Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The digital economy has not only revolutionised the way business is done around the world, it has also created increasingly difficult challenges and opportunities for certified public accountants.

Challenges Professional Accountants Face Online

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

As well as spending money marketing offline, you will probably find that in order to compete, you will need to invest a greater share of your marketing budget to develop and manage a website that can drive new clients, engage users, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and increase your marketing reach online.

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

Another difficult challenge that accounting businesses face online, as most professions do for that matter, is that your site has only around thirty seconds or less to provide users with what they are looking for or they will leave the site and go 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 Digital Economy

As well as facing many business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available to accounting businesses that are willing to evolve to meet digital demands and can think outside the box in terms of marketing their services better online.

The article below will help you uncover new opportunities to attract new visitors and create significant improvements in your accounting and financial business presence online.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) to power your accounting business website or blog.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, see the articles below:

• Why A Poorly Constructed Website Can Lose You Business
• WordPress In Business – An Online Guide To Building Your Successful Business With A WordPress Site

How To Improve Your Website

This section will show you how to improve your accounting website and get better results online. We show you what web pages you need, what type of content works best, suggestions for improving layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, check out the article we have written here: A Money-Saving Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Improve Your Website Pages

Professional websites need some basic pages. Let’s take a look at these.

Services And Products

You need a page that lists your products and services.

Your page will include services such as:

• Business – planning, company structures, accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, bookkeeping, financing, forecasting, budgeting, strategic planning, consulting, etc.
• Taxation – preparing, 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 a business, asset transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about what these services do and why they should book an appointment.

About Us Page

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

This page should list any awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your company and position it above the competition.

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

Meet Your Staff

Are you searching for quicker and easier ways to sell more products or services online or get prospects to stay longer on your site? Then one of the things you can do, is help your prospective clients 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. It should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors won’t be that 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. It should also include social buttons so your visitors can follow selected team 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 staff member’s expertise and qualifications, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add an employee page. Image sourced from: deepsky.com)

If you need help how to easily add an easy-to-maintain directory of staff members to a WordPress site without using code, refer to this tutorial: WordPress Plugin Tutorial: How To Easily Add A Staff Directory To Your WordPress Site

Recruitment Page

List any career opportunities within your firm. It could include training, employee benefits, professional development, social activities encouraged or sponsored by your firm, etc. You can also include information such as the job outlook and upcoming career opportunities in the accounting industry.

Also include 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 you on social media, etc.

Testimonials & Case Studies

Case studies and testimonials are a great way to show potential clients what type of financial solutions you are capable of implementing to help solve their problems. Adding a web page with reviews from clients and case studies also provides visitors social proof online.

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

We have written extensively on using testimonials and reviews to grow your business online. Go here to learn more about this: How To Create Better Results Online With Effective Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a contact page is absolutely necessary.

It should include:

• Business Name
• Physical location
• Telephone
• Facsimile
• Contact email
• Map
• Web address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media URLs
• Online chat feature (optional)

If your business services different locations you want to make that clear when showing the address and contact info.

You could also include a few links for commonly-asked questions, main pages, special offers, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Blog

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool. Blogs typically include a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to easily promote your business using timely content such as company announcements, product updates, training information, discussions on current topics, videos, infographics, etc.

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

If you don’t have a website yet, or your existing accounting or financial services website is very hard to keep updated or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can be used both as your website and your blog.

You may not know this, but WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation machine that will help deliver new targeted traffic to your site, simply by publishing regular content to your site.

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

For more details: WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Getting More Web Traffic Automatically

Legal Pages

Having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is very important, not just for building trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional or federal laws or regulations are being breached wherever your business is located.

Adding the following legal pages to your accounting or financial services website will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Google), and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:

• Contact Page
• Privacy Policy
• Terms Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Health/Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your website here: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Ways To Improve Your Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, being generous with content that educates and informs readers has become one of the key success factors for businesses.

You want to provide great content with advice and tips that will get your visitors sharing your content and coming back for more. Using content is the most effective way to inform and teach your visitors and prospective clients about your business and about using your products and services.

For example, for an accounting business, topics can cover:

• How balance sheets work
• Understanding profit and loss statements
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• How to present accounts for non-profit activities
• Business cashflow planning tips
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Protecting revenues
• How to structure your 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 educational articles that will help your prospective clients understand your accounting or financial services, such as software accounting, business accounting, tax planning for small business, reducing debt, understanding financial conventions, etc.

Remember to use specific keywords and terms in your content that readers would search 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 exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your site 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 your site’s user experience (generally referred to as UX) helps you keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you ways you can improve your visitor engagement and UX.

Add RSS Feeds

RSS feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and UX in many ways.

If you provide information that adds value to others, 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 updates are in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared
• Allows users to subscribe
• A feed provides links back to your site
• 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. subscribers can view the content on their mobile device using different applications)
• It’s built into WordPress

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

To find RSS feeds with loads of useful content for your website, visit sites of relevant government departments or key industry bodies.

Here are examples of useful RSS feeds you may want to 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 website’s UX.)

Checklists And Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a great way to help increase user engagement and add value to your audience. They can provide visitors with useful step-by-step instructions and resources to perform a necessary task. Checklists and forms are also great business planning tools.

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

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

Unique Tools

Providing unique online tools and applications for businesses on your website 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. Others can include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

In the next section of this guide, we discuss a number of online tools you can use in your website using WordPress plugins and themes that can help to improve seo, improve user engagement and drive more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of section 1.

To view the rest of this guide, click this link:

• Tips For Accountants – Improving Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation Using WordPress Plugins

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