Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The online economy has not only transformed businesses globally, it has also created significant challenges and opportunities for certified public accountants.

Challenges CPAs Face Online

Certified Public Accountants 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 their business serves, they must also develop a strong presence online. This includes having a website and learning how to better promote your services online.

In addition to spending dollars in offline marketing activities, you will probably find that in order to compete, increasingly larger amounts of their budget will need to be assigned towards the development and maintenance of a website that will drive new prospective clients, engage visitors, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and help give you wider marketing reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, load fast, and your website has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of your website will change over time and sections may need to be updated often. This requires implementing well-developed website and content management strategy.

Another difficult challenge that accountants face online (as do all other businesses for that matter), is that you have only around 30 seconds or less to help visitors find what 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 Accounting Businesses In The Web Economy

As well as facing significant business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available for accounting firms that are willing to adapt to meet the demands of the online economy and who can think progressively in terms of improving their online business marketing skills.

The guide below will help you uncover new opportunities to increase web traffic and create significant improvements in your business presence online.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also place special emphasis 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), see the articles below:

• Discover Why A Poorly Built Website Can Lose You Prospective Customers And What To Do About It
• The Small Business Owner’s Guide To Understanding WordPress

Tips To Improve Your Website

We’ll start first by going over the basics. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your accounting website and get better results online. We will look at what pages you need, what content you need, useful tips for improving layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, go here: How To Plan A Website - A Money-Saving Guide For Business Owners

Essential Website Pages

All websites need several basic web pages. Let’s discuss the pages your  should have and how to set up your accounting website for best results.

Your Services And Products

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

This page will include all the services you offer, such as:

• Business – business planning, company structures, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, bookkeeping, budgeting, forecasting, financing, 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 these services do and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

About Us Page

The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, philanthropy, etc.

Remember to also include any business awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, associations, publications, etc., that could be used to promote your company and set it above the competition.

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

Team

If you are looking for simple ideas to sell more products online or increase user interaction with your site, then make it easier for your prospects to get to know you, your team and your business better.

You want your business to be relatable. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your people. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors won’t be 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 so your visitors can follow individual staff members on their social networks.

In this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline your team member’s qualifications, how their skills and knowledge add value to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a staff description page. Screenshot image source: deepsky.com)

If you need help how to create and add an updatable list of employees in a WordPress site with no coding skills required, refer to this tutorial: Tutorial: Adding A Staff List Directory

Job Opportunities

List any career opportunities available within the organization. It would include training, employee benefits, professional development, social activities sponsored by your organization, etc. You can include information such as the job outlook and upcoming 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, subscribe to your announcements list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies & Testimonials

Case studies and testimonials are a great way to show potential clients minimize tax, increase profitability, or grow strategically. By adding a page with client reviews and case studies, you are also helping to will also be establishing social proof.

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

We have written extensively on using testimonials and user reviews get better results online. For more details: How To Achieve Better Results Online Using Effective Customer Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a clean contact page is crucial.

Your contact page should include:

• Name Of Your Organization
• Address
• Phone
• Fax
• Email address
• Google Map and directions
• Web address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media networks
• Online chat feature

If your business operates out of several locations you want to make that clear when displaying your address and contact information.

You could also include links to an FAQ section, useful pages, special offers, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Or Financial Services Blog

A blog is a powerful marketing tool. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to promote your business using content such as announcements, updates, educational articles and tutorials, informative posts, promotional videos, infographics, etc.

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

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

Something few businesses know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic system that can instantly begin to attract targeted traffic to your business, simply by publishing regular content to your web site.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

For more details, go here: WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – How To Automatically Get More Website Visitors For Your Business

Legal Information

As a professional accountant or financial services provider, ensuring that you have a website that complies will all legal requirements online is crucially important, not just for establishing credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws and regulations are being broken wherever your do business in.

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

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

Go here to learn more about adding legal pages to your website: Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Tips On How To Improve The Content On Your Website

In today’s ultra competitive online economy, the sooner you begin to publish great content on your site, the sooner you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from the competition.

By committing to providing great content with advice and tips, you will get your visitors sharing your content with others and coming back for more information. This is the most effective way to inform and teach your visitors and prospective clients about your business.

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

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• How to present accounts for non-profit activities
• Business cashflow planning advice
• Business insurance
• Protecting revenues
• How to structure a self-managed retirement fund
• Do’s and don’ts of … (e.g. purchasing insurance, claiming business expenses, etc.)

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your your readers gain a better understanding of your accounting services, such as forensic accounting, small business accounting, tax planning for small business, reducing business debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to use specific keywords and terms in your articles that your readers will be searching for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, 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!

Ways To Improve User Experience

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

Using RSS Feeds

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

If you provide valuable information, other sites 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 content updates are in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared
• RSS feeds allow for subscribing
• An RSS feed provides a way for links to point back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• There are a number of ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. subscribers can view your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits when it comes to adding syndicated content to your site from other sites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

To find RSS feeds with useful content for your website, visit sites of tax-related government departments and respected industry bodies.

For example, here are a few RSS feeds you may want to 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

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

Provide Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a fantastic way to help increase visitor engagement and add value to your readers. They can provide useful instructions and resources to complete tasks. Forms and checklists can also be great planning tools.

You can provide forms and checklists covering a range of topics such as:

• How To Set Up A Business
• Negative Gearing Checklist
• Not-For-Profit Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Requirements
• Individual Tax Checklist
• Self Managed Super Fund Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Other Tools

Providing unique tools and applications for businesses on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your target audience. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are great tools you can add to accounting websites. Other applications could include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

In the next section of this detailed guide, we look at a number of online tools you can add to your site using WordPress plugins and themes that can improve seo, increase user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section 1 of this step-by-step article on ways to grow your accounting business web presence.

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

• The Step-By-Step Guide To Successfully Building And Growing Your Accounting Or Financial Services Business Online – Part 2

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