Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accountants face many challenges in the digital economy, especially when it comes to growing a presence online.

Online Challenges For Accounting And Financial Firms

Certified Public Accountants today must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do they have to become actively involved in the communities and industries their business serves, they must also develop a strong digital presence. This includes having a dynamic web presence and learning how to better market your business services online.

As well as spending money in offline marketing activities, businesses in the accounting industry are now finding that they need to designate a greater share of their budget to develop and maintain a website that drives new clients, engages users, outranks the competition in search engines and helps to give them a wider marketing reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, load fast, and be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that the needs of the website may change over time and many areas may need to be updated often. This requires having a sound website and content management strategy.

One other problem that accountancy firms face online (as other businesses do for that matter), is that your site has an average of thirty seconds to provide users what they are looking for or they will look 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

Online Opportunities For Professional Accountants

As well as facing significant challenges, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for accounting companies that can evolve to meet the challenges of the online economy and think outside the box when it comes to marketing their business services better online.

This detailed guide will help you uncover a number of ways to attract and engage more visitors and improve your business presence online.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress CMS platform to power your accounting business website.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS), see these articles:

• Learn How A Poorly Built Web Site Can Lose You Business And What To Do About It
• Everything You Need To Know To Grow Your Small Business Online With WordPress

Practical Tips To Improve Your Accounting Or Financial Services Website

We’ll start first by reviewing the basic stuff. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your accounting website and get better results online. We will look at what pages an accounting website needs, what type of content works best for accounting websites, layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your website, check out the article we have written here: How To Plan Your Small Business Website: A Basic Primer For Non-Technical Business Owners

Improve Your Web Pages

Professional websites need a number of basic web pages. Let’s take a look at these.

Services Description Page

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

It should include all the services you offer, such as:

• Business – business planning, company structures, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, book keeping, budgeting, financing, forecasting, strategic planning, consulting services, 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 businesses, transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

Make sure to list all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using your services and direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us Page

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

It’s important to include any CPA awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote your company and set it above the competition.

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

Our Team

Are you searching for inexpensive ideas to sell more products or services online? Then make it easier for your prospective clients to get to know you and your organization better.

You want potential clients 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 are probably not familiar with accounting terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. It should even include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients to follow your staff members on their social pages.

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

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

If you need help how to easily add an updatable list directory of employees to your WordPress site without coding skills, see this step-by-step tutorial: How To Create A Simple Staff List In Your WordPress Site Without Editing Code

Job Opportunities

List any career opportunities available within the company. It can include training offered, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. You should also include information about upcoming career opportunities in the accounting 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 newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies & Testimonials

Testimonials from previous clients and case studies are a great way to show potential clients what it’s like to do business with your company. Adding a web page with reviews from clients and case studies also helps your accounting or financial services business to establish social proof online.

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

We have created a detailed article about using testimonials and reviews here: Convert More Visitors Into Qualified Prospects Using Powerful Testimonials

Contact Page

A contact page is essential.

It should include some or all of the following information:

• Company Name
• Your address
• Telephone
• Fax
• Email address
• Map and directions
• Web address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media URLs
• Online chat feature

If your business operates in several locations you will want to make this clear when showing your address and contact information.

Consider also including links to commonly-asked questions, frequently-visited pages, special offers, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Blog

A blog can be a very powerful business marketing tool. Many blogging platforms are built around a content management system that allows you to promote your business using timely content such as news and events, updates, training articles and tutorials, informative posts, videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an accounting or financial services site, then consider adding a WordPress blog to promote your firm.

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

Very few businesses know that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic machine that can begin driving an ongoing stream of new targeted traffic to your business, simply by publishing content to your website on a regular basis.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

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

Legal Pages

It’s crucially important to ensure they have a compliant website, not just for building credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not breaking any local, regional or federal laws or regulations wherever your business is located.

Adding some or all of the legal pages below to your website 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 Page
• Privacy Policy
• 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.

Go here if you would like to learn more about adding legal pages to your site: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

How To Improve Your Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, the ability to deliver valuable content at no cost has become one of the key business differentiators.

You will want to provide great content with information and tips that will get your visitors sharing your web pages online and coming back for more. Using content is the most effective way to inform and educate your visitors and prospective clients about your business and about doing business with you.

For example, topics for an accounting business could cover the following:

• How balance sheets work
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• How to present accounts for non-profit activities
• Business cashflow planning
• Business insurance
• 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 services, such as software accounting, business accounting, business auditing, reducing debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to use specific keywords in your content that your prospective clients would search for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with actionable information that will show you how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating high-quality content for 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 100% FREE!

Improve User Experience

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

Syndicating Content Using RSS Feeds

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

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 feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• A feed provides links back to your site
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• RSS provides various ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• RSS is built into WordPress

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

You can find RSS feeds with useful content by searching online for finance-related government departments and respected industry bodies.

Below we have listed a few feeds containing useful information that you may want to consider adding to your 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 improve your website’s user experience.)

Adding Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a fantastic way to help increase visitor engagement and add value to your visitors. Forms and checklists can provide users with step-by-step instructions and resources to perform tasks. Checklists and forms are great business planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Company
• Rental Property Checklist
• Fundraising Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Sole Trader Tax Checklist
• Trust Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Other Tools

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

In the next section, we take a look at a several online tools you can add to your site using WordPress plugins that can help to improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of section 1.

Click here to access the rest of this article:

• Your Accounting Website – WordPress Plugins For Improving Search Engine Optimization, Increasing User Engagement And Generating More Visitors To Your Site

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