Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The web economy has not only transformed business globally, it has also created many challenges and great opportunities for accounting and financial services businesses.

Challenges Accounting Businesses Face Online

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

As well as investing money advertising offline on local newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and television spots, etc., you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to remain competitive, you will need to designate a more significant part of your budget towards developing and maintaining a website that attracts new prospective clients, engages visitors, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and helps to increase your presence online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and your site has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that the needs of your website will change in time and sections will need to be updated frequently. This requires having a well-planned web and content management strategy in place.

Another difficult challenge that certified public accountants face with their websites, as do most businesses for that matter, is that you have only about 30 seconds to help users 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 Accountants In The Online Economy

As well as facing many new challenges, there are also many online opportunities available to businesses in the accounting industry that are willing to evolve to meet the demands of the digital economy and can think outside the box in terms of improving their online marketing skills.

The guide below will help you uncover ways and opportunities to attract new visitors and establish stronger online credibility for your accounting or financial services business.

As well as providing practical tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your accounting business online, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) to power your accounting or financial services website.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, see these articles:

• Why A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Lose You Customers
• Using WordPress To Grow A Successful Business Online

Practical Tips To Improve Your Accounting Site

In this section we’ll show you ways to improve your website and get better results. We show you what pages an accounting site needs, what content works best for accounting and financial services websites, ways to improve navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, see this article: A Practical Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Essential Website Pages

All websites need several basic pages. Let’s take a look at the pages your  need and how to set up your accounting website for best results.

Your Products And Services

You need to include a page that describes your products and services.

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

• Business accounting – business planning, company formation, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, bookkeeping, budgeting, financing, forecasting, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
• Taxation – preparing, planning, reviewing, auditing, advising, 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. Educate your visitors about what your services do and why they should book an appointment with you.

About Us Page

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

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

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

Team Profile Page

Are you looking for simple ways to sell more products or services online or get prospective clients to engage more on your site? Then something you can do, is help your prospects get to know you 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 team. It should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors are probably not very 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. It should also include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients to follow some of your staff members on their social networks.

On this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight each team member’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 page that introduces your staff or team members to prospective new clients. Image source: deepsky.com)

To learn more about how to create and add an easy-to-manage list directory of staff or team members to your web site without editing code, see this step-by-step tutorial: How To Easily Add A Simple Employee List On Your WordPress Site Without Editing Code

We’re Hiring

This is a listing of career opportunities available within the firm. This page can include training offered, benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. It should include information about new career opportunities in the accounting and financial services industry.

Include also 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 you on social media, etc.

Case Studies & Testimonials

Reviews from clients and case studies are a great way to show prospective clients what it’s like to do business with your company. Adding a web page with case studies and reviews from clients also helps to provide prospective clients with social proof.

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

If you want to learn more using testimonials, case studies and client reviews go here: Improve Your Sales Conversions With Compelling Customer Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a contact page is crucial.

Your contact page should provide visitors with the following information:

• Company Name
• Your address
• Telephone
• Facsimile
• Email address
• Google Map and directions
• Website address
• Contact form
• Request for information – who to contact
• Social media links
• Online chat (optional feature)

If your business operates from different locations you should make that clear when showing the address and contact information.

Consider also including links to the most commonly asked questions, main pages, special offers, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Blog

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Many blogging platforms are built around a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content like news, product releases, useful articles and tutorials, informative posts, promotional videos, webinars, etc.

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

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 giving you the results you want, then WordPress can serve as both your website and blog.

Very few businesses know that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic-generation system that can instantly attract web traffic to your site, simply by publishing regular content to your website.

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

Go here to learn more about this: Website Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Increasing Your Website Visitors Automatically

Legal Info Pages

It’s vital for accounting companies to ensure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online, not just for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaching laws or regulations wherever your business services clients.

Adding the legal pages below to your accounting or financial services site will help keep you out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential sources of threats and legal inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health/Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to your website. Go here to learn more: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Ways To Improve Your Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you begin engaging in the practice of content marketing, the faster you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from the competition.

Providing great content with useful information and tips will get your visitors to share your content online and come back for more. Publishing content is the most effective way to educate site visitors and prospects about your business and about doing business with your firm.

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

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Understanding profit & loss statements
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• How to present accounts for non-profit activities
• Business cashflow planning advice
• Business insurance
• Risk prevention
• 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 understand your accounting or financial services, such as software accounting, tax accounting, office accounting software, reducing debt, understanding accounting concepts, etc.

Remember to include the same keywords and terminology in your articles that prospective clients will be searching for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will teach 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 strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Ways Of Improving Visitor Experience

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

RSS Feeds

An RSS feed provides lots of benefits for your accounting business.

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

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

• All of your content updates are in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• An RSS feed provides links to your site
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are various ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. users can read the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to providing valuable content 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 RSS feeds with useful content for your website by visiting sites of finance and tax-related government departments and industry bodies.

For example, here are some useful RSS 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

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

Add Forms And Checklists

Checklists and forms are a great way to help increase visitor engagement and add value to your visitors. They can provide users with useful instructions and resources to get necessary tasks done. They are also great business planning tools.

Forms and checklists can include areas such as:

• How To Set Up A Company
• Rental Property Worksheet
• Not-For-Profit Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Individual Tax Checklist
• Capital Gains Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Other Tools

Providing useful online tools and applications for businesses can help increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your target audience. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are useful tools for accounting websites. Others could include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.

In the next section of this detailed guide, we will look at a number of WordPress plugins and themes you can add to your site that can help improve search engine optimization, improve user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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

To view Part Two, click this link:

• Grow Your Accounting Website – Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Generate More Traffic Using WordPress Plugins And Themes

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