutorial: Adding A Staff Directory To Your Site

Job Opportunities Page

List any career opportunities available within the company. This page could include training, employee benefits, professional development, etc. You should also include information such as the job outlook and new career opportunities in the accounting and financial services industry.

Include also 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 announcements list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies & Testimonials

Case studies and testimonials from previous clients are a great way to show prospective clients minimize tax, increase profitability, or grow strategically. Adding a page with client reviews and case studies also helps your accounting or financial services website to provide social proof.

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

If you want to learn more about using client case studies and reviews, see this article: How To Turn More Visitors Into Prospects Using Captivating Testimonials

Contact Page

A contact page is absolutely necessary.

It should provide visitors with some or all of the following:

• Name
• Physical address
• Phone number
• Fax
• Contact email address
• Google Map and directions
• Web address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media profiles
• Online chat feature

If your business operates out of several areas you will want to make this clear when displaying your address and contact information.

Consider also including a few links for commonly-asked questions, frequently-visited pages, special offers, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Blog Section

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool. Most blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using content like announcements, company updates, training articles and tutorials, discussions on current topics, videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an established accounting website, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to promote your company.

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

Not many people know this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic machine that can begin attracting new visitors to your business, simply by publishing new content to your website on a consistent basis.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more about this: Web Site Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Create An Automated Traffic-Getting Machine With WordPress

Legal Information

It’s crucially important to ensure they have a compliant website, not just for establishing trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not contravening local, regional or federal laws or regulations wherever you provide services to.

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

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

To learn more about adding legal pages to your website, refer to this article: Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Improving The Content On Your Site

In today’s highly competitive digital economy, the practice of content marketing has become one of the key differentiators for businesses.

By committing to providing great content with information and tips, you will get your visitors to share your web pages and come back for more. This is the most effective way to educate your visitors and prospects about your business and about using your products and services.

For example, topics for an accounting or financial services business can include:

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Understanding profit & loss statements
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• Presenting accounts for non-profit activities
• Business cashflow planning
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Protecting revenues
• How to structure 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 readers gain a better understanding of your services, such as forensic accounting, small business accounting, office accounting software, 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.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with actionable 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. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Improve User Experience

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

RSS Feeds – Content Syndication

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds provide plenty of benefits for your accounting business.

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

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

• All of your updates are in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Your feed can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• A feed provides a way for links to point back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• RSS provides various ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can view your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of 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.

You can find many useful RSS feeds by visiting sites of relevant government departments and key industry bodies.

Here are a few 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

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

Adding Forms

Checklists and forms are a fantastic way to help increase user engagement, add value to your visitors and set yourself apart from the competition. Checklists and forms can give them useful instructions and resources to get necessary tasks performed. Checklists and forms are great business planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Business
• Negative Gearing Worksheet
• Not-For-Profit Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Company Tax Checklist
• Trust Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Adding Online Tools

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

In the next section, we will be discussing a several online tools you can use in your accounting website using WordPress plugins that can help improve seo, increase user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

***

This is the end of section one of this comprehensive guide on ways to grow your accounting business web presence.

Click here to continue:

• The Step-By-Step Guide On How To Grow An Accounting Or Financial Services Website Successfully With WordPress – Part 2

Would You Like To Get Automatically Notified When New Tutorials Get Published? Then Subscribe Using The Form Below!

***

***

***