Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress
The digital economy has not only transformed the way business is done worldwide, it has also created significant challenges and great opportunities for CPAs.
Challenges CPAs Face Online
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 they serve, they must also maintain an active web presence. This includes having an effective web presence and learning how to better market your business online.
As well as spending money marketing offline, you will probably find that in order to compete with other web-marketing savvy accounting businesses, increasingly larger amounts of their budget will need to be allocated to develop and manage a website that brings in clients, engages visitors, outperforms the competition in search engines and helps give your business wider marketing exposure online.
This means that your site not only has to look great, your pages have to be fast-loading, and your website has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of the website may change over time and sections may need to be updated often. This requires implementing sound web and content management strategy.
Another challenge that CPAs face online (as do most other professions for that matter), is that they have only about thirty seconds to give visitors what they are looking for or they will go elsewhere to find what they need.
“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 Certified Public Accountants
As well as facing many challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available for accounting businesses that are willing to adapt to meet online demands and who can think outside the box when it comes to improving their online business marketing skills.
This comprehensive article will help you uncover opportunities to source new potential clients and improve your business presence online.
As well as providing tips and information on ways to improve your business online, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to power your accounting or financial services business website.
For more information about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, see the articles below:
Ways To Improve Your Accounting Website
In this section we will show you ways to improve your accounting website and get better results online. We will look at what pages a financial services site needs, what content you need, suggestions for improving layout and navigation structure, etc.
If you need help with website planning, check out the article we have written here: A Comprehensive Guide To Website Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners
Ways To Improve Your Website Pages
Professional business websites need some basic web pages. Let’s take a look at these.
Description Of Services
It’s essential to include a page that describes your services and products.
It should include all the services you offer, such as:
- Business – business planning, company formation, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, bookkeeping, forecasting, financing, budgeting, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
- Taxation – preparation, planning, reviewing, auditing, advising, 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 businesses, asset transfers, etc.
- Lending and leasing
Make sure to list all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using these services and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.
Who We Are
This page should give a description of your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, supported community programs, etc.
It’s important to also mention any awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote your company and set it above the competition.
(List all of your industry awards certifications, recognitions, accreditations, publications, associations, etc. in your About page. Screenshot image source: deloitte.com)
Meet Our Team
Are you looking for simple ways to grow your business online and get visitors to interact more with your site? Then help visitors get to know, like and trust you, your team and your organization better.
People need to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff or team members. This page should include a photo and a mini bio. 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. This page should also include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow some of your team members on their social pages.
On this page, make sure to outline your person’s expertise, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.
(Add a staff description page. Screenshot image sourced from: deepsky.com)
If you need help how to create and add a simple employee directory in your web site using a free plugin, go here: Step-By-Step Tutorial: How To Add An Employee List Directory
Recruitment Page
This is a listing of career opportunities within your organization. It would include training provided, benefits, professional development, etc. You can also include stories of recruits who have established a solid career path thanks to your company and information such as the job outlook and additional career opportunities in the accounting and financial services 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 contact list, follow you on social media, etc.
Case Studies And Testimonials
Client reviews and case studies are a great way to show potential clients businesses minimise tax, increase profitability, or grow strategically. By adding a page with client reviews and case studies, you will also help to establish social proof online.
(Add a web page with client reviews and case studies. Image source: pcg-services.com)
If you would like to learn more about using case studies, testimonials and user reviews improve your business online, go here: Turn More Visitors Into Prospects Using Profit-Boosting Testimonials
Contact Page
A clean contact page is absolutely necessary.
It should provide some or all of the following information about your firm:
- Company Name
- Address
- Phone number
- Facsimile number
- Google Map
- Web URL
- Contact form
- Contact name
- Social media links
- Online chat feature (optional feature)
If you have several areas you will want to make that clear when displaying your address and contact info.
You could also include links to commonly-asked questions, frequently-visited pages, special offers, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.
Add A Blog
A blog can be a powerful marketing tool for your business. Many blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business by publishing timely content such as industry announcements, company updates, educational articles and tutorials, opinions and discussions, how-to videos, media presentations, etc.
If you already have an accounting website, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to promote your services.
If you don’t have a website yet, or your existing website is very hard to add new content to or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can act as both your website and blog.
Something not many people know about, is that WordPress can turn into an automated traffic machine that can help begin attracting targeted traffic to your web site, simply by publishing content on a consistent basis to your website.
(An expertly configured WordPress site can generate new traffic automatically to your website)
For more info, see this article: Web Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Increasing Your Website Traffic Automatically
Legal Information Pages
It’s vitally important to make sure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online, not just for building trust with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws and regulations are being contravened wherever your business is located.
Depending on the services you provide, adding some or all of the legal pages below to your accounting or financial services website will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential sources of legal threats and inconveniences:
- Contact Us
- Privacy Policy
- Terms And Conditions Of Use
- Website Disclaimer
- Affiliate Agreement
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- DMCA Notice
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Linking Policy
- Financial Disclaimers
- Refund Policy
- Video/Audio Terms
- etc.
To learn more about adding legal pages to your site, refer to this article: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Site
How To Improve Your Content
In today’s globally competitive economy, being generous with content has become one of the key business differentiators.
Providing great content with information and tips will get your visitors sharing your content and coming back for more information. Content marketing is the most effective way to inform and teach your visitors and prospective clients about your business and about doing business with your firm.
For example, for an accounting business, topics can include:
- 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 tips
- Business insurance
- Risk protection
- Tips on structuring a self-managed retirement fund
- Dos 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 readers understand your accounting services, such as finance accounting, business accounting, tax planning for small business, reducing business debt, understanding accounting concepts, etc.
Remember to use the same keywords and terminology in your content 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 actionable information that will show you how to drive more traffic to your website, 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 completely FREE!
Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience
Improving website user experience (known as UX) will help keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you different ways to improve visitor engagement and UX.
Adding RSS Feeds
An RSS feed provides lots of benefits for your website.
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 feed can be shared online
- Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
- A feed provides a way for external links to point back to your site
- RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
- There are a number of ways 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 a number of benefits when it comes to providing content on your site from other sites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.
You can find many useful RSS feeds by visiting sites of relevant government departments and respected industry bodies.
For example, here are examples of feeds 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
(RSS feeds can help to improve your site’s user experience.)
Add Downloadable Checklists & Forms
Checklists and forms are a great way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your audience and provide something unique. They can give them useful instructions and resources to complete necessary tasks. Checklists and forms are also great business planning tools.
You can provide online or downloadable forms and checklists covering a range of areas such as:
- How To Set Up A Company
- Negative Gearing Worksheet
- Not-For-Profit Activity Checklist
- Disclosure Requirements
- Company Tax Checklist
- Self Managed Super Fund Tax Checklist
- Income Tax Variation Forms
Other Tools
Providing unique online tools, gadgets and applications for businesses 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. Others could include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.
In the next section, we will be discussing a several online tools you can add to your website using WordPress plugins that can help improve search engine optimization, improve user engagement and drive more visitors to your business.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)
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