Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accountants today face a growing number of challenges.

Challenges Accounting And Financial Firms Face Online

Now, more than ever, certified public accountants must work harder and find smarter ways to stand out from the competition, obtain new clients, and retain current clients. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the communities and industries you serve, you must also develop and maintain an active digital presence. This includes having a dynamic website and learning how to better promote your business services online.

In addition to investing money in offline marketing activities, businesses in the accounting industry are now finding that increasingly larger amounts of their budget need to be assigned to develop and maintain a website that can drive prospective clients, engage visitors, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and give their business a wider amount of marketing exposure online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and your website layout has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of your website may change over time and some aspects will need to be updated frequently. This requires a well-developed web and content management strategy.

One other difficult challenge that accounting businesses (and all other professions) face online, is that your site has around 30 seconds or less to provide users with what they are searching for or they will go elsewhere to get their needs met.

“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 business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available to accounting businesses that are willing to evolve to meet digital economy demands and can think outside the box in terms of marketing themselves better online.

In this comprehensive guide, you will learn about a number of ways to attract and engage new visitors and build more online credibility for your business.

As well as providing practical tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your web presence, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to power your accounting website.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS), go here:

• Learn How A Poorly Designed Website Can Lose You Money And What To Do About It
• Everything You Need To Know About Growing Your Small Business Using A WordPress Site

Tips To Improve Your Accounting Website

This section explains ways to improve your website and get better results online. We will look at what pages you need, what content you need, layout and navigation, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your accounting or financial services website, see this detailed step-by-step guide: A Comprehensive Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Your Web Pages

All business websites require some essential pages. Let’s go over these.

Services And Products Description Page

You need to include a page that explains your products or services.

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

• Business – planning, incorporation of companies, general accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, book keeping, financing, forecasting, budgeting, 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

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 what your services do and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

About Us Page

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, community activities, etc.

It should also include any professional awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote the company and set it above the competition.

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

Team Profile

Are you searching for quicker, easier and cost-effective ideas to sell more products online or get prospects to stay longer on your site? Then one of the things you can do, is help visitors get to know you and your organization better.

Your business needs to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. This page should include a photo and a brief 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. It should also explain what those specialties mean. This page should even include social buttons so your site visitors can follow selected staff members on their social pages.

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

(Add an employee page. Screenshot source: deepsky.com)

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial on how to easily add an easy-to-update list of employees to your website with no coding skills required, go here: How To Easily Add A Simple Staff Directory To Your WordPress Site

Job Opportunities Page

List any career opportunities available within your company. It can include training, benefits, professional development, social aspects of working for your organization, etc. You can also include case studies of graduates who have worked their way up in your firm and information about upcoming 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 the page, join your newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials

Case studies and reviews from clients are a great way to show potential clients what kind of accounting solutions you are capable of implementing to help them solve problems. By adding a page with case studies and testimonials from past clients, you are also helping to establish social proof online.

(Add a page with case studies and testimonials from past clients. Image sourced from: pcg-services.com)

We have written a detailed article on using case studies, testimonials and client reviews improve your business online. You can learn more here: Learn How To Improve Your Visitor-To-Sales Conversions Using Standout Testimonials

Contact Us

A functional contact page is absolutely necessary.

Your contact page should provide some or all of the following information about your organization:

• Company Name
• Address
• Phone
• Facsimile
• Contact email
• Google Map and directions
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media URLs
• Chat feature

If you operate in several areas you want to make this clear when displaying your address and contact info.

Consider also including a few links for commonly-asked questions, useful pages, special offers, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Blog Section

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically include a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using timely content like news, product updates, useful articles, opinions and discussions, how-to videos, media presentations, etc.

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

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

Something few people know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation system that will help attract a stream of targeted traffic to your site, simply by adding regular content to your site.

(WordPress can generate traffic automatically to your website)

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

Legal Information Pages

It’s very important for accounting companies to have a website that complies will all legal requirements online, not just for building trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being contravened in whichever area or location you provide services to.

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

• Contact Page
• Privacy Policy
• Terms And Conditions Of Use
• 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.

Go here for a detailed article on adding legal pages to your site: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

How To Improve The Content On Your Site

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

You will want to provide great content with useful advice and tips that will get your readers sharing your web pages with others online and coming back for more information. Content marketing is a great way to inform and educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business.

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

• How balance sheets work
• Understanding profit and loss statements
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• How to present accounts for non-profit activities
• Cashflow planning advice
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Risk protection
• Tips on structuring your self-managed retirement fund
• Dos and don’ts of … (e.g. purchasing insurance, 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 accounting or financial services, such as forensic accounting, small business accounting, business budgeting, reducing business debt, understanding financial conventions, etc.

Remember to use specific keywords and terms in your articles that readers would search for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating high-quality content for your visitors and grow your business online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Ways To Improve User Experience

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

Adding RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds provide many benefits for your site.

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

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
• Your feed can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• It provides links back to your content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• There are several ways readers can receive your content (e.g. users can view the content on their mobile device using different applications)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits to providing great content on your site from other websites, 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 just visit sites of relevant government departments or well-known industry bodies.

Below we have listed some exaples of RSS feeds containing useful information that you could consider adding 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

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

Checklists And Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a fantastic way to increase user engagement and add value to your readers. Checklists and forms can provide users with useful instructions and resources to perform tasks. Forms and checklists are also great business planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Company
• Rental Property Checklist
• Non-Profit Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Sole Trader Tax Checklist
• Capital Gains Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Other Tools

Providing unique 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 great tools to add to accounting websites. Other tools would include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.

In the next section, we discuss a several WordPress-based tools you can use in your accounting or financial services website that can help to improve search engine optimization, improve user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

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

To continue reading, click here:

• How To Grow An Accounting Web Presence Successfully – Part Two

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